4 Steps to Succeed in Any Real Estate Slowdown

October 19, 2022

The trick to success in any real state slowdown is simple. Make it easy for your clients to navigate through the home inspection process and make sure agents know how you are doing it.

Any home inspector can do it with these four simple steps.

1. Know Thy Inspection Client

Over the past few years, agents and clients have become a bit more “millennial”. They use their phones for everything except making a voice phone call. They would much rather text, email, or use a website.

White glove or red carpet service has taken a completely different meaning. It used to mean personal one-on-one relationship based service. Now it means simple, low friction, and easy to do from my phone kind of service.

Have you adapted to meet the changing needs and expectations of your clients and agents?

2. Build Your Brand to Stand Out

It’s hard to stand out in the home inspection business. Most homebuyers just don’t understand the difference between one home inspection company and the other. That is where branding comes in.

Your brand is not just a pitch. It is how you and your company stand out from all the other home inspectors. Do you deliver reports onsite? That speed of delivery can make you stand out. Do you offer a warranty or recall check? People love a freebie. Do you offer discounted Radon, mold, or sewer scope? Your competitors MAY NOT.

Deciding how your branding will fit into a new market takes time. But now is the best time to do it and use these 5 Musts to Market Your Home Inspection Business on the Internet.

3. Socialize to Grow Your Referral Network

Now is the time to be out there talking and meeting up with agents and even other home inspectors. You may have had to turn away an agent or two when things got busy. Now is the time to reconnect and let them know you are in it for the long haul. Be sure they will come back to you.

Not all home inspectors are your competition. Once you establish a place in your local market, there is plenty of work to go around. Other home inspectors become your colleagues, and you realize it is in all your interests to work toward some common goals.

Over the last few years, it’s been next to impossible to find a time to meet up. Once the days get shorter and everyone’s business slows down, it gets easier. Make the effort and meet up. Tell your war stories, and listen to theirs. Share the struggle. Being a home inspector is unlike anything else.

4. Scale Up With a Tool Like Tap Inspect

Now that you’ve taken care of the basics to help your home inspection business succeed, it’s time to invest in solutions that will save time, boost efficiency, and help grow your business even more.

Tools like Tap Inspect let you schedule new jobs right from your phone while you are out in the field networking and inspecting. Being able to share media rich reports almost immediately after the inspection helps you stand out from the competition.

Tap Inspect Autopilot helps you scale up even more. Automating your agreements, invoicing, and collecting online payments gives you more time to market and inspect.

Autopilot messaging sends automatic reminders and follow up messages to your clients and agents. Giving your brand the professionalism to stand out from the competition.

How Simple Pricing Helps Land More Inspections

July 7, 2021

Landing a new home inspection client usually comes down to only two things. Can you do the inspection within the time allowed in their purchase contract? Is your price reasonable?

In a Porch survey of 998 home buyers, 72% only considered one inspector before deciding who to hire. That fits with the home inspection industry opinion that the first home inspector to talk to a buyer will usually get the job. So why do so many home inspectors stress so much about their pricing?

Do you Guesstimate or Complicate Your Pricing?

A lot of home inspectors seem to “just know” what the price should be once they’ve talked to someone about a job. I’ve heard more than one inspector say “That will be $350 for that size home” while talking on the phone and driving down the highway. It’s pretty much just a guesstimate so they can get to a yes or a no and get on with their day.

Others have incredibly complicated pricing models that take into consideration almost everything they could know about the property and the job. How far away is it? How many square feet is the home? What is the age of the home? Is there a crawl space? And more!

It can turn into a game of twenty questions and your potential client might not even know most of the answers. That is not way to help a new client feel comfortable and confident that you will help them through the home inspection process.

Keep it Simple

Autopilot starts you out with the most common industry pricing model. There is a base price that goes up based on how much larger the home is above some minimum. You only need one piece of information about the home, the square feet, and the pricing calculator does all the math for you.

You know your market best. Is the base price too low? Is it too high? Adjust it to what makes sense in your area. Is the minimum square feet ending up being too large of a home? Adjust it to fit the types of homes you typically inspect.

Why Simple Pricing Works

Simple pricing helps land more inspections because your new client feels comfortable with you and does not get overwhelmed. Remember, the home inspection process is just another step in the Homebuyer’s Journey. When we help our clients feel comfortable and cared for an extra $25 or $50 becomes a small price to pay. You become their home inspection hero by guiding them through the home inspection process.

