How Much Time Does a Home Inspctor Spend on an Inspection?

Debbie- when I was a senior operations manager, my home office frequently called upon me to do corporate training. MIS analysis was a common class. I was also the person who always analyzed reports and explained them to the managers. I feel that it makes smart business sense for inspectors to run some analysis on their inspections to understand their true costs. The other point of the post is simply to make people aware that an inspection is more than the time at the home. Thank you for dropping by. :)

Andrew- My typical home inspection on a house does last around four hours. Recently the number of condos that I have been asked to inspect is up (it might have to do with some marketing that I did, because I do not think that condos are becoming a trend). Condo inspections are around two hours on average. I think many home inspectors like to explain how to do repairs (I know that I do); that is why I include time spent talking to the client. Thank you for commenting. :)

Donna- I am glad that you have found good ones. I know some inspectors who work together, and other inspectors who hire an assistant to record the information from their notes into a report while they continue inspecting. The entire process may be 4 hours, but you have two people working which would be 8 hours of work time to account towards cost (I was also in charge of HR in many locations, which figures into my MIS analysis). My point is that more goes into the inspection than just showing up and looking at the home. Thank you so much for sharing your comment.

Hey Dale- you make a good point about having to consider marketing. I do factor in the cost of marketing on my operating expenses, but the time spent I do not focus in on it too much. For my model, I try to look at items that directly effect performance at the inspection, so education goes in, while office time not geared towards a specific inspection goes out. I do get the feeling that people do not realize what might go into an individual report. Also, I have not encountered an inspector yet who does not spend time learning something new each week to be better at his job. The amount of study may vary, but it is always there.

Hello Carl- thank you for stopping in. I will be in Canyon Lake this weekend. Saturday will be spent at a party at a friend's house in Mystic Shores, and Sunday will be spent in Westhaven with my parents.

Hi Dale, a friend of mine came across a real estate agent who has not had a sale in two years. Basically, she was not putting any effort into her business. We have to be aware of the work/time that we spend to determine what is effective. I guess that I liked the idea of figuring out my average time spent on an inspection, because it gives me an idea of how much effort is put into a job. Then I can see if I am earning an amount that is comenserate with the effort. My method for setting a price is to first see what the competition is charging. Second, to find what my customers are willing to pay (I lost part of my customer base by having my prices go up by $25, but I was fine with that move). Third, I plan a budget based upon previous costs and projected earnings to ensure that I cover my operating expenses. Fourth, I look at the time spent to see if I am comfortable with the amount earned. That is part of the point for this post. Fifth, I adjust my price to meet those factors. We are loosing home inspectors here in Texas. The latest figure shows about ten inspectors a month recently. Maybe we are just weeding out the part timers. However, if you are in business, you need to treat it like a business, and I think some losses are due to mismanaged firms.

Hello Georgina- I am thinking of converting a rickshaw that I am building into that brewery on wheels :) Now I would be able to cart around the kids while making the beer. More reason to exercise. I do not think that our customers understand the effort that many in our industry put into our work. The Realtors that I know do well, do well because of effort that goes on behind the scenes for that customer. It is nice to make them aware of the fact that more goes into our jobs than just showing up.

Hello Richard,

it may be hard, but we really need to think about how our business operates to make improvements, make plans, and deal effectively with costs. I place blogging under my marketing costs. You may a valid point that blogging should be considered. Too often we forget to include our time blogging, on twitter and facebook, or other activity as a cost. We have to consider if we obtain a return on investment (ROI) on this activity. If there is no ROI, why continue.