Empire State of Mind
Empire State of Mind
Exposing the Framework: Navigating the Essentials of Home Inspection with Matthew Query
Unlock the hidden world of home inspections as I sit down with expert inspector Matthew Query, whose insights will forever change the way you view the bones of your home. Traverse the unseen layers of construction with us, as Matthew divulges his unique journey from building homes to scrutinizing them, offering a fresh perspective on why every nail, joist, and piece of ductwork matters. Our chat strips back the drywall to reveal the crucial stages of inspection that safeguard the integrity of your residence.
Ever pondered the true caliber of your abode’s construction? This episode casts a spotlight on the indispensable role of independent home inspections, setting them apart from the overtaxed municipal code inspections that can let critical issues slip by. Matthew and I dissect the art of thorough examination at various stages—pre-drywall, pre-closing, and during warranties—and illustrate how these meticulous checks capture defects invisible to the untrained eye, resulting in a home that stands the test of time.
We wrap up with a candid look at the current state of the trades, dissecting how shifting societal norms and the labor crunch are reshaping the landscape of homebuilding. Matthew shares pearls of wisdom on the imperative of comprehensive training for inspectors and the value of understanding local building codes. Journey with us as we uncover the profound impact of effective communication and transparency on everything from client satisfaction to the enduring craftsmanship of your home.
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- web: www.iebcoaching.com
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Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
- IG: @the.matthew.williams
We believe the purpose of owning a business is funding your perfect life. Welcome to the next generation of growth and opportunity in the inspection industry. This is the Empire State of Mind. Empire State of Mind Helping build companies with faster growth, higher profits and more time freedom. Finally, a podcast for the home inspection industry and beyond. This is the Empire State of Mind and this is your host, Matt Williams.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome to the show. We've got a great episode for you today. I'm hanging out with my friend, Matthew Query, and we have been talking about pre-drywall inspections in homes. Matthew, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm awesome, Matt. It's awesome to be here. Good to see you in person, man. It's so great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's awesome. This is such a great. We're here actually at Unite conference this year and I'm loving this conference so far. Have you gotten any good nuggets out of this one?
Speaker 3:Oh man, so many, just lots of great questions to take from the weekend Mark started us out talking about, like hey, just ask good questions. And more than taking notes, I've been trying to formulate questions in my mind from the nuggets that I'm taking, so I can dive into those later, because there's just so Drinking from a fire hose when you get to these events.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and that's just the stage content. And then on top of that you have the hallway conversations and you know, at dinner tables and at the bar and wherever else walking around, and all those hallway conversations, and then by the end of it it's like man, I'm just overloaded and I have to like take time to process everything.
Speaker 3:It's just good to see friends Give hugs, give high fives, just smiles. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Because the community here is just so good.
Speaker 3:It is, it is. Yeah, it does my heart good to be here, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, me too, Me too. So, matthew, we were talking about this idea of pre-drywall inspections and I know there's companies out there that do it. Yeah, I've had several requests at my company from home buyers who are building a home wanting a pre-drywall inspection. And I'll be super honest, like it's a little intimidating to me because I know it's another level of skill set that's necessary, but you're doing it and you're doing it effectively and, in fact, I think this is the reason you got into inspections, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It is yeah it used to be. I worked for several home builders and I also have my South Carolina contractors license, so I've been in the residential construction space for about 20 years and really honestly hated home inspectors.
Speaker 2:Most builders do yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because they came in and they would throw me under the bus. Yeah, like that's not the way I want to do business. You know, we're a partnership. We all want the same thing. We want the best house Yep For our client and to come in and say, well, this guy should have caught this. Well okay. Well, you come and do my job, then you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you have a builder right and you're working with a home builder who's building multiple homes at a time. Mm-hmm, yeah, we, I just look at like the large, you know the big, large production builders I'm not going to name drop because I don't want. I'm not trying to shed bad light on anybody, but I see these superintendents that are managing, you know, one, two, three, four communities. They have dozens of homes that they're superintendant, like watching over. Is that basically what you were doing? Yeah?
