PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian R
Hey, Beon, welcome back to the show.

Beon DeNood
Hey, thanks, Ian. Good to be here, as always.

Ian R
So this is our “Inspection News”. And if the editing team, if you can add some cool news music right about now, that’d be great. Welcome to Inspection News. We have quite a bit to talk about today. Don’t we Beon?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, there’s actually a lot going on in the market. It seems as things are picking up, there’s just all these plans, a lot of folks have probably been working on. It’s now at the point where it’s making news. So yeah, a lot going on.

Ian R
Yeah, so we don’t want to confuse this too, with our listeners with our quarterly, you know, q1, q2, q3, etc, outlooks. This is industry news. So it has to do with what’s going on in the home inspection industry, either as a whole or even down to the nitty gritty. But I don’t even know if we can get to everything. We have everything from home sales and what they’re doing right now, two inspection software companies getting fully or partially bought out. And some pretty crazy drama that happened with that. That was like Days of Our Lives for the home inspection industry. NACHI has a new thing that came out. There’s some legislative stuff going on in certain states that are going to be both good and possibly bad for us as an industry. Launch Pad has been doing some stuff and also Citizens insurance down in Florida. So man, we have a big agenda. So you want to rip right into it Beon? What’s our first point?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, man. So I saw Nick actually pointed this out in the forums as well that we are seeing an upward trend now in our home sales indicator chart, InterNACHI keeps one, you know, on their website, but obviously it’s based on other financial charts, but it looks like we are seeing a solid uptick for the first time in a while. So that’s nice.

Ian R
Yeah, so I kind of checked that chart. And they use different metrics, like you said, they use different information. And I was comparing it to other things. And fortunately, what we kind of predicted in our q1 market outlook for this year is starting to happen. We’re almost, I say almost, where we were in April of last year. April is typically our highest peak of the year. And so it’s a month ahead. So that’s really good. We’re coming out of the nosedive. We’re not going to see like, wow, we’re double numbers over what we did last year, but we wanted to start this inspection news on something good. You know, like, sometimes the newscaster starts on, okay, here’s a bunch of people dying in this area and gunshots fired here. Like we’re gonna start off with a part about kittens and adopting puppies.

Beon DeNood
Yeah. Cuz the people dying part, that sounds like all our quarterly updates.

Ian R
Well, last year.

Beon DeNood
Right. It was horrible.

Ian R
This year’s looking pretty good. I’m pretty happy with that so far.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, now we see definitely an uptrend coming. So hopefully, our listeners are seeing that in their areas. Every area, as we always say, responds a little differently, but generally seems like we got an uptick.

Ian R
But we’ll dig more into some of those logistics and the numbers really heavily in our next quarterly update, which happens in what is that a month, Beon? So I have to remember how many months are in a year, January, February, March. Okay, April. So we’re looking at about a month or so. So let’s get into the big juicy bits. These are the ones where the Days of Our Lives stuff happened. So Carson Dunlop was completely purchased. If you don’t, if you don’t use Carson Dunlop software, this was actually a big purchase I found out because it’s Carson Dunlop, the software. Then it’s also their educational piece, which I think was one of the more attractive factors of why they were purchased from what I heard, and also included, National Property Inspections, an entire nationwide inspection company is now owned by Co-operators, and get this drumroll. They’re an insurer.

Beon DeNood
Yeah. Surprise, surprise.

Ian R
Yeah, weird. So Porch is basically an insurer. They sell homeowners insurance, Amfam, they own Home Gauge. Right. And now an insurer owns Carson Dunlop. That’s intense, man.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, that’s a lot to take in over there. I guess with with NPI, there’s a component in Canada as well the equivalent of NPI in Canada. So and I think as far as I understand, they do franchising of inspection, you know, home inspection outfits. So yeah, it’s it’s pretty interesting to see how the, these bigger organizations and, you know, Carson Dunlop, their software Horizon, it seems like they’re working on a next generation version of that as well. But it’s interesting how this component of franchising opportunities, or a network of inspection companies coupled with inspection software, of course, as you mentioned, they’ve got the education wing as well, which is pretty well known, and then the insurer or somebody looking to benefit from the data. Right? That’s always the focal point. So yeah, interesting to see how some companies are posturing themselves and coming into the industry.

