As a prospective home buyer in San Diego, you are probably scouring the Internet looking for a qualified, certified, licensed, professional home inspector upon which you intend to entrust the most significant investment you will likely make in your lifetime, your home purchase in America's Finest City. Read on, mere rookie-of-the-home-buyers, have we got a story for you.
First, you should be aware that some Realtors have a handy list right in their back pocket of the best home inspectors in San Diego. This list, known in the business as the "short" list, or the "preferred vendor" list is the holy grail for a home inspection company in San Diego. To get on this list, some home inspection companies (names withheld to protect the guilty) will do just about anything from spending large sums of money, usually in the form of dozens of donuts catered to the local real estate offices throughout town, outings to the ballpark, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, etc. etc.
Why? Because without San Diego Realtors and other local real estate professionals, we as home inspectors (and likely the profession as a whole) would shrivel up and die a miserable death. Okay, perhaps we are being a wee bit overly dramatic, but you get the gist. Sure, we pick up the occasional client from the search engines but just remember the lion share of our business comes from real estate agents.
So how does one get on the short list of preferred San Diego Home Inspectors?
By serving in the interests of our clients (you the home buyer) and doing a great job, each and every time. Sounds pretty, doesn't it? A statement of high moral value, I say. You may see such similar prose written on our marketing materials and plastered across our trucks. But reality is much simpler than that and can be boiled down to a few simple words that everyone can recognize, the most successful home inspectors don't kill deals.
Ah, you have probably not been introduced to this concept little grasshopper, a concept that lives and breathes within the wheels of our free-market capitalism. You see, if we as home inspectors are not careful in how we present our results of the home inspection, the buyer could get cold feet and walk. Wait a sec. Stop the presses. We've got a fuming agent over here, can we get a little water? Shiver at the mere thought of such an atrocity. Deal killers ain't no good for nobody.
Let's analyze this a bit further. Turning their back on a sour deal may be good for the buyer, good for the agent, and good for the home inspector. Consider this thought, one that is very simple lest the dollar bills cloud your judgement. The buyer gets to select from the cream of the crop by getting into a home that they can be proud of with minimal defects. The agent still gets their commission it just takes a little longer. And that leaves us, the lowly home inspector. We are protected from liability because a happy homeowner is a non-litigious homeowner. Win, win, win.
So what does it take to become a home inspector in San Diego?
You should know something about your local home inspector. He's not licensed. Well, he may be a licensed electrician, a licensed general contractor or any one of a dozen different trade classifications of builder, but he ain't a licensed home inspector. At least not here in San Diego. Many other states require home inspectors to be licensed, but not here. A more accurate statement for San Diego home inspectors would be that there is not even a home inspector license to be had. Entry into this field is all too easy, and that is why it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Do your research in selecting a home inspector
Top websites such as Active Rain, Yelp, Kudzu and others are tremendous resources to use when researching the best home inspectors in San Diego. Read reviews. It seems the Internet has exploded recently with local sites built by communities of people just like you and I who are kind enough to write reviews of local businesses for the benefit of all. Call and speak with the inspector personally and ask lots of questions. Be sure the San Diego home inspector you are considering has General Liability and Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance. They should belong to, and be active in, a recognized trade association such as InterNACHI, CREIA or ASHI. We have articles on our blog about what questions to ask of a potential home inspector that you are contemplating.
Until next time...