Speaker 3:So it depends on who I was with and, of course, the market. I got laid off twice actually, yeah, but at one point I was handling at least 35 houses. It may have been 40, but it was a lot and I was in four different communities, three different code jurisdictions, and one of those communities was actually an hour drive one way, so wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you're a superintendent and you're intent and you're supposed to be like maintaining quality on these houses, you're set up for failure.
Speaker 3:I really was and that was kind of just what, what the market necessitated, like I just had to do what I had to do. I didn't have any. I didn't have any other help. Right, a lot of communities now they have a couple guys or ladies in in the communities and you know they kind of partner oh, you know, johnny's not here, so Matthew's going to pick it up, or whatever, vice versa and that wasn't the case when I was doing business.
Speaker 3:And even if you have a couple people in a community, you still have so much volume that you know when, when I come in as an inspector, even a small house, 1500 square foot, I'm going to be there at least for four hours and in one sitting. And you were talking earlier, you know about fresh set of eyes and it is for sure fresh set of eyes, but it's also like because I'm there in one sitting, I can just really kind of digest what's in front of me. When I take inspectors out with me, especially for the first time to do pre-drywall inspections, you know I'm like, hey, you know, don't get so focused on the forest that you miss the trees, because you walk into a free drywall inspection and it's just studs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, studs everywhere, studs and pipes and wires and so there's just so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm just going to talk about like Maybe not feeling qualified and it yeah, it's intimidating.
Speaker 2:It's like how many am I gonna price this right, how long I'm gonna spend there and then, yeah, it seems like an never-ending List of stuff to be looking at yeah, hundred percent, and I would.
Speaker 3:I would say that people that are questioning whether or not they should do pre-drywall is don't. Don't do it until you feel qualified. Mm-hmm, there are there are organizations out there, through IEB even like there's, you know, john Bolton and his, his team down in down in Florida. They, they do have an awesome program in where I'm at Casa training Academy. I'm just kind of doing some name dropping, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, that's a positive name problem. Yeah, you have Casa training and then the inspectors. Yeah, yeah, there's the. Just the super Training guys do pre-drywall they probably do. They do have. They do great training for other things. So maybe that's new.
Speaker 3:I would love to look in to see what they're doing too. But, okay, like, get yourself qualified. There actually inspection companies in my area that just go out and do pre-drywall because they get called and they, they go out and they spend an hour and a half and they, you know, charge 250, 300 bucks and they don't really find anything at all and it's nothing substantive it you're really opening yourself up to a lot of liability when you go out and do a pre-drywall.
Speaker 3:So you don't want to get into it lightly is kind of what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's what I've seen. I was like and that was that's what scares me too. On it is the liability side. So you got to really know what you're doing. It's a difference. That's another level or another side of skills. To be able to inspect that, yeah, so, yeah, so how? So you sure you're out there for four hours? What's a typical fee for you for doing a pre-drywall that so?
Speaker 3:We actually Bragged that. As far as I know, we're the most expensive Pre-drywall inspection company in our area. Okay and so we charge a full home inspection fee. So like the same fee that we would charge If they were just calling us for a home inspection, mm-hmm, we charge that for the pre-drywall and I'd actually give them a discount If they hire us again. Okay, we don't do packaging because I want to earn your business. A lot of a lot of companies will do that.
Speaker 3:They'll say hey, we'll do a pre-roll, a pre-drywall, pre-closing, inspection or warranty. We'll do a package. You pay us all, pay it all right now and we'll come back later. We don't do that. I want you to. I want you to see what you're getting. Hmm and I want you to value, you know our relationship and partnership and that all that usually results in. I would say 98% of the time people have us back. They have us back for a reinspection.