Ian R
Yeah, insurance companies, man, they’re, they’re the ones who really, really want in, and we’ll get to Spectora in a minute. But I just like everybody to think about this scenario. National Property Inspections are in a lot of markets. Matter of fact, just this morning, I was doing some data for a potential SEO client. And guess who is at the top of the list for home inspectors in his area? National Property Inspections.

Beon DeNood
Really? Okay.

Ian R
Yep. So they’re all over. A buddy of mine, afterwards, I’m like, what the heck, man, he used National Property Inspections up in the Northeast. So I like, I’d like everyone to think about this. So we talked about Inspectify. And again, this is just my opinion, not necessarily the end all be all, but you know, Inspectify, they are hiring inspectors, and then they started what appears to be their own home inspection company in Texas. So then I’m like, if you’re a home inspector, and you’re working for Inspectify, and you’re funding their home inspection company that’s now in competition with you. So now, if we use Carson Dunlop software, their educational stuff or any of those other things, we’re funding their franchise, their companies in our own area. So we’re, we’re paying for them to dominate the top of the charts, so to speak. It’s a weird dynamic, really is I think.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, we’ve spoken a lot in the past, I think, I’m trying to remember exactly when this came up, but the commoditizing of the home inspection industry, and one can really see it happening, you know, we’re, I forget who actually said this, but the word stuck in my head, where your actual inspection service becomes your loss leader. And you have to build your business to be profitable around other ancillaries or services, or that was you right?

Ian R
Yeah. Yeah,

Beon DeNood
I think I was listening to a podcast somewhere. Or maybe I’m just hearing you speak in my sleep now. I don’t know.

Ian Robertson
You’re welcome.

Beon DeNood
Don’t fall asleep listening to our podcast, weird things happen. Just letting everybody know.

Ian R
My voice should not be the last thing you hear at night. No, but it really is odd. So now we’re literally paying an insurer to start a competing home inspection company in our own market, when we use their software. That is so weird. And you know, we keep talking about it. But it’s kind of like, I think about feudalism. You know, feudalism didn’t start out the way it did. It seemed like a good idea. And then all of a sudden, they’re like, oh, well, we’re going to subjugate you guys a little bit. You have to give us 20% of your crops. And they’re like, okay, now you have to give us 30%. No way, and they revolt, and then they lose, and then they’re like, we need 35%. Well, that stinks. But you already have 30. Like, okay, we need 50. You’re like well par for the course, they got used to it over time until they were completely subjugated, and had nothing and were dying. Man, it just keeps happening in our industry. We’re handing it over. And people are like, well, that doesn’t affect me or I have my day to day, well, your day to day is affected. My day to day is affected by it. Because anybody who’s out there, gobbling up the industry, and we’ll even talk about Launch Pad here in a little bit. They just had another acquisition, but I want to talk about Spectora. That was a big one. What are your thoughts on that? Well, first, what happened?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, so it appears that Spectora have, they’ve been partially acquired, we could say, so they had a major investor who injected a lot of capital into their company. I think the amount that was disclosed was $45 million. Which, just as it goes is a massive chunk of money. Obviously, they’re not you know, seeing all of that in liquid cash, but that was the sum total of the arrangement transaction, we’ll call it whatever. But yeah, that’s it’s a pretty interesting development because I mean, we’re in software. 45 mil is a, is a big amount, you know, as these things go. And yeah, they aiming with growth, you know, so I mean, that’s a big deal. I mean, it seems like that’s what the Wagstaff brothers were were looking to accomplish. You know, they did a podcast episode on it. So I, from my perspective, I guess the first thing I want to say is if that’s what the guys were looking to do, congratulations, because that’s that’s a big deal, you know, to secure a deal like that. But I guess that’s the tip of the iceberg. I don’t know how deep it goes. Yeah.

