PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson
Beon, how are you.

Beon DeNood
Good. How are you, Ian?

Ian Robertson
Not bad. You know, it’s kind of weird. Every time we hop on the podcast, I have to, like re-say hello to you, like we weren’t just talking before the podcast.

Beon DeNood
Hey, how’s it going? Uh, yep, pretty, pretty good. We were just talking a minute ago.

Ian Robertson
Or act excited that, like, we haven’t talked like five times a day for the past five years. You know?

Ian Robertson
Aww, well, I’m excited to talk to you too, Beon, but a lot of the reason is, this is episode one of season five. That’s a big deal.

Beon DeNood
I know, right? Well, you know, I generally still get excited to talk to you. It’s usually about something interesting or crazy or, you know, so.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, five years. Can you believe it? Yeah, that’s quite something.

Ian Robertson
Five seasons, this will be our fifth season. I forget how many episodes, and I’m just amazed that our audience keeps growing, like how much more of the inspection industry is going to listen to us. And I say it every year. I said it last year. I’m like, it’s weird when I call people, and there’s been times where I’ve heard my own voice as they turn me down to talk to me on the phone. That’s weird.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, no, it’s been a great ride. I think when we started this off, we just, you know, very humbly, we weren’t sure where it was gonna go, and to be, I think, in many circles, to be considered one of the leading industry voices here with this podcast, that’s an achievement we’re very proud of. And I mean, kudos to you for all the hard work you put in. You carry the bulk of it all the time, and to our listeners, I mean, we have a really loyal following in you guys. You like to hear our crazy stuff for some other reason. So as long as you do, we’ll keep it coming, I guess.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, no, our audience is the best. We get lots of recommendations, requests, ideas. I don’t ever have to go looking for guests, because guys just contact me. Hey, I had this idea, and I’m like, cool, let’s do it. Hop on. Let’s talk about it. It really makes for a great podcast. And we try to bring in each episode an actionable item, so that you guys, when you’re listening, you walk away with something. I walk away with things from these, from especially from our guests, primarily from our guests. I’m like, wow, I didn’t think about that before I’m going to start applying that, and it’s just, it’s just a beautiful thing.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, that’s a good that’s a good point, because I think we’re more dialed into the industry, to home inspectors, their needs, what they thinking, the methods, the everything, because of the podcast, because being able to be connected with somebody else in the industry every week, almost. So, yeah, yeah.

Ian Robertson
You know, I wish this kind of stuff was around when I had started out, because we were very segmented. You know, 15, 20, years ago, when when home inspectors were like, don’t talk to the competition. And there was no forums and groups. I mean, there were, but nobody really did anything. Yeah, now it’s just like, man, I wish somebody had told me, okay, don’t do this and do that. That would have saved me months, in some cases, years, of doing things the wrong way.

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian Robertson
So this season, we’re going to talk about a lot of stuff. This episode is the Q1 market outlook for 2025 but, um, we’ve had some requests of different types of episodes. We’re going to have some report writing episodes. So I did two of those last season, towards the end of the season, and man, I had requests poured in, and so I’m like, okay, wow. So I have a big, eight hour report writing course that I used to do when attorneys got involved with and helped me develop, and other home inspectors helped me develop. And we have some other guests coming on to talk about some things, and we just have a lot of really cool stuff to to put out there about report writing this season. But also we have some guests coming on that are going to talk about winter, and spring is always when we think about business growth. So we’re gonna, they’re gonna talk about, okay, what can we do this year? And there’s a couple that have some really innovative ideas that I’m really looking forward to hearing personally, but really looking forward to season five. Hopefully we can have you on a bunch of times too, Beon, because I love our inspection news segments. I love our quarterly outlooks. And then whenever we can have you on just to talk about a particular subject, it’s always great.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, always happy to be here, anytime.

Ian Robertson
So actually, before we get into our Q1 market outlook, I actually have a bit of inspection news, and I had to look this up. A home inspector posted on one of the Facebook groups that Rhode Island came out with a new law. And I looked it up and actually verified that it’s a law in Rhode Island, which is, by the way, about the same size as Jacksonville, Florida. So now let’s not all go out there. You can look that up to Jacksonville, Florida is a little bit smaller, but just about the same size, often used comparatively Disney World, from what I understand, you can check my facts on this, because I actually don’t know. I just heard it said, is bigger than than Rhode Island, in Orlando.