Speaker 2:Right pre-drywall.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, they have us back for the pre-closing, potentially a reinspection for the pre-closing and then, more often than not, actually lately, they've been having us back a year later for the warranty. Wow, so you know just it. Just, if you're doing pre-drywall, you have the opportunity for between three and five additional Opportunities to create revenue. That's not even including, like, if we get into, like more phase inspections, which I don't see a lot of, because people, people are very hesitant to pay Because, oh, code enforcement's got this. Like. I had a friend, we have one inspector in Indianapolis and I had a friend. Actually, they called she, she reached out on Facebook. It's like hey, could we, um, get our house inspected? We just close and we're having a bunch of issues. That same person I had seen that she was building and it reached out and said hey, we've got an inspector in the area, we'd love to come and check it out for you. She said, oh, no, code enforcement officials, they're, they're looking at. Everything will be good.
Speaker 1:That's not the case, I mean no, it's not, and there are good people yeah but, they have just as many, if not more, houses to look at yeah, they have.
Speaker 2:You know they how many houses they gonna look at in a day. You have electrical guy. They got like 30 40 houses a day. Yeah, they got a look at that. Then there's no physical way they can get to all of them. Yeah, so they get there and they check a few things, but they're not gonna go in detail. No, no, they're making sure the ground is right.
Speaker 3:You know the plans, yeah no, I mean, I'm there multiple times when code enforcement officials show up and they're in and out five minutes. It's like, up, studs are here, cool Roops on, all right, yeah, check, let's go to insulation. Yep, like really, that's, that's all I mean. Actually, in North Carolina I found this out recently North care and this is obviously based different on each state, but North Carolina doesn't even require a plan review.
Speaker 2:Wow plans.
Speaker 3:So, like they, no one has looked at these plans. In South Carolina they do they actually. They have plan review. You have to turn them in code enforcement they they review the plan. Sometimes They'll send them back, make you make changes, but no one is looking at these plans. Interesting if you have, if you have plan errors or you have some sort of an issue, who's checking that?
Speaker 2:so nobody's looking at the plans. And then the inspectors from the city the civil inspectors are the municipal ones that they are overloaded. I see the same thing. I think most of most people in the inspection industry see that all the time, and it's not that they're not smart and not capable, but but they're not given an opportunity, they're not to really succeed because they've been put so much load on them. They're like well, I can only spend five minutes at each place, or seven minutes each place, and, and within five to seven minutes they do catch some stuff, but but not as much as if they were actually to take the time and spend like an hour at each place. Yeah, and so they're set up to not be able to deliver the quality that they're capable of and smart enough to do. But again, it's not really that they're bad people or not smart, it's just they. They're set up for failure for that.
Speaker 2:So then, so then they're set up for that, so then, so then there's no, no, no plans. Check. The civil people aren't checking stuff. The home builders have superintendents with 30, 40 houses on their plate. They're not in a place to be able to hit the quality control that even they're capable of, but they just you can't physically do it Because you have too much on your plate, and then that thing gets all the way to the very end. And then they're having problems with the house and they wonder why?
Speaker 3:yeah.
Speaker 2:Because there was literally no one in the chain of command anywhere. That took Two hours, three hours, four hours and just went through and, with a fine tooth comb, actually checked every single aspect of the house. Yeah, absolutely, I mean.
Speaker 3:Wow, you probably have heard and Anybody that's listening is probably really aware that they get complaints about oh, this room in my house is hotter or colder Than everywhere else in the house because the ductwork probably isn't hooked up. Well, it could. It could be that, yeah, it could be that it's undersized.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. Just the where the ductwork wasn't engineered properly and they have too small of a duct to head it that way, or something yeah you.
Speaker 3:You can't have, you can't have a thousand CFM Coming from a 500 CFM duct like you can't, just can't, physically can't get that like. If you know right, I mean, even if it's, even if it's like 50 to 100 CFM Undersized, you're still gonna have some Like variation. You're not gonna be able to heat and cool the house Wow, need to so like. But nobody's looking at this stuff and the only time to really look at it is At pre drywall, because once this, once the sheet rock goes in, all things are covered up. I mean, if you're talking modern construction, we use a lot of blown insulation.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm and so even the duct work. You know, a lot of times the duct work is covered up by insulation or partially covered. You can't see it. And yeah, even then a lot of home inspectors it kind of depends on what you feel comfortable doing they don't want to disturb the insulation, so nobody walks out onto the trusses after the insulation has been blown, and so All right, you know, yeah, that's a thing you get a new construction inspection. You know you just can't access everything. There's stuff that's just you just can't physically get there.