Ian R
I have mixed emotions. And you know, somebody said to me, well, you can’t fault them for selling. That’s, you know, and I don’t fault them for it. Matter of fact, I actually thought people kind of knew. I don’t know, it was weird. So anyways, it was discovered in a video of a, like a small conference that Mike Wagstaff did. And in the video, he said, oh, we had a, what is it a liquidation event or a liquidity event, liquidity event, which means all or part of your company was sold. Their company was valued at anywhere from 11 to 14 million. So in the description below, it said 45 million. I’m like, who puts $45 million into, you know, on average $12.5 million company. So I’m like, wow, that was weird. And so somebody found out about it, posted it all over. Within hours, that video was made private, so you couldn’t view it anymore. So you couldn’t see the video anymore. And I’m like, okay, that’s weird. So then I’m watching, you know, the whole sit there with some popcorn, and everybody’s posting on there. They haven’t sold, and they asked the bubble on the Spectora website, and they’re like, no, we didn’t sell. We didn’t sell. And I even like, let me ask, so I go, and I asked, and I said, did they sell? They’re like, no, they didn’t sell, and they’re still the owners, their exact words, the owners. And I said, I asked the question, I’m like, did they sell at least part of their company? She goes, I can’t answer that. Like, okay, and I took screenshots because I’m like, this is getting weirder and weirder. I’m like, I don’t think anybody would have faulted them. But then finally, I’m like, I’ll wait here, she goes, we can, we can make an announcement or something. I’m like, I’ll wait here. So finally, she messages me back, and it says appears that we’d have sold part of the company. And they are not the only owners anymore. Like that’s kind of different than what you just told me. And then they came out with a video saying, oh, it’s false. We didn’t sell, but we did. And I was confused by that video. So it was just weird. They still won’t say, they wouldn’t say who it was. But it was Radian Capital, we found out because it’s on their website. So there’s the drama of it. I liked the Wagstaffs a lot. I think they’re great guys. I think they have good motives. And I think they built great software. But that was weird. That was a weird situation. They represent such a big part of the industry. I mean, their software is bigger than ours. That’s part of it. So it’s, I don’t know, apparently this happened last year. It’s like, all right, well, you could have just said something, I don’t think, because nobody was really mad at them for selling part of their company. But people were hopping mad about like, well, why didn’t you just tell us? But I don’t know. What was your take on it? I’m just, I’m just going over the whole drama aspect because it was entertaining.

Beon DeNood
How it unfolded. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, obviously, whenever any company is involved in a transaction like this, it’s a delicate matter. And depending on who’s investing, sometimes you’re bound by confidentiality clauses, you know, until you’re actually revealed, you know, so I guess we don’t really know all the inner workings and things. But there is a PR aspect to these things, right, especially in our market, I think because home inspectors have been really tussled around a lot by this topic, right? Like they’ve got, they fully invested in software, and the software sells the new owners, you know, have sort of interests of their own. And there’s, there’s, you know, blowback, I mean, think of everything that happened with ISN, ironically, and this isn’t the same event. But if you think of the rise of Spectora, they rose meteorically, we could say, and what was that around 2017, 2018, when ISN was sold to Porch, and that was really the first big transaction, you know, like that in our industry, the first of many more to follow. But the the blowback for that was was huge. And that’s where Spectora picked up 1000s of users flocking from ISN over onto the platform. So I think the Wagstaff brothers are well aware of the dynamics in the industry and how sensitive you know, this topic is, and like, who’s the new owner, what are their, you know, interests, what’s going to happen to my data, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I think in business, we make decisions every day, especially around posturing ourselves as a company and the messages how we want to represent ourselves, how our users or client base understands us as a company. And, you know, it’s hard to always make the right decision, you know, but I certainly don’t know all the ins and outs of the situation. But yeah, it seems like there’s been some blowback for, unfortunately. But from their perspective, if you think about a company who has had an injection of that amount of capital, being that we are in the software field, that’s a significant amount of cash, you know, you’re looking to build something pretty big. And it looks like that’s what they have their sights set on. And to diversify more into products aimed at, I think the, the posts that we were looking at, was at, I think, on their LinkedIn page, where it sort of identifies their direction that they’re, they’re looking to go, you know, diversifying with more products for real estate agents, contractors, others in the real estate, so expanding into the broader real estate space with their software solutions. So it’ll be interesting to see how it how it pans out, you know, scaling for any company is, is a is a challenge, right. And, and for a software company, especially, I think there’s a lot of unique challenges involved, because you want to expand but still offer a good product, especially to your core user base that, you know, got you running that is your core main product. And it sometimes it’s hard to do that when you’re scaling out, you know, to other products to you know, scale everything proportionately. But I guess time will tell. But yeah, the messaging, I don’t know, maybe there was a few things that that could have made it run a little smoother, I think.

