Being a professional home inspector means wearing a lot of different hats. Yes, we walk up to the house wearing our inspector hat, but we had to perform a lot of other jobs to get us to that front porch. Obviously, we’re a student, always learning about our profession, but we’re also a marketer, an accountant, a secretary, a tech person, and a manager. There’s likely not enough time for us to describe all the jobs we do while working as a home inspector: it’s a never-ending list!
Today we’re going to talk about one of those additional jobs: the decider. As inspectors, we are often tasked with deciding exactly what our clients focus on during their negotiations. It’s not in our job description, it’s not something we signed up for, and it’s not even something we spend a lot of time thinking about; until it’s time to make a decision. Simply put, what we decide to include in our inspection summary often dictates where our clients concentrate their efforts when negotiating their home purchase.
We, the home inspector, decide what’s important. Our summary will likely be used as the main rationale for our client’s repair requests, which is a big responsibility. Even though our inspection training likely didn’t even touch on the subtle art of negotiating a real estate deal, through no wish of our own, we often find ourselves in the middle of the back-and-forth that comes with buying and selling a home.
Knowing that it’s likely we’re going to end up in the fray, it only makes sense that we should do a bit of preparation before ending up the center of attention in a battle for supremacy in a real estate transaction.
The first thing to remember is that the earlier we are in our inspection career, the more likely it is we’ll end up in a contentious situation. For the most part, new inspectors find themselves working for new (or bad) real estate agents. Their lack of expertise, combined with a new inspector’s lack of experience, often leads to problems that more experienced professionals easily avoid. Recognizing this fact and doing things to minimize our shortcomings can help us avoid getting caught up in that part of the transaction, a part that, if we’ve done our job correctly, we should have very little to do with.
It’s important that we have clarity on our reporting methods: How are we going to decide what becomes summary-worthy and what gets relegated to the list of maintenance items? In order to lessen our after-inspection problems, we need to have some general idea of what’s going to make it into our summary; we need to figure out how we’re going to rank the importance of things in our inspection report.
With the exception of Wisconsin, states do not require that inspectors write a summary addendum to include in their inspection report, but almost all inspectors do. In what is certain to have started as a way for inspectors to make the real estate agent’s job easier,[1] creating a summary is firmly entrenched as one of those things expected to be a part of an inspection report. Inspectors that don’t include summaries in their reports often have a difficult time finding agents to work with, as the summary helps narrow things down for the agent and client, ideally making the whole process a bit easier for everyone involved.
But, like most things in life, when something becomes easier for one person, it gets harder for someone else. And that person is the home inspector: We end up being the one who has to decide what goes in the all-important summary page. We are the decider.
Now, some inspectors waffle on this responsibility by simply putting everything in their summary. The summary becomes a condensed version of their entire inspection report. While this certainly makes things easier for the inspector, it defeats the whole purpose of the summary: to make things easier for the real estate agent and client. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with trying to make our jobs easier (see footnote), but if we make things easy for us but harder for the agents, we’ll likely find ourselves with very few inspections on our schedule.
Finding the right balance between “easy for us” and “easy for our clients” (agents included) is of paramount importance when attempting to develop a successful inspection business. If we make things too hard for the agents, they will simply find another inspector to work with who makes things easy for them.
One of the best ways to handle the summary problem is through transparency. Being straightforward in all our business dealings is an easy way to help minimize potential problems while maximizing our benefits. It’s imperative that we make sure that everyone’s expectations align properly with our intentions. If everyone knows exactly what the report summary is for (and what it’s not for), then it’s likely that we’ll have fewer misunderstandings and consequently, a reduced number of problems.
To promote transparency, many states require that inspectors include, at a minimum, some language that helps to clarify for the client the intention of the inspection summary. This excerpt is taken from the aforementioned Wisconsin home inspection SOP:
NOTE: This summary page is provided for convenience and is not a substitute for reading the entire report and should not be relied upon as the complete list for the client’s reference.
In my inspection summary, I also include the following language:
As everyone has different ideas on what is most important regarding home repairs, it is important that you read the entire report and not just this summary and consult with your Realtor/adviser regarding these findings.
Having everyone on the same page when it comes to the inspector’s intentions is an easy way to minimize problems. Having some boilerplate clauses included in our reports to define our objectives when labelling things summary vs. maintenance items is an easy way to keep everyone informed.
In my report, I try to explain (as simply as possible) why some things make it to the summary, while others remain on the list of maintenance items. Obviously, any items that are immediate safety hazards are included in the summary, as well as any things that could have a significantly negative monetary impact on the home. For example, bare, live wires sticking out of an electric panel or visible mold from a long-term water leak both make the summary page, as they are safety concerns that have the potential to become large (and expensive) repair projects.[2]
In my report, things that aren’t listed as summary items are considered to be part of routine home maintenance. They are things that should be addressed but typically aren’t deal killers: things that would stop someone from buying a particular property. They are usually things that a homeowner should pay a little extra attention to, as they are often farther along in their expected lifespan and/or need some extra attention. Items like this exist in every home, and for the most part, can be addressed as time permits. (We should also point out the fact that it’s possible for any maintenance item to become an expensive problem, as that’s simply a part of owning a home.)
Making sure that everyone involved knows exactly how (and why) we classify things in our reports can go a long way to reducing our problems and increasing the satisfaction of our buyers and agents.
A happy buyer and agent will often lead to a happy home inspector.
[1] As an aside, it’s amazing how many things we do to make the real estate agent’s job easier. Wouldn’t it be great if, for a change, someone was making things easier for us?
[2] Yes, I realize that properly terminating a live wire would likely not be incredibly expensive. But we must always be aware of the fact that contractors are rarely content simply doing a small job and will often attempt to find other related issues that they can fix (for an additional fee) once they’re on the job site.
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Thanks, Joe