Speaker 1:Even though.
Speaker 3:I wanted to like walk the trusses and get all to these other other places.
Speaker 2:I can't see Everything right and then then you just start the installation and it doesn't matter what anybody says. You just physically look at it and people are like, well, it's a brand new house and you messed it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not pretty yeah yeah, well, and I live in the Southwest, so In in New Mexico is where I live. So New Mexico, arizona, even in parts of Southern California, they'll do like a flat roof style home where there is no attic and so the duct work is up there and there is no attic access at all. Yeah, and which makes for a little quicker home inspection, not gonna lie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know so we're blessed in that way. But during if you're actually building a brand new house and then and then in the seasons like this where there's a housing shortage and there's a contractor shortage because they can't build them fast enough, the quality has a tendency to drop as well, 100%. So now you got a, we got brand new houses going up. They're going up really fast. You have overworked people in every front, from contractors to sit to city inspectors to Superintendents, and there's nobody there Holding up the measuring tape and saying hold on a second, no, this is short.
Speaker 3:No, you, we kind of talked about this earlier. You need it. You need a good partnership between public and private.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've, you've got to have it. When builders, builders hate us, yeah right, couldn't you were. You were the guy like, you were on the superintendent side, and then inspectors would come in and be like, oh God, well, do you know why builders hate us?
Speaker 3:Tell us please, because for years Home inspectors just show up and they blow up deals, mmm because they're not because they know bedside manner, no bedside manner. They're trying to prove something, they're trying to justify their fee. Like that you don't need to do that. If you, if I find one or two items in a new construction house, I am thrilled. Yeah, that doesn't happen, but I mean.
Speaker 3:I've had a couple times, but like that doesn't happen, I don't. But I don't need to throw the builder under the bus if I find 20 things in a new construction house. Right, that's not my job. Hey, I find this in most every house. Well, should I question the builder like, am I, am I, am I doing the right thing with building with this company? No, no, this is fine. These are all fixable things, everything's fixable, yep, and the fact that you found it now, even if they don't fix it and you have a problem with it later, you still haven't documented. Yeah, you know, I don't want to say like insurance policy, because you know, like inspector, probably like it, kind of it likens itself to that. Yeah, right, so like if I call out something in a pre drywall or a pre-closing inspection and the builders like no, we're not gonna do that, we passed code. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:You still have it in doc. You still have it documented so if it happens to come up later and you know, if you go to a court of law like, oh well, I'm having this issue and builder says, well, no, you're your past, your warranty. No, I called this out, my inspector called this out, you know, 11 years ago. I don't care that, it's a 10-year warranty, my inspector called us out 11 years ago, and this is directly attributed to what I'm experiencing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you?
Speaker 3:you denied to fix it then yeah, so you're gonna have a judge. It's not? No, that's not legitimate.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, so you're on. The courts tend to favor the individual over the corporation, exactly, and to yeah but it's it.
Speaker 3:You know we're a very litigious site society probably tell me about it, Right? But you have to, you have to. It's a transfer of liability, right? Hmm, you want to. You want to take the ownership off of like Yourself, like, oh, I just didn't know well that they don't. Warranty companies don't care if you didn't know or not Like what's the warranty say Yep, you gotta. You gotta protect yourself and you gotta know the things. And you can only know the things if you look at the things when they're uncovered, and they are readily invisible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you worked on the side of the computer, so I what's a good well, what's some advice you would give to an inspector if they're interacting with that superintendent on the builder site, because obviously we don't want to lose faith with them and we don't blow up deals unnecessarily. What are ways that, like we could approach Finding a defect in a, in a pre drywall they're at, we become a collaboration and we become a partner with everybody, because the end goal is we want this buyer to have a great Home and, honestly, the superintendent wants that too, yeah, so what are some ways that you handle things that Don't inflame things but actually are helpful?