Ian R
Yeah. And again, I don’t know all the factors. I actually didn’t think about what you just mentioned about, there may be a confidentiality agreement, they may not be allowed to say who it is, although you found it. And if you look on Radian Capital’s website, and maybe it’s changed after we say this, or I don’t know, kind of like the video went down, I’m not sure. But on their LinkedIn page and the Radian Capital page, that’s exactly what they were saying, is they’re expanding outside of the home inspection industry, going into real estate and home service industry. So they’re expanding outside of the inspection industry, which, you know, for a software company, that’s, you know, a niche is great, but it’s it’s also limiting on their capital. So I imagine any investor is going to want them to go outside of the inspection industry. So I guess time will tell. Again, I still love the Wagstaffs, I think they’re great guys. They’ve been part of the industry. But it is kind of interesting, it kind of hit me when you said, it was what 2017 I think you said, when Spectora kind of came to the rise when ISN sold?

Beon DeNood
I think so.

Ian R
Yeah, I remember talking to Kevin. And they went from like, 100, 200 users all of a sudden to like, 2000 within that year afterwards. And he’s like, this is insane. I’m like, whoa, good for you guys.

Beon DeNood
Yeah.

Ian R
So I mean, it’s not been a very long time, since our industry has been getting bought out in large chunks. It really isn’t. And it amazes me how quickly we went from pitchforks to being okay with it. How quickly we went from, we’re independent operators to our industry being owned by insurance companies and others.

Beon DeNood
Yeah. And I think part of it is, you know, one doesn’t maybe willingly do it. But maybe the question is like, well, what else do I do? You know, I am fully vested in the software, I have to keep paying for it. Because you know, I’ve been doing it for however long or I have all these features. I have to, if you’re a multi inspector, it’s not just me that has to switchover, I got my five guys, my 10 guys, my 20 guys that all need to learn something, I mean, that that costs something, right. But yeah, you know, so maybe it’s not so much a willingness to embrace these things, but maybe some of the folks out there feel feel kind of frustrated, like, man, I don’t like this, and I want to do something a bit different, but I feel kind of kind of stuck. What do I do? You know.

Ian R
Yeah, and I mean, switching software and switching platforms of our business is not easy. But it’s something that we should really all think about. Because, you know, do we build a business so that we can get by for the next three or four years? Or do we build a business so that we can give it to our children and grow it and be able to retire and sell it eventually? Because all of those things are starting to disappear, all of those options are starting to disappear as big business comes in, and I’m going to skip ahead because it really to point number five on our agenda here, because it really applies to this. So Launchpad acquired another home inspection company. It was, it was announced. Boy, Beon, do you have the name of the company that they purchased there in front of you?

Beon DeNood
AJF Inspections, I think out of Arizona. Yeah.

Ian R
Yeah. AJF Inspections. That’s it. So there’s another inspection company bought by Launchpad. Interestingly enough, there was an article where me and the CEO of Launchpad, were both cited in it. And I actually thought it was Working RE Magazine, I really encourage everybody to read it. It’s a great magazine, I get the paper copy and the electronic copy. And I didn’t even know what the article was about. They just asked me hey, can you contribute? I contributed quite a bit to them. They asked me some questions. And it was basically about the consolidation of our industry. And I pointed out how bad it was ultimately, and how it has already hurt us as individuals and as a whole. And the CEO of Launchpad was interviewed, which I didn’t know, until I saw the article, and he was saying how awesome it is for the industry, in his opinion. So I guess he didn’t like my comments. And he’s a nice guy. I’m not saying, he was actually super respectful. But he’s like, hey, can we set up an appointment, I saw your opposite side of this article. And I’d like to talk it out. Nice guy. And I think they have a good mission statement. But um, they’re ultimately, as he said, they’re ultimately built to flip. So there’s some terms that he used, and I’m like, okay, how long is that going to take? So he’s like, yeah, we’re looking for an exit in X amount of years. I don’t want to divulge a lot of information. But that’s, that’s what these companies do, they build up. And then they sell, that that’s ultimately their goal. So my concern maybe isn’t necessarily with Launchpad at the moment. But Launchpad type companies after they sell, who do they sell it to? And, you know, people can say things like, oh, we’re going to sell it with people who have an alignment of goals, and this and that. Companies change hands all the time, leadership changes within companies, you know, if a big company owns home inspection companies, all throughout every market and all of a sudden decides to consolidate, drop prices, and dominate, what’s going to stop them?

