Wow......what a pain.  How many times do people come to you and ask you to cut your commission on a sale ?

When it happens, you think.....I have put hundreds of hours into becoming the professional that I am, and spent thousands of dollars to be able to offer top quality service ( not to mention the nice ride to show I'm sucessfull !).....don't ask me to give my services away for any less than what they are worth !

Hey, I hear your pain.  That's how quality inspectors feel when they are told their prices are too high, just because an agent seeks out the cheapest inspector for their client's sake.....(as if they are doing their client a favor to find the cheapo).

I was a contractor for many years and I would take a bit of wisdom from that experience. When you hire the cheapest bidder, you don't always get the best work.  Take a simple example like painting.  A professional will spend from 60-70% of his time doing prep. so the final product will be superb, and will use the best paint he can find.  A jack-leg will skip all but the most obvious prep and use cheap paint that won't cover or last. A splash and dash artist.

But here's the irony.  The average homeowner can't tell the difference because he/she doesn't know what to look for. All they know is that it was a purple wall yesterday and its a yellow wall today.

Until they have had some time to live with it.  Until they see it in a different light.  Until someone with a sharper eye comes and begins to point out the obvious flaws.

Eventually the shortcuts reveal themselves but it is too late.

Now when inspectors take shortcuts, when they try to do volume, (3 inspections a day for say $175-$250), they are going to miss things. In the end, who is it going to cost ?  The poor client, that sad case the agent was trying to help save $50- $100 dollars.

Now that poor client who was trying to save a few bucks has an undersized HVAC that won't cool his house in the summer because the inspector skipped checking the capacity, or has a rotting roof because he did not catch the fact that the flashing was loose around the chimney. 

Now they are facing hundreds of $$$ of replacement costs because the inspector had to rush through the job to make up for his cheap price.

Frankly, I think inspectors should charge on average at least twice what they do now, considering the extraordinary liability they face.

So the next time someone asks me to cut my price because someone else is $50 - $75 cheaper, I think my reply will be: 

'Sure......what would you like for me to leave out of the report ?'

( Or perhaps, would you rather give your clients a free inspection ?  See my blog entry on our Lowes Affiliation and the 10% coupon we can offer)

Philip LaMachio,  Advantage Inspection Clear View