Speaker 3:such a great question, so two ways verbally and in writing. So I don't know of any any state and I could be wrong that Requires additional licensing or certifications for pre drywall inspections, but beyond the standard home inspection standard home inspection right, so I don't mind, doesn't, but I don't know of anybody else. Yeah, so if I'm wrong, I would love to know, because I really just don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm only licensed in three states, so the three states you're in, that doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah, and the one I'm in doesn't have it. Yeah, exactly, so four the fifth. Yeah, so four the 50. Yeah, right, yeah, we've got a majority none of them have it.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, I'm having so I have actually invited Superintendents to come to my pre drywall wrap up. But if I see them on site I make it, I make a point if they'll, if they will talk to me. Some people just have this thing where they don't want to talk to inspectors, yeah, but I will say, hey, man, I was going, you know, just make small talk. You know, kind of tell them my background.
Speaker 3:I used to do your job and yeah, okay, yeah not necessarily like posturing, like I'm better than you, but like, hey, I want to let you know that I know what you're going through like and I also want to let you know that I'm not gonna throw you under the bus for anything. I find like I'm here to partner with you. We all want the same thing, yeah, and I hope that you'll see that in my report too, you'll see some of the way that I've written things and some of the stuff I call out. For example, that's maybe not there, but it may be May. It may be because in the builders build cycle this is a really kind of dumb example, but Threshold supports on doors some builders will require that they in the frame or install them.
Speaker 3:Hmm, at pre drywall, some of the builders don't actually install them and they have the trim guy do it, or the siding guy, okay, and some people don't actually install them until the end, and so, at pre drywall, I'm gonna call them out, though like they're missing. But the way that I've worded my defect statement is hey, these aren't here, but they're probably gonna be installed at some point, it and it. If they're not installed during this time, it's not that big of a deal. You know, I'm not obviously using that big of a deal as right, right, but that that basically, is just saying, hey, I see this. But I'm also kind of queuing you into how the build cycle works and how the build process works, because I'm not. I don't know how.
Speaker 2:Every builder has their build process right, so this builder may be adding this at a different build cycle, right, so yeah yeah, so don't worry about it.
Speaker 3:And so a lot of it is just Educating them, the client. Yeah, so let them know. Hey, this is what your build cycle is like. This is what you know is normal. You know, the fact that I found 20 items on this pre drywall is not alarming to me. The fact that I found Four or five broken trusses is not alarming to me? I don't, I mean right literally. That literally can be fixed in 24 to 48 hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, we have an iPad. I circle the area of the broken trust, I send it to the building center, you know, with the trust, the trust manufacturer and the engineer sends me back a letter on how to fix it and I have my framer, who's already in the community, come over and I fix it. Yeah, and it's done. I go, it's just gonna delay the build. No, don't worry about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wait, it's funny because I think I mean, I don't know how you handle it, but I handle at least regular home inspections. Hey, you know, we we found, for 32 things wrong with this house, 33 defects on this house, you know. However, considering the house is 55 years old, yeah, this is mostly normal wear and tear. This is, we find, way more than this normally. So, yeah, we found 32 things wrong, but it's actually this isn't bad, you know. And because they don't know yeah, people don't know they're like oh, is this a terrible build? Yeah, is this builder terrible? No, the builder is not terrible. There's just a couple of adjustments that are needed and everything can be fixed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything. We found this all the time right. Yeah, setting everybody's mind at ease. I love that. That's a and. So you do that with the clients. And then, yeah, interacting with the even the builder, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll be able to handle it In a way that yeah, but I want to.
Speaker 3:I want to build confidence in the client that they're not getting a crappy product because of the things that I found. Because People like in a new house to a new car, they think, oh, I have problems with my house, this is brand new. What's going on? What?
Speaker 2:Hmm, it's the wrong, you know. Is that a lemon right?