Beon DeNood
Right. Right. Yeah, you don’t always have the luxury of, of, you know, making a morally sound decision, you know, what’s better for the industry. It’s like, you know, if big companies, like you said, big companies offering whatever amount. And that’s the goal, you know, yeah, sure, it kind of go ahead. So from from a business point of view, it makes perfect sense to build up something that you know, is of excelling value, and be able to sell, I mean, even as a, probably an individual operator, home inspector, that’d be great, right? You build up your business for 20 years, or however long and make it a sellable entity, and you can sell it and retire or do something else, or whatever. I mean, from a business point of view, that makes sense. But if you know, I guess what, how you could look at it is, is all these acquisitions, even though we it may seem like it’s been a lot, up to now, it’s really the start of a snowball effect, because with each step, the industry gets more and more consolidated, you know, as the buckets get bigger, and those ones get acquired even further, in in 10, 15 years time. You may be looking at a very consolidated industry, if you say, you know, guys like Amfam or Porch, and bear in mind that both those two companies are relatively small, Well Amfam’s not small, I think Amfam’s number seven in the nation.

Ian R
Yeah, they’re huge.

Beon DeNood
As far as insurance providers, but there are bigger fish out there is my point. We could even have a completely new player come in and buy whatever else is still not acquired, you know, and then some. So further consolidation of industry is definitely possible. And that leads, again, to the topic of commoditizing inspections, because your price’s are now pretty much determined by larger entities in the market, you can’t go very far beyond those. And that means that your role as a home inspector, your job, what it means to be a home inspector, that effectively is going to change a lot from what it is today.

