BrokerIPTV: Today, we are talking with Paul Jensen aka Thrifty Handyman. Paul, welcome.
Paul Jensen: Thank you Dan.
BrokerIPTV: You are a contractor?
Paul Jensen: Yes, general contractor.
BrokerIPTV: All right, and you do remodels and you do with some fix and flips, but in this topic I really want to talk about inspection items and focusing on that area for just a second.
Paul Jensen: Okay.
BrokerIPTV: I read a newspaper column not so long ago talking about the fact that buyers are really taking advantage of sellers when it comes to inspection items. I mean we are seeing a honey-do list from the buyer that goes right down to the matching sink stoppers you know in the master vanity. Have you seen kind of an unreasonable list these days?
Paul Jensen: Yeah. You get some long lists and the way I see it is inspectors are paid to find problems. If you are paying them a couple of hundred dollars, you don't want them to come back with a list that says there is nothing wrong with this home and so, many of the things they find are things that absolutely have to be addressed and then there is that middle ground. Like you said, there are some of these things that are very silly. I see that more so even with older homes, the really old homes, and they will have issues like maybe the garage door opener was put in 30 years ago before they had the little electric eyes, and they will say, "Put in a new garage door opener," or "The furnace is 15 years old; put in a new furnace." when the homeowner doesn't really have to put in a new furnace and the homeowners I see will look at these lists and most of them are going to pick and choose the things that they are going to respond to. I don't think that any homeowner feels like they have to address everything on that list.
BrokerIPTV: So, on the flip side, if I asked you what could be easily avoided by the homeowner, you would say?
Paul Jensen: I would say make sure your down spouts go at least four to six feet from your foundation.
BrokerIPTV: Clean out the gutter.
Paul Jensen: Clean out the gutters. I would say walk around your house and look for leaky plumbing. Look at your toilets. Do they run continuously? Do faucets leak? Do your showers leak? Because every inspector is going to find those items and those are items that every homeowner could walk around their home and see as well.
BrokerIPTV: All right. We have got an inspection item, we have got to get it done quickly. I have got to have a resolution in two days, so I am sending you the inspection report on email with pictures. How quickly can you get me a bid and how quickly can you get it done?
Paul Jensen: I can probably get you a bid within 24 hours.
BrokerIPTV: Right from the inspection report without going out?
Paul Jensen: From the inspection report, especially if it has pictures - digital pictures, I have done enough of these that we can usually look at it and come up with a fairly accurate assessment. Of course, there is always going to be surprises when you get out to the customer's home, but we can come up with a fairly accurate assessment of time and materials that it is going to take to do that repair and in most cases I can work with my realtors and I can address these types of repairs in two to three days.
BrokerIPTV: Okay, because you know what happens when you call a contractor?
Paul Jensen: Yeah.
BrokerIPTV: When can you have this done? Well, I will talk to you next month.
Paul Jensen: Right.
BrokerIPTV: You are saying two to three days.
Paul Jensen: Yeah, for handyman type work, for that type of work and typically your typical inspection punch list, they usually run between about four and eight hours worth of work for a typical list, average home.
BrokerIPTV: Great. Paul, thank you so much.
Paul Jensen: Thank you Dan.
BrokerIPTV: Glad you are here.
Paul Jensen: Pleasure to be here.
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