Speaker 3:Yes, Exactly lemon, and it just spirals out of control Really, really quickly. Oh my gosh, I've got a new. I've got a guy I'm working with now, wow, I've got a new baby coming and it eat like just absolutely. He's just spiraling out of control but like a therapist well, yeah, but it you have to nobody not nobody most people don't have 20 years in residential construction where they can know all of the ins and outs right.
Speaker 3:Working. You know, building a house from the ground up or at least managing it right. I can't say that I've done that like Under my own contractors license, but I have managed the process in in multiple different areas with multiple different types of foundations, doing warranty Mm-hmm, like Okay, well, if you don't do this, I know that this is gonna become a problem later. So bringing that aspect, but you know, just understanding how Especially track home construction works, but really, when it comes down to it, track home, custom home, it doesn't matter, right, they're there Everybody's. Most people are all using the same builders or the same trades right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the same electrician is doing wires in both those houses exactly. They're just getting.
Speaker 3:I mean they might be getting paid more. I don't know, but they might be. Yeah, but it's a lot of the same contractors.
Speaker 2:It's I was an electrical contractor for a long time and so same thing. It's like well, here I am in these massive custom homes, but then you're gonna catch me on these entry level track homes that are maybe like the really low price point. Yeah, but the same companies going to both places. Yeah, yeah, but in the same kind of wire in them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, basically, just more of it in the big house, yeah my record for the number of broken trusses I found in a house. Oh yeah, 27, that sounds like a lot. It was in a custom home, million-dollar custom home, wow people are like oh, what's the best builder? Like I'm not gonna one.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna answer that question, but I basically say well, just show me how many, show me the superintendent, show me his experience, show me how many houses he's running, and I can, I can kind of maybe give you an idea, but I don't know. There's so many other factors that go into it, like especially nowadays, post COVID, yeah, people can't get anything you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, supply, supply, man.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like one builder's like oh, I can't get garage doors. The other guys, I can't get windows, and windows and doors, and and so there's just so many things that they're contending with, other than the fact that they have a really poor trade base. Yeah, because, you know, don't even get me on this topic, but like Going to college instead of, you know, going to a trade school, yeah, we've eroded our trades.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly you go. Look at the guys that are actually doing the work right now. They're all older. Yeah, there's not a lot of young guys getting into trades right now and that's a scary future for in the next 10 to 15 years. We're gonna pay that price.
Speaker 3:I'm actually friends with an economist she works for Gonna forget who it is, but essentially she did this great presentation and she had Everybody in the room. Hey, how many of you have grandparents that had four more kids? You know?
Speaker 3:like half the room you know, or more you know, raise their hands and she said how many of you have Four more kids? And like three people raise their hand. She said that's the labor problem. Yeah, people aren't. People aren't reproducing. But then in on top of that you have people that are not going to trade schools because for the longest time it was college, college, college, college. It's what I go to college I mean college will save your pride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, that'll solve all your problems. Yeah, like no, not necessarily college, and never, never one day did, did anything that had to do with.
Speaker 3:I went immediately into construction, but I didn't actually, I didn't even study construction. Wow so, wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's a big shortage of trades right now. So now that that's a rippling into the whole housing building. So now you have not to have tradesmen that are stretched then too. So everywhere you look at, the whole house, so everywhere you look at, stretch thin all the way through man, that's wild.
Speaker 3:So it's, it's. It's a Unique and awesome opportunity for home inspectors to come in if they're properly trained and qualified and really impact the housing market. And I, you know, I think that the more people that can kind of change their mindset and this is just general public More people that can change their mindset around the fact that they don't need to pay additional money because they've got the contract, looking at it, they've got this code enforcement, the better off everybody will be so for sure.
Speaker 2:So I'm not doing this right now and I've been intimidated by the liability. I'm not gonna lie. So for a company or an inspector that's listening right now and like you know what, I see the need, I see the problem and I see if I can be a solution to this, like we've kind of talked about this, what would it look like Like if I wanted to pursue that? What would that look like for me? What steps would you say are the next ones that I should pursue?