Ian R
You know, and I am a home inspector. So I get a little bit of emotion going when we talk about this stuff, because my industry, the industry that I’ve been in for nearly 20 years, coming up on 20 years now is nearly completely unrecognizable from what it was even just 10 years ago, from seven, eight years ago. And it’s changing rapidly. And everybody tries to convince us that it’s the best thing ever. Just like McDonald’s tries to convince us that a Big Mac is the best thing ever because we can get our food quickly. And then afterwards, you can get your gastric bypass when you’re 700 pounds. If you been listening to the podcast, I’ve been referencing My 600 Pound Life a lot. I am obsessed with that show. But you know we talk about, it’s like David versus Goliath, but now we have like five Goliaths. Everybody gets angry at Porch because they were the first one. But we’re letting all these other Goliaths in. Porch and well, Amfam was really first. Porch, Amfam, Inspectify, Launchpad. Now Co-operators and then whoever bought out part of Spectora. That was six Goliaths. But now we can’t complain about the Goliath when we invite them into our city and we give them a big feast and a nice massage, sharpen up a sword for him and then send them back out into the battlefield to slaughter us. You know, eventually, again, this is my emotional soapbox speech of eventually, we just gotta say, this has to stop, instead of just worrying about what our next inspection is. We have to stop and say, okay, well, this might get me by today, but what’s gonna get me by in a year, am I going to be out of business in five years, in 10 years because the markets consolidated. We can still do a lot to help our market, we’ve been doing a lot. So I don’t want to sound like we’ve been doing nothing. The industry as a whole, we’ve been pushing back, there’s a reason why the market hasn’t consolidated yet. Inspectify couldn’t force people to do their 200 and some odd dollar inspections because we pushed back. There’s companies that won’t sell out to some of these big, these big companies that buy smaller inspection companies, because they’re like, this is for my family. This is, this is my future. The more we do that, the better. And we get, to be perfectly frank, we get a lot of users leaving these inspection companies saying, we don’t like the morals of that company, we’re coming over. And then they learn, then they learn the app, and they’re, they’re on board. But that’s, these are things that we do. We stop our day and say, okay, I don’t want to do a $300 inspection, I want to do a $700 inspection. How do I get my business there? And that takes a couple of effort steps. But anyways, there’s my soapbox speech. We have a couple of other, a couple of other points, I get so emotional with that stuff. And I say my industry, but I love, I love my industry. I love our industry.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, I think your voice represents the sentiment of a lot of guys out there. You know, and a lot of folks who would like to do something different. But I think especially in the few years that we’ve been through, if you’ve been hurting, and there’s a bigger outfit in town, and they’re hiring, and you can collect a paycheck, as opposed to, you know, be struggling for a hit and miss stuff, you know which one you’re gonna end up feeling you have to choose, you know, but yeah, we can in a lot of ways, I guess, take a side in the industry, even if, if you’re limited with options right now. Look for ways that as things develop for something where you can, you can take a stand, and you know, it’ll probably all run full circle. You know, consolidation leads to a lot of issues, like you think of all the Ace Hardware, it’s right around the country and do it best. And all the little small places when Home Depot and Lowe’s and all these things moved in, right. Total nosedive, but then after some years, you saw a resurgence and some more like opening up again, you know, because people are tired of the big box kind of kind of situation with a lot of things. I know especially contractors, you know, you’re not going to buy lumber at Lowe’s and Home Depot. I mean, come on. So yeah, we will have to wait and see how the full circle looks on that, you know, but once you commoditize an industry, you’re only getting a McDonald’s burger, and everybody’s gonna get tired of eating a McDonald’s burger. So they’re gonna look for something else. And that’ll create opportunity in the industry once again.

Ian R
We have a, we have a great podcast coming up here in a, I don’t know, a week or two, talking about going boutique, and how that’s going to help us really get ahead instead of competing with these guys. How we can just be awesomer and be boutique and how that business model not only survives, but thrives compared to places like Home Depot, like none of my contractors that I use, buy anything at Home Depot unless they have to. They all go to these smaller lumber yards, so I think that’s a great analogy. But some other, some other news that happened, InterNACHI’s new warranty plan came out. So they’re offering a, basically a home inspection warranty plan. And I was reading on it, sounds like it’s about $22-$3,000 per inspection. Right?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, I think that’s the overall payout limit. I think the individual payouts are like, so like whether it was 1500 for mold, 1500 for roof. And it’s, we should point out it’s a 90 day to 100, is it 90 to 120? I’m not sure what counts for the difference of the extra 30 days there, but…

Ian R
I think it, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s 90, but you could be right because there were some aspects that changed. Like Nick threw out another number of $3,000 too, I think that was one of their new limits, like he was changing it as it as it was happening, and we put that in inspection news because you know, it’s kind of interesting. We haven’t had one that’s really been big since RWS, everybody used RWS. And then that seemed to take a pretty big nosedive after Porch acquired it. A lot of people, a lot of guys, a lot of my clients complained about it. I didn’t see any of that personally. But, um, you know it’s news, because it’s something that Nick’s been working on, Nick Gromicko has been working on for a long time. What are your thoughts on the program?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, it looks pretty interesting. I mean, 20 bucks for a 90 day warranty. I know, some of the chatter just on the forum. Some of the guys were feeling like, you know, what, what, what am I getting out of it, other than offering more value to the client and 20 bucks for you know, max three grand payout or a 1500 individual payout at 90 days. The guy’s, I mean, we know the audience, right? We know how everybody feels about warranties, there’s the guys that offer them and the guys who are like, totally against offering it.

Ian R
Yeah.