Beon DeNood
I believe it, takes a while to drive through it.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, so don’t go screaming to the hills, small little Rhode Island. But they came out with a law that says a home inspector or anybody else who is not a licensed electrician cannot take the electric panel off or use any testing equipment, including voltage detectors, our little no contact voltage pens, nothing. So they effectively removed the electric panel out of the inspection. It’s kind of a big deal. Wow, that’s quite something.

Beon DeNood
It’s interesting that you said that because Rhode Island, years ago, I worked for for power utility company and Rhode Island, that was interesting because there was state legislation there too, that had a lot of requirements for safety regulations on the on the poles, on utility poles that did not exist in other states. So even though they’re a, you know, smaller state by area and population, it seems like as far as regulation concerned, interestingly, also in the electrical, you know, division or category, they’ve had quite stringent laws, and they also relating to safety, you know. So that’s interesting.

Ian Robertson
I guess it’s easier to pass laws like that when you have this tiny little, it’s basically like running a city. It’s not, not even, it’s not really population dense either. But anyways, that’s not anything I think we have to worry about anytime soon in the rest of the lower 40, lower 48 in the other states, I don’t know what we’re talking about, Canada or anywhere else. It’s just happening in Rhode Island. Folks, I don’t know, I don’t know what they’re doing over in Rhode Island. I also don’t know geography, so that’s great. But Q1 market outlook, there’s a lot going on. So last year, we hit the nail pretty well on the head with our predictions last year. And then we really wanted to see, you know, election season, when that ends, no matter who wins. Interestingly, I’m gonna actually reference this guy quite a bit. He’s the chief economist for National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, I believe his name is. He actually talked about that. He’s like, no matter what the outcome of an election is, it always boosts the real estate market historically, pretty much every single time. So we were waiting to see how that turned out, and well, we got some interesting stuff ahead of us. Do you have any do you have any opinions you want to throw out there before I start my rambling and ranting?

Beon DeNood
No, yeah, you ramble and rant all the way. I have some, you know, thoughts I’ve been reading, but I’ll just sort of dovetail them in wherever I think it’s appropriate.

Ian Robertson
Okay, cool, so we’ll just, I’ll just get into my rant then. So remember how we were talking about our last few we mentioned it on our 2025, market outlook last year when we were trying to predict what was going on this year, one of the things we talked about was that people need to get used to higher interest rates, and that takes time. We were used to 3, 4, 5, percent interest rates for years, better part of a decade, I think. And so when people get used to that, it takes years to get them not used to that. And one of the things this article in MarketWatch actually talked about it, are that people are starting to get used to the higher mortgage rates. So that’s one of the things we were waiting for, is for this imaginary thing going on in everybody’s head, societally, whatever of saying, okay, this is the new norm. It’s kind of like dipping your feet into a pool and it’s really cold and stinks for a minute, but then once you work yourself in now you’re used to the temperature. This is the new mortgage temperature. That’s actually going in our favor. MarketWatch is good for a lot of things. I trust them on a lot of their data that they put out. I do try to verify as much of it as possible. I do think they do tend to be a little bit more optimistic, because that’s what their readers want. But even if you take half of the optimism that they’re putting out there, I actually think 2025 is going to be a pretty decent year. It’s not going to be like 2021 and 2022 which were just like insane, it’s going to be a lot, not a lot better. Enough better that I think we’d notice.