Speaker 3:Well, check with your insurance. Oh, that's a great one, yeah, so are you covered and do you need to change your coverage? I would definitely check with your insurance first and then start getting additional training.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned some schools. Are those online or those only in person?
Speaker 3:Both.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So I know, like John Bolton, he has online courses. What's his company called? Well, it's Inspector Gator, but it's a Florida Home Inspection University. Okay, yeah, or Home Inspecting University, florida. Sorry, john, if you're listening, trying to give you a shout out bro, but yeah, it's not working out too well. But that's all right. But then in my area, casa, casa Training Academy.
Speaker 2:So there might be different schools in different areas.
Speaker 3:That around the country that for free drywall yeah. Nachi, Nachi has great.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they have it.
Speaker 3:They have. It's online training. I'm not sure if they have in person training for free drywall in particular, but that's a great place to start. Yeah, like, even if you can't invest in the time or maybe there's just not one local to you at the time where you can actually go, and you know, go and like look at a set of plans and like get in a classroom or go to a house, you know you can still get online. You can start going through internet. Your Ashie's pre drywall inspection, you know, learning the ins and outs of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so starting some online training. There's some great resources there. That's really good. And then check with insurance. Check with insurance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely go through some training, but even after you go through training, you don't know everything.
Speaker 2:No, you really don't yeah, so.
Speaker 3:I've made some good relationships with some guys local in my area that have felt like, have felt comfortable to call me and they've come and they've done like side rides with me, like just to be there.
Speaker 2:Okay. And so do you have relationships with other contractors that can help you? And if you run into something like this is weird, do you like send it to like a framing friend or something?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah, I guess that's, I think, another. I think problem just in general with the home inspection industry is that you feel like you have to know everything and you don't. You just have to know the right people. Yeah, and cause? I mean I wasn't alive, you know, in the fifties, you know I wasn't building houses in the eighties, you know.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:But you're expected to know all that stuff and so like and code changes all the time, yep, and code is enforced differently in every area.
Speaker 3:So you have, you have state regulations, yeah, you have potentially different county regulations and then, you have potentially different city or town regulations, and so how do you find that information out, find out, make make relationships with people that are in those areas to be able to ask those questions. So yeah, that's great advice. But the training, training, training, training and then partner up with people and come out. And so, like you know, some guys will throw me a couple of bucks and they'll come out and just learn because I mean, I I can't say I find the same things in every house, as sometimes I do, right, but if you're there and I, I can say oh, this is an awesome one.
Speaker 3:Hey, look at this, Look at these plans, See what this says. These plans are calling this out, but I don't see this here until like this. This is what could be happening. This could be like the wrong set of plans or maybe this is maybe a different elevation, because sometimes builders when they print their plans they print every single elevation for that one house.
Speaker 3:And there could be like 12 elevations and you got to, you got to figure out which elevation you're in and you know. So there's, there's just so many things situationally, even as a home inspector, right, you know right. Like when you're training as a new home inspector, you you just run into stuff that you just don't see very often. Oh, I found a coal-fired furnace. Yeah, oh, really, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:North Carolina is still tests on that, by the way. Coal-fired furnace, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, yeah, we yeah yeah. Don't get me started on the testing.
Speaker 3:Anyway. So yeah, just training, training, training and okay, even, even if you don't feel comfortable, partner with somebody that can maybe help help mentor you, like that's another reason I love IEV, yeah, like like this is just a place where people want you to win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we all, we all want to win and we don't help each other win, and I love that about this place too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this isn't. This is great. I mean, I think this is great information. So get your, get educated, get the insurance, start training, start looking at local contractors and understanding how to interact with project managers, code inspectors and clients, to to make them understand, like this is normal, yeah, and understanding the position that these home builders are in. Yeah, like that's, I'd never really quite put it together that they were managing so many different houses. Yeah, I knew that the code guys are. Yeah, but, yeah, that makes sense. Like you're managing that many houses, no way you can be on top of it. Yeah, you have to put a lot of trust in that your subcontractors are doing it right, yeah, and then hopefully you can catch some of the big errors.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, I'm really trying in my area to make a difference in changing the narrative for how home builders view home inspectors. Yeah, and I, I can only do that, you know so many times. But I mean, now we have, we have larger home builders, or at least superintendents within those larger home builders, where they they refer us. Wow, hey, if you're going to call it, if you're going to get a third party company, I recommend this company because you're actually good and you're going to take time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So like I've got a lady friend of mine she she's a superintendent locally and known her for years, worked with her one of the companies we were at together and she'll actually call or text me when she gets somebody else. That's not not freedom. Yeah, that comes into the community. She's like oh my gosh, can you? I can't even with these people like.