Beon DeNood
But for 20 bucks a warranty as a company offering because it’s, I believe, it’s EliteMGA who’s offering it, the same guys who did the, you know, insurance for InterNACHI. But I mean, 20 bucks for a 90 day warranty, I mean, you gotta process mega volume to make that worth the squeeze. Right. So and what’s interesting is a lot of other companies like even RWS, they use the 90 day warranties as a loss leader, to be able to sell their other warranties, you know. So it’ll be interesting to see, I don’t think we’ve seen the last reveal from InterNACHI, and EliteMGA on that product, there’s probably going to be some, some more products being released in the warranty space, because it’s a lot, they’ve definitely gone through a lot of work of crafting this program. So it’ll be interesting to see what else gets, other products get tacked on, to make this a worthwhile program for them.

Ian R
So do you think that home warranty is, is a loss leader, then ultimately?

Beon DeNood
Well, I mean, I don’t know how 20 bucks, I don’t know, if you could even pay the staff who were gonna process the warranty application, they probably going to pay more than more than 20 bucks to even just do that. So I could be wrong. But in my uneducated calculation, it does feel a lot like a loss leader at 20 bucks for a, for a warranty.

Ian R
Well, and you and I have experienced that. I mean, there’s been a lot of warranty companies that have come to us and said, hey, we’d love to integrate, love to do this. And it’s never really panned out, because it always has. I mean, it’s just always got to catch that I don’t feel right about, you know, it’s always like, oh, and then afterwards, they’re gonna get 37 phone calls, or now we have their data, and we’re gonna redistribute it. It’s like, yeah no, that’s icky man. So it does, I’m not saying that that’s what they’re gonna do. But it is a trend in the industry, because that’s where the money’s at.

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian R
It seems with a lot of these warranty companies.

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian R
And one of the reasons we haven’t really done anything with a warranty company. I did think it was interesting that they said on their FAQ, under the warranty thing that, and you know, I like Nick, and I trust Nick, he’s been on the show. I think he wants to come on the show and actually talk about this warranty program, and I’ll ask him some of this stuff. But I just completely lost my point. But I just wanted to say I do. I do think Nick’s a, Nick’s a good guy when it when it comes to this, and he cares about home inspectors. But they did say they weren’t integrating with any software, which I thought was interesting. Like why, I figured they would want to integrate, because now it automates data, instead of forcing, you know, unautomated data entry, you know, you get less reliable information when you force somebody to type out an address and a name. And then it could be inaccurate, inaccuracies slip in, and all sorts of weird stuff.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, some of the guys actually responded to that, which I thought was interesting, not integrating with software, all that work. I’m not doing all that work, you know. And to them that was a non starter for that reason. But it does look like they’re non integration stance. They’re leading with we’re not selling your data, this that and the other, you know, data privacy, clients privacy is paramount to us. I thought it is interesting. Again, I don’t want to you know, bash the program or anything like that. I’m sure they have the best interests of the industry at heart. But it was kind of funny to be hearing from a warranty program, that we’re protecting your clients. We’re not integrating with software. Because it’s usually, it’s the other way around. Right? Because yeah, it’s the software that’s like, we’re not selling your data to all these other guys. Now, the warranty companies, they are the other guys don’t worry, we’re not. So I had to smile at that one a little bit, but I get why they’re doing it because the privacy, the data privacy issue, is a big issue as to why why a lot of guys haven’t bought into these programs.

Ian R
Yeah, there’s a lot of questions on it, and we’re not trying to be negative nellies here. And just, that’s a really old term that I just used. Well, dagnabbit, y’all, we’re not trying to be negative about anything here, we just tend to be very cautious about stuff. You know, okay, here’s a great idea. But what are the, what are the ins and outs? And we tend to pick it, pick it apart, and do research and say, you know, how’s this person connected to that person? And how does this piece fit in?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, and I think on all these topics, it’s not like we have a conclusion even ourselves. Like, it’s more just like, these are questions. You know, I mean, you’ve been in industry a long time, I’ve been around long enough to start understanding all these things. Here’s some questions just to think about before you jump in with both feet, if everything checks out, then great, you know, but, you know, ask the questions. And these are some good questions to ask with all these topics.