How Past Clients Can Boost Your Home Inspection Recovery

May 14, 2020

The current real estate slowdown has been different from anything I have experienced in my 20+ years as a home inspector. The two questions on everyone’s mind are: ‘When will the recovery start?’ and ‘How fast will business ramp up to the usual seasonal busy time?’.

The recovery has already started. We are seeing an uptick in the number of home inspections going through Tap Inspect. If you are waiting for the phone to ring you are still not too late. Now is the time to be marketing and putting your name and yourself out there.

Reach Out to Your Past Clients

A master home inspector focuses on building and maintaining their client relationship since the inspection was first booked. There is great value in that relationship. They know an ongoing relationship with their client will limit complaints and prevent claims. It also builds their referral network providing more and more home inspections.

If you have ignored your relationship with your home inspection client since you delivered their report you have been losing out on a valuable resource. It is not too late but I do have a few words of caution.

Trying to reconnect with past clients that you have ignored can be a double edged sword. If you did a great job they will be happy to hear from you. But if you remind an unhappy client about a bad experience you could be in for a harsh response or two. Take the risk and start reaping the rewards.

Client marketing takes a lot more than sending a calendar or fridge magnet once a year. It is not about just getting your name in front of them. You need to provide some type of value. Here are three ideas to get you started.

Seasonal Maintenance Checklist

Most people are working or staying at home. They are looking for projects. Home maintenance projects are some of the easiest and simplest to do. Send them a spring maintenance checklist to give them some direction.

Not a graphic designer? Not a problem. Spend $20 by going to Fiverr or another online service to get it done for you. It does not have to be anything fancy. Just a list of tasks with your logo and contact information.

Home Maintenance Inspection

Usually at this time of year we are busy doing retail priced inspections. That is not the case during the current slowdown.

Some of our home inspection clients may be a bit overwhelmed with spring maintenance checklist or maybe just don’t have the time. By offering a low priced maintenance inspection you can bring in a few dollars and has very little liability.

You could even offer to connect them with contractors to do the work or to provide estimates by using a service like Repair Pricer.

Ask Your Home Inspector

Almost everyone knows how to use Facetime, Zoom, or Skype by now. Most home inspectors are already using them to Provide a Personal Touch During Social Distancing.

As our clients are spending more and more time at home they have questions. They will notice things they have never noticed before. Leverage the technology to be your home inspection clients ‘go to’ when they have a question.

Be the home inspection hero they hired and you will have a referral source for the lifetime of your business.

How to Provide a Personal Touch During Social Distancing

April 5, 2020 - 3 Comments

For over 20 years and after 10,000 jobs I have always encouraged my home inspection clients to attend the entire inspection. I explain that if they want to have the full value of the inspection they need to see what I do and they will get to learn how their particular home operates. That is not the case during COVID-19.

By now everyone should know about social distancing and be providing some type of stay safe procedure for their clients, agents, and inspections. If not, check out the InterNACHI COVID-19 Safety Guidelines for Home Inspectors and Contractors course for free. It is our job as professionals to guide them along the next steps to keep our clients, homeowners, and ourselves safe.

Set the Tone During the Booking Call

We have been surprised that almost none of our clients have asked about COVID-19 precautions while booking their home inspection. It is understandable when you keep in the mind the journey they have been on before they called us. It is stressful enough in normal times. These days it is even more stressful.

We are now telling our clients to not attend and how we intend to keep them, the occupants of the home, and ourselves safe. We also set the tone of how our process has changed and what communication they can expect from us. It has become super important to make sure the client is comfortable with a phone call, FaceTime, Zoom, or maybe Skype for their call with the inspector.

Make Contact Before the Inspection

My favorite part of most home inspections is usually the driveway meeting. It is when I get a chance to meet my client and let them meet me. In just those first few minutes you can tell what kind of client you are working with and what kind of reporting will be needed.

Many home inspection clients are downright terrified. They will likely not hear a word you say or ask a single question. Others are extremely comfortable doing their own repairs. Home inspection clients are not all the same. The driveway meeting helps us understand who we are working with.

This is not so easy during COVID-19. Since we ask our clients to not attend the inspection or to only come alone at the end, the driveway meeting is a thing of the past.