Speaker 1:I can't believe that they wrote this down.
Speaker 3:This is so like this is what a waste of money. I can't believe like I don't even want them in my community. But you know, yeah, we want to change the narrative and I would love to be able to get in front of home builders and and help them to train their superintendents on how to work with home inspectors. And if they don't have a home inspector that's not operating the way that I do like in a way that's a partnership then Maybe that's an opportunity for them to say, hey, like, let's work together on this thing, rather than, again, you know, and educating them so like we can come at it from different angles. But those guys don't know what we have to do, they don't know what we're, what we have to go through, right, they like, especially with With pre-closing inspections, standard home inspections, they know like people are annoyed with the way that we have to write stuff up in our.
Speaker 3:You know we call it DDID, district description of the defect, implication of the defect recommendation. Here in Texas they do you have to actually Tell them if it's good or bad. Or you know like right, foundation is Sufficiently you know, operating like it's supposed to, or you know we don't have to do that. Where are we at? So? But nobody knows those things right and so, if you don't know it, you're afraid of it and and I want to try to remove that fear, and as much as as many ways as possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I know that there's this conversation is I've heard it a few times within other inspection companies, so I know that there's inspection companies thinking about adding this and adding this service and they, they did, they did. Probably a little intimidating at times, and so if, if somebody wants to get a hold of you and ask you more questions, what would be the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Text is great. I get probably like everybody, I get a lot of you know. Hey, your car warranty is expired.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, right. If you don't know the number, you're probably not gonna answer it.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna pick it up, but right if you text me and say, hey, I don't you know, heard about you on the IEB podcast and or you know, I'm interested in learning more about pre-drawal inspections, my number is 803 mm-hmm 412 2 884 that is my personal cell and I'd be happy to entertain and and have a phone call or, if you're local, you know, grab a coffee or beer or something, and Again, it's just you know, and I hope that what you learn you'll pass on.
Speaker 3:Yes we will we, the more Everybody and I tell this every oh my gosh, I'm so glad I remember this the more that we all get more educated and become better at doing these phase inspections, pre-drawal inspections, the more we can charge. Yeah, absolutely right. Like the guy that I know in Jeff that works with Joe or a John Bolton in Florida, he charges a crazy amount For for a dribble like thousands of dollars. Wow, he makes. He kills it. Wow, like he won't. He won't go out of the door for less than 500 bucks.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh man, I want to get there and that's incredible.
Speaker 3:But you know the market has to support it.
Speaker 2:But it will support it if everybody's charging more because they're qualified right and you're putting in the time, like you talked about spending that much time on a house. Yeah, you know. Yeah, then now. Now it's like you're, you're providing a much higher service and and you're not just like walking through in an hour and, yeah, saying yep, looks good.
Speaker 3:You know, we're blown away by our reports.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure that they are. Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, well, thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for sharing your contact info. Thanks, if you want to get in touch with Matthew, give him a text message and he can reach back out. So, anyhow, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Empire State of Mind. For the home inspection industry and beyond, our passion is to elevate the home inspection industry with mindset, strategy and tools. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review for more. Follow on Instagram at IEB coaching and don't forget to hit the website at wwwiebcoachingcom. Learn about IEB at no cost and have all your questions answered on our open call once a month on the third week of the month. We hope to see you there and we'll see you next time on the Empire State of Mind.