Ian R
Yeah, no, exactly. I think that’s well said, Beon. We have two more quick points here from inspection news, everybody’s been kind of watching Massachusetts, they had that new mandatory home inspection contingency, not mandatory home inspections, but a mandatory home inspection contingency and contract. So big difference. Mandatory home inspection means the buyer has to have a home inspection, I still think that’s bad for our industry, because then it turns into, okay, I just need to get this done. And it turns into just getting a guy, any guy instead of hiring the best. So I don’t think mandatory inspections is good for industry, I think that is the wrong way to get, the right way to get to commoditization, which is bad. But that’s, we’ll leave that for another time. But contingency is now people can’t scratch that out of the contract, hypothetically, if this law passes, it’s progressing really well. And there’s still other states discussing something very similar. Because states are starting to lose money, with people getting in houses and not being able to afford to fix them up. And, you know, there’s not a whole lot of repossessed homes at the moment. But that can happen very quickly. It’s causing other problems with properties, properties losing value, affecting tax income for the towns and stuff like that, and all sorts of things which affects the state. So Massachusetts wants to make it mandatory, that the buyer can get a home inspection, and they can’t scratch it out of the contract. So that’s good for our industry. I think that’s a good law. I still think people find a way around it. Like they’ll just say under the table, hey, we won’t get it. Don’t worry, you know, or they’ll find some other way to get out of it. But that’s good.

Beon DeNood
That is that is good to hear. I tried to look for, you know, other pending legislation in other states, but I don’t think anything’s been entered officially yet for them, but maybe just chatter.

Ian R
No, it’s just chatter. Yeah, there’s nothing official in other states just yet. But typically, states like Massachusetts, New York, and a couple of others, when they pass legislation, certain other states will, will follow through, and then it kind of snowballs. Yeah. So I mean, this is going to be a big long thing. By the way, something we didn’t put on the agenda is what’s going on with the NAR settlement, we’ll have to update everybody on that soon once we have a new update, because there really isn’t much to really talk about. But our last thing is Citizens, if you’re a Florida home inspector, Citizens is getting weird again. And we can’t confirm a lot of it. A lot of it is hearsay, but I say hearsay, it’s in the news. But like Citizens isn’t commenting on it. And they’re only reporting what people are saying. So I don’t feel comfortable saying, oh, yeah, this is what’s happening. But it looks like people are claiming that they’re sending out just contractors or whoever, you know, not licensed home inspectors out to do wind mitigation inspections, and, and things like that. And they’re basically causing issues, like Citizens wants out anyways, they don’t, they’re not really happy doing what they’re doing. They want outs anyways. And I guess they’re getting some outs, and some people are starting to create legal trouble for Citizens because they’re like, you can’t just send some weirdo to my house when I’m not home, take a bunch of pictures, and then tell me my insurance is denied, and I could lose my house. You know, so just keep an eye on that Florida home inspectors. If you have any deeper information on it, we’d love to hear it. We try to work on just solid information that we can verify. And if we can’t verify, we’ll let you know. So please, if you have some solid information, we’d love to hear it.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, interesting. I’m gonna use your favorite word anecdotally, anecdotally because I read it on a Nextdoor now. Okay, next door is my absolute worst social network ever. But I do, I do keep it on my phone just in case something explodes in the neighborhood. And you know, I want to see what people are talking about.

Ian R
I’m going to call a Karen roundtable. That’s a new name of Nextdoor, there’s a new brand.

Beon DeNood
So but yeah, interesting. A frequent complaint here in Florida neighborhoods are, you know, somebody’s camera has picked up somebody showing up at their door, ID card kind of, you know, loosely, you know, attached somewhere, and they just do the walk around on the home and next thing, boom, home insurance premium is like crazy high. And they’ve called out stuff that isn’t even valid. So yeah, it is a developing situation. It’s real.

Ian R
Okay, so that is interesting. That is literally, because you’re in Florida. And so it’s literally happening in your neighborhood, I did know that. So that’s, that adds validity to what we’re seeing in the news. But again, it is anecdotal at the moment. So but again, if anybody has any deeper information, we’d love to hear it. But we could, we could cue some of that Inspection News music, but Beon, thank you so much for being on the show. Always great to have you. You’re the other half of ITB so thank you very much. And the beard’s coming in great. Looking good.

Beon DeNood
Likewise, man, thanks a lot, it was a lot of fun. Take care.

Ian R
Thanks, you too. Bye.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.