Think Twice When Price Shopping Home Inspections
Why We Don't Believe in Cheap

The Problem

My industry of home inspecting is beset by hagglers and competitive pricing. For decades, the business model for home inspectors has been – more. The goal is always “more, more, more.” How many can you fit in a day, in a week, in a month, per quarter, each year? Were your inspection numbers up from last year, by how much? So, in order to get “more,” inspectors often undercut their competitors with “cheap” pricing for home buyers. And, Real Estate professionals and their clients have come to expect, nay demand, that home inspectors give them a “good deal.” Price shopping. Yet, I don’t see home inspectors rolling up with flashy rims, or moving in to elevated zip codes. So, perhaps this business model is broken and makes no sense?

WIN Home Inspection Cookeville has been in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee for 23 years. For most of that time, we too, played into the hen-pecking mess of competing on price. I’ve been doing this for the last 11 years and it’s always chapped my hide that I was busting said hide for pennies of what should be charged based on my care and effort. This is not an easy job when done properly.

We Decided To Do Things Differently 

The thing is, a proper and complete home inspection should go beyond the minimal standards set for home inspectors. A home inspection should be overly thorough, concise, precise, illustrative, accessible, and helpful. A home inspection, done properly, should take several hours. It simply has to in order to fully test, review, document, and sometimes suss out issues in a home; it simply has to in order to take time to converse with the client about the status of the home. After all, the report should – in total function – be able to help the home buyer/seller get a holistic perspective of the home and all its comprising components. Home inspectors can’t do that on the cheap and the cheap ones don't do that.

If, as a home buyer or seller, or Realtor, you are using a home inspector based on price, then you have your priorities in the wrong place. Unless you also always buy the cheap car, the cheap food, the cheap clothes, the cheap alcohol, you ought not pay for a home inspection on the cheap. You can, but you get what you pay for. Chances are you aren’t buying or selling a “cheap” home, at least not from your own perspective, so why would you want to sell yourself short in protecting your money?

I Am Your Home Inspection Fiduciary 

That’s what I do – I protect your money. If you are a seller who hires me for a pre-listing inspection, I help you to be well positioned to guard your asking price and limit having to acquiesce to buyers’ demands because of “unknown” deficiencies. If you are a buyer who hires me for a home inspection, I help you to be well positioned to make sure the money you are paying (well, the money you are likely borrowing and paying interest on) has a reciprocity in value. That’s what I do. Doing this is a service, it’s not just 60 pages and 40 pictures. Any monkey can write a home inspection.

All this to say, if you call us, we’ll be very glad to help you and will be sure you receive return value for what you will pay. But, we are not cheap. We take pride in our longevity, in our knowledge, in the level of service we provide our clients. We know the value of what it is we do for our clients and we charge a reasonable rate in return for our time, our expertise (in actual home inspecting – not some conflated number of years’ experience because of work in a building trade), and our effort. If you call us asking us to compete with other inspectors on price, we won’t do it. We’re happy to talk to you about it, but we won’t do it. And, we’re not sorry about it.

Our Business Model

We believe in a business model that allows us to focus on the quality of what we do, the service experience, instead of the quantity of homes.  You can get a cheap home inspection. You shouldn’t. Quality home inspectors shouldn’t offer them. If you want the service experience of an industry professional and leader, and the value that comes with that, we got you covered. And, I’ve got to say, it sure has been nice since we shifted our business model – it’s empowering to take visible and verbal pride in our business.