Beon DeNood
Right. Yeah. I think, generally, I agree with that sentiment from what I’ve been reading. And interestingly, when you look at any other articles that have been published about market outlook for the year, there’s a lot of conversation about inventory. There’s a lot of conversation about home value and how that, you know, we’ll see some fluctuation, and also depending on the market, you know, where in the country, but there’s very little conversation about high interest rates. And I think, to what you just said, people are just come to the fact that, well, the interest rates are gonna, they’re high, and they’re gonna stay high, relatively speaking. But, yeah, it doesn’t seem like, I think a lot of people were waiting for relief. You know that we may be expecting by this time that interest rates would be going down, but the economy is sending all kinds of signals that there, there is no way that those, those rates will be going down anytime soon. So yeah, folks are, folks are just pretty much settling. Inventory, well, I did mention inventory. You probably have some comments on that too. But it does seem like new construction is actually the volume has increased quite a bit, so it looks like 2025 we should see, I think the percentage point was 10 to 15% more inventory is the prediction in 2025 than what was in 2024 and as far as home value increasing, in some of the hot markets, it looks like the prediction is that it’s going to be coming dialing back a little bit. One of the markets, I think of is Austin. Austin’s been like, crazy hot for like, a couple of years. Looks like that’s going to be easing back a little bit. And then, you know, others will still continue to grow marginally, but not by the numbers that we’ve seen over the last few years. So it seems like all of that should result to what you said from 2024 we’re not going down, but we’re not leaping up either, but we’ll probably see a steady increase in volume overall, generally across the US.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I agree with that. I do think there are projections of the volume of new construction homes is a little high, in my opinion. I just want to go back real quick. I got to thank George Karampoulis for sending me that thing about Rhode Island earlier. I meant to thank him for that, George, I know you’re listening. Thanks, buddy. But when it comes to that new construction, remember, we’re talking about these figures about real estate, because that’s what we do. We’re home inspectors, and it’s very directly related to how many homes get sold. But now, to go along with what you said, Beon, Lawrence Yun, the chief economist there of NAR, said existing home sales in 2025, they expect them to rise 9% year over year. That’s pretty decent, but it says new home sales will jump by 11%.

Beon DeNood
Okay.

Ian Robertson
So that’s not always typical, typically, because there’s a lot more used homes, for lack of a better term, than there are new homes. Usually it’s the other way around. And that, I think, has to do with everybody still hanging on to those three and 4% mortgages, even the equity people have in their house from just a half a decade. I forget one of the figures. I think it was like $145,000 is the equity that the average homeowner is up from that time period. Well, I mean, think about it. You buy a $300,000 home in 2019, and all of a sudden they’re like, hey, your $300,000 home is now worth 550 right? It’s like, okay, yeah, so they have equity.

Beon DeNood
Right. And sell it, and then where do you go.

Ian Robertson
Well, and that’s the thing, the market differentials, yeah, what people are doing is they’re selling those high value homes, and they’re moving into low value areas, and even at a higher, higher interest rate.

Beon DeNood
They make out.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, they make out, and they have better equity. And then they’re like, okay, in 10 years, when interest rates are down, I’ll refinance, which I think they they’re gonna have to wait eight to 10 years for that, right? But, um, it depends on how liquid your life can be, not with finances. But, I mean, can you move out of Austin?

Beon DeNood
Just up and move? Yeah, right.

Ian Robertson
Can you just up and move? Yeah. So I think most people aren’t in that position, even though they have all this equity. I think they’re stuck in the spot that you just mentioned. What you know, like, where am I gonna go? I want to stay in the neighborhood, stay in the same school district, right? Be with my friends, right?

Beon DeNood
Yeah. I was actually reading another article a couple of months, maybe a month ago, and it was actually about boomers who are now retiring that initially had plans to retire and move away from where they were, but they’re now retiring in place. Because, you know, they have a home that’s already a decent size. It’s set up normally the way that they like it in an area where they know everybody, and they’re familiar with the area, and financially, it just makes sense now, and especially with inventory, it makes sense for them just to settle in place, you know. So that is an interesting phenomenon where you know you’re not seeing this migration down south that you would usually from folks who are retirement age. It was focused on boomers. But I thought that was an interesting dynamic as well.