Since we have already let the client know the inspector will be reaching out before the job they are ready. We contact the client at least the night before or better yet on the day of the job for a virtual driveway meeting.

Write the Report for an Absent Client

Over my 20 years our reports have developed into something that is meant to be read. We always do our best to only report on important information. Since our clients are with us and we have been able to also talk and show them how things work and what we do it has worked incredibly well. It has let us deliver a home inspection report that our clients really want. The only complaints we get are from clients that are not at the job.

Now that our clients do not attend we now write the report for an absent client. This is not really new since we have been doing it for years once we realized that these types of clients were the source of complaints.

We still do not overwhelm them with every piece of information about the home but we are more mindful that the report is the only way they can tell what we did and did not do. We now report on much more informational items that we typically would if the client was with us. The goal is not to overwhelm them with such a long report they can not read it but just enough information that they understand the home.

Do a Virtual Report Summary

After the driveway meeting I have always enjoyed the report wrap up and report summary with my clients. Some of the best real estate agents I know also show up at this point so everyone understands what the biggest issues are that need addressing and possible ways to make that happen. It also gives everyone a chance to understand what makes a particular house unique.

These days that is no longer possible in person but it can be done virtually. The most important thing is to set up if it will be FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, or phone call with the client beforehand. That way everyone is expecting it and should have their personal technology ready. They are also prepared when they see us in full personal protection equipment (PPE) when we call for the summary.

Follow up After the Job

After the home inspection our clients move on to the repair request and the next steps of the homebuyer’s journey. They may never think of their home inspector again or even look at the home inspection report. Unless there is a problem.

The post job followup can be the most important way to maintain the personal touch with our home inspection clients. It is also an incredible way to limit complaints and generate online reviews. This has not changed much since COVID-19 has come into our lives but it is more important than ever.

We already send an email and also a text to every client three days after the home inspection asking if they need any help or have any questions during the repair request phase. Now, since we are doing everything to provide a personal touch during social distancing we are having our inspectors call as well.

Master Home Inspectors Understand the Homebuyer’s Journey

March 26, 2020

By the time the homebuyer reaches our door, they’ve been on a long journey. They’re almost to the end. They’ve already spent months looking at properties. They’re already working with some of the dozen other players in the home buying process, including the real estate agent, the loan officer, and the seller. When they meet us, the homebuyer is praying that nothing is wrong with the home. If it falls apart now, they have to start the journey all over again.

Home inspectors are in a delicate position. On one hand, we must give cold, hard, and sometimes ugly facts about the home. On the other, the homebuyer is desperate to make this purchase happen.

Our mission is to guide the homebuyer through the inspection and prepare them to confidently request and negotiate repairs. To do that, we will need to understand our client and tailor our services to their home and to their needs.

Understanding our Client

Knowing houses is only part of being a great inspector; knowing our client is the other. Homebuyers are desperate. Many have never bought a home before. Even if they have, they usually don’t know how the home works. They know that they’ve picked a property that appears to fit their needs. They don’t know if a hidden problem will turn their dream home into a nightmare of repairs.

Homebuyers also don’t know the first thing about us or what we do. Many hire a home inspector based on a recommendation from their real estate agent and our availability, but few know how our job works. Homebuyers are laying the biggest purchases they’ll ever make in the hands of a stranger and trusting us to give a clear picture of the health of their home.

Being Kind but Firm

Listen and be patient with the client. Give them good and bad news calmly and directly. Keep in mind that we are not seeing the homebuyer on a typical day in their lives. We meet them when they are stressed out. Stay strong. It is not our job to make the deal easier. It is our job to help them make an informed purchase.

Homebuyers might feel extra pressure from their real estate agent to close the deal. It’s easy to think of the real estate agent as an adversary, but remember, they’ve been the homebuyer’s closest friend through this process. Talk about the real estate agent in a professional and respectful manner. Gently correct the homebuyer if they’ve received inaccurate information from the real estate agent and explain why the information is wrong. This professionalism-first strategy builds client trust and builds business. Real estate agents who feel respected will happily send referrals your way.

The homebuyer needs a guide who can provide reliable, unbiased information about the property and can help them stay calm and make sound decisions. Confident homebuyers will enter the repair request phase armed with a clear idea of what their new home really needs.

Category: Business Tips