First, I will qualify myself. I am a Home Inspector and I own a Home Inspection Company in Las Vegas NV. We all know the state of our economy right now, it's not good. Hundreds of Thousands of people out of work and a large majority of them are construction trade workers of all trades, carpenters, masons etc etc..

As a viable alternative during these hard times, allot of these people think that since they've been in the house building business for twenty years or so, home inspection is a slam dunk for them! Not so, but that's another article. If you research the home inspection industry, you'll find that there is no shortage of home inspection training schools. People are knocking the doors down of these schools to get in.

They advertise that you can make 75 to 100 thousand dollars a year and more! And you could! In a perfect world! The schooling is good, they will prep you to take and pass the state certification tests, take you out on mock home inspections and what not. This is all good but people I've talked too have said that they really never touch on/discuss the real costs of starting up a home inspection business. What to do, how to do it etc etc.. They do touch on basics though, it can be a home based business, there is no overhead, not many tools needed and such. Now, let's fast forward. Before you take your state test, you have to be fingerprinted and background checked. You pay lot's of money for that. Now you take the test, that costs lot's of money too.

Oh yes, there's the application fee's over and above that. Now that that's all out of the way, you have to submit all that to the state to get your certification. There's the certification fee, the application fee again. I can't say what the dollar amounts are for these various fee's and such because every state, county and city is different but I will say that they are usually in the hundreds of dollars for each item. Let's get back to some more costs. Usually, to get your state certification, you'll have to submit proof of insurance with your application to the state. E & O Error and Omissins insurance is usually around $2500.00 for new inspectors. Then there is the business licenses, County and any cities within that county jurisdiction. Yes, you have to get a license from each city to work in them and they are not cheap either, 100's of dollars again. Let's fast forward again.

Assuming that you've payed all the 1000's of dollars and you have your state certificate, insurance, licenses, what about tools? A pencil, writting pad and flashlight aren't all that's needed. You need a report writing software program to do the reports for starters, these cost anywhere from $300 to $1200 dollars or more. Ladders, a good step ladder for breaching the attics, extention type ladder for the outside. You may already own a ladder but if you don't, price them, they're not cheap. There are other various tools you'll need and want to make the job easier and faster, they all cost money and nothing is cheap. Do you have a truck? Van?

Assuming that you,ve done all the above and your ready to move forward with your business, what's next? This is probably the toughest part of this process, Marketing. Getting yourself out there. If you are really close friends with a plethora of Real Estate Agents, this would be very helpful, but your probably not. "Home Inspection Is a Target Specific Market" think about that. Home Inspection services are specific to home buyers and some sellers. How often do people buy a house? Once every 5 or 10 yrs? Here are some usual suspects/things that new home inspectors do. Yellow Page Advertising. The cost can be anywhere from $150 to $1000 a month for a yellow pages ad, and personally, I think it's a big waste of time and money! Hardly anyone uses a phonebook anymore. Brochures and business cards. The business cards are a must. The brochures will cost you an arm and a leg to have printed, then you have to distribute them. You'll have to drive around to various/100's Realtor offices (fuel costs) and ask if you can leave some next to the other 100 or so home inspector brochures already there. You can give a presentation/sales pitch to the agents in the various realtor offices you visit, telling them the same things that the other 100 home inspectors have pitched to them befor you! Honestly, what are you going to tell them that they haven't already heard! They will just be there for the free cookies and cupcakes that you bring. They could care less about you or what you have to say, but they'll power down your free goodies. The food costs alone will tank you..lol 

The internet is your best bet. You'll need a website and hosting. This is costly if you want a decent one. Are you going to design your own or hire a website guy? Hiring a web designer guy/gal is extremely expensive. They'll want $1000's of dollars.  Now, assuming you've done all this website stuff and you now have an active website, what now? Sit back and wait for the calls to come in? You'll be sitting and waiting a long time! Your just not going to appear on Google, Yahoo or MSN/Bing's search pages. It doesn't work that way anymore. You'll need your webpage optimized or nobody will ever find you! This is an "expensive" proposition on it's own. $1000's of dollars again just to have it done/setup plus the cost of maintaining it monthly! Research Website/SEO optimization for a better explaination of it. Beware of "Do It Yourself" website optimization software, it's costly and pretty much worthless, you can find the same how to's for free if you do your homework. (Email me and and I can direct you to a decent website with the tools for free) If you do opt for website optimization by a professional, (and I recommend it if you do) be sure and do research on the company you select to do it for you, BBB and such. Lot's of unscupulous so-called SEO companies out there. If you get cold called by a so-called website optimization company promising you the moon, "hang up and run!!!"  

If you are thinking about Home Inspection as a career, I hope this has given you a little insight to what's involved in starting up your own business. It's not as EASY and CHEAP as one might think. If you are thinking about starting out/working for an established Home Inspection Company, Good Luck! Multi-Inspector Companies probably aren't going to hire non-experienced/new inspectors. (High Liability) You can look into buying into a franchise, some of the above is done for you but they too are extremely costly (13k and up, way up) and don't do much if anything for you and you'll still have to pay them a percentage of every inspection you do.

Anthony (Tony) Coscia

www.thehousedetectiveshomeinspections.com