Ian Robertson
Well, and that goes along with what we’ve talked about before, the gray wave. That’s what everybody was hoping for, all these boomers selling their houses. And it didn’t happen, not that he’s a boomer, but one of my neighbors, he’s in his 80s, and he’s still in his house. Yeah, he’s living longer, he’s healthier. They have medications, and he just keeps going, super nice guy, but I told him, I’m like, hey, you know, sometimes I’ll do his driveway for him when the snow and stuff, and I’ll be like, hey, if you ever sell, and he goes, yeah, yeah, totally, you’ll be the first to know. He’s, he’s in his 80s, and he’s, he’s still going, that’s, that’s what I say, unfortunately, good, great for him. He’s a super nice guy, but unfortunately for us as an industry, we would love to see that gray wave, if that gray wave happened. This is what would, this is what would be the sequence of events. All these houses go on the market. They’d all be overvalued. They’d all stagnate on the market. Then they would, then they would drop the prices. Then the sole prices would be lower. Now the valuations of homes would be lower, and new houses on the market would be lower. Interest rates would increase. Our interest rates would go down, and mortgage, mortgage applications would increase. And then we’d have this flood of homes to inspect, and it would be a semi buyers market. So then buyers markets the best, because then now not only do you have the buyers home inspection, but you have less waived inspections, and you have pre listing inspections because the sellers want to make their house look more appealing in a buyer’s market. Now, we don’t, I mean, just, just eight, nine years ago, we were doing tons of pre-listings. Now it’s almost never. So not only do you increase the standard buyer home inspection market, but you increase another 30% on top of that, it just, I wish the gray wave would happen, but I really don’t think it’s something we can hang our hat on. Do you?

Beon DeNood
Yeah, no, I don’t think so. What’s interesting too, is, in recent years, we’ve seen, whenever you see those top cities to retire in, in the United States, you know, those lists, they’ve been changing very interestingly, because the typically, it’s been mainly sunny states, you know, states down south, good weather, or in the Midwest, or somewhere like that. But the names have started including lists of cities that are increasingly more northern, northern cities. So folks are making peace with with the weather factor and saying, you know what, I can still live relatively reasonable cost of living. You know, good health care. Health care in the southern, I don’t know about the rest of the United States, but here in the southern region of the United States, is overwhelmed because of the previous exodus. You know, just it’s hard to get services. One of our friends, they’re elderly, and we’re looking to get an appointment, just a regular doctor. Their doctor’s retiring, and they were looking to get a regular doctor. It was, it was six months out for the first appointment, you know. So for a lot of reasons like that, I guess folks are looking now at more northern cities, or as I said before, just to kind of stay in place. So those dynamics have changed. And, yeah, that, like you said, what you’re calling the gray wave, it’s, it’s kind of dissipated. It’s more of a gray swell, not a wave anymore.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, just going back to talking about those predictions and excluding the gray wave, because I do think you’re right. I do think there’s an advantage for northern parts of the US and in Canada too, because, you know what? Is it snowy and cold up here, yeah, but it’s also amazing for seven, or eight months out of the year, and the cold is really not that bad, and it’s, you know, more affordable housing and good services and stuff like that. But, you know, there’s advantages and disadvantages. But you go down to southern Texas, man. I mean, they’re talking, they’re giving projections of how long you can live in Texas and Phoenix and stuff like that, before it’s not habitable because of all sorts of different things. You know, Florida. I mean, I haven’t had a hurricane up here in northern New York.

Beon DeNood
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
But that’s, that’s a side point. Interestingly, though, if we’re thinking about what we should focus on for our home inspection business, here’s my opinion, 2025 I think we should focus on new construction. Beon’s numbers point to that, the numbers by the new home sales are estimated to jump by 11% and here’s why for this year, because in 2026 they’re estimating the numbers flip, 13% sales would go to existing homes, used homes, ie, and then 8% would be new construction.

Beon DeNood
Interesting. Okay.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. So this year is going to be the year of, if you can get in, and as really as regional, if you can get in on the new construction, that’s going to be a better money maker, in my opinion, Texas guys, listen, you guys are already in, you guys are, it’s just understood in Texas and certain parts of the country, you have, you know, you have a phase one inspection, and then you have the new construction, the final inspection, all that other stuff. Here in my part in New York, nobody ever gets that done. I tried to sell those until I got, until I was upside down. And then you have companies like, well, I don’t want to name them here, because apparently, if you name them, then you get a letter of cease and desist. Horton Hears a Who in Dr Seuss, if you get my drift. You know companies like that pushing home inspectors out. Yeah, watch us get a cease and desist.

Beon DeNood
Probably. At least they won’t catch it in the transcript. I love that book, though, Horton Hears a Who.

Ian Robertson
I never liked it.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, the kids watched the movie the other day, that was pretty hilarious. I mean, I thought it was hilarious mainly because it had Steve Carell doing the mayor’s voice. That was just funny.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I never got into the book or the movie. I liked, I liked Green Eggs and Ham. I like that one. Yeah. Well, anyways, we diverged.

Beon DeNood
We did, but not everybody knows what we’re talking about.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. Not everybody knows we were referencing a company that builds lots of houses that were not allowed to speak the name. Anyways, we didn’t get a cease and desist, by the way, somebody else did. The other thing is home prices. So even though I’m optimistic because home sales are going to go up, home prices are not going to go down either, people still have been priced out of the market. But interestingly enough, there are some silver linings to that cloud. Multi-generational home purchases have been on the rise. So you get like that father who wants to retire, and he gets one of his kids, and they go in on a house together. And interestingly, I find that those are less annoying inspections. I don’t know why. There’s a lot of less emotion, like, there’s a little bit of security, like, okay, yeah, the water heater broke, but there’s two of us here to handle this and take it on financially, whereas it’s like the young couple, 23, can barely afford the house. Water heater breaks eight months down the road, they’re freaking out.

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian Robertson
But the multi-generational home purchases, those are great. I like those, and I think there’s, we’re gonna see a lot more of those. Also, single women, like single women, are outpacing single men as home buyers. I had a statistic here from National Association of Realtors, and I can’t find it now, but it was like, more than double. Well, I don’t, it’s like, single. Well, I guess I kind of get that, when I was single. I’m like, I don’t want to buy a house.

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian Robertson
I want to rent and go hang out with my buddies. I don’t know how a woman thinks, and you can ask my wife, she can verify that. And so I guess they just have a different way of thinking. And they’re just like, yeah, let’s go buy a house. But it was a pretty large percentage gap.

Beon DeNood
That’s interesting. It’s, it’s, it’s a good trend. Yeah, I mean for, for women, probably more inclined to want to, want to set up, set up home, have a place you own, you know. And maybe it’s a good sign of just economic empowerment in general, of women in our society, and which is, which is always a good thing.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I have no idea. Like I said, I don’t know how women think.

Beon DeNood
Interesting.

Ian Robertson
For all our female listeners. I’m sorry. I don’t know how you think, but I’ll try. This is, this is really going off the rails for season one here, but..We’ve gone from Dr. Seuss…

Beon DeNood
We’ve gone from Dr. Seuss to..

Ian Robertson
Ian doesn’t know women.

Beon DeNood
Ian not knowing how women think.

Ian Robertson
At least I admit it. But I mentioned those things because they are good trends, because we relied so long as an industry of home inspectors on the atypical 25 year old to 30 year old couple buying a house and first time home buyer. And for a lot of us, that’s our bread and butter. Southern states, it might have been, you know, the older couple, but for the most of the country it was the young first time home buyers. Do you know the average age of a home buyer went up to 38 years old? I’m like that, that that’s a lot older than you would expect. But also, too when I was 25, I tried to think of the advantages of those. When I was 25, I was probably a little bit of a hot head, like not making good decisions and pushing the envelope, and be more inclined to pick up the phone and say, hey, why’d you miss this on the inspection? You know, at 38 I’m a little bit more chill, you know. I’m like, oh, hey, yeah, he missed that. Oh, well, did he really though, let’s think about that for a little bit. You know, I think it’s a better buyer set to work with. So there’s always a silver lining, but I think we have more diverse groups of buyers now. I think it’s, uh, I think it’s not limiting us to one type of buyer, but also calls on us to be able to market to multiple different types of buyers. You know.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, yeah. It is interesting to tap in because, I mean, your 30 something, you’re talking about. What is that? That’s a millennial, right? And then in your 20s, now you’re looking at it at a Gen Z buyer. And I think a lot of Gen Z perspective buyers have just, there’s sort of a mental block, because they literally, the point where they entered the possibility, or the time frame in your life where you now would usually, you know, you’ve got the good job. You’re getting your student loans under control somewhat. Let’s, let’s buy a house. You know, maybe for them, that hike in interest rates and in value of properties, it’s hit them square in the face right at the time where they would probably be looking. So I wonder if there isn’t a predisposition among most Gen Z buyers, that it’s just, it’s just out of reach right now. I’m gonna be renting for the foreseeable future. You know?

Ian Robertson
Well that was a, I was looking, and there was a hashtag on TikTok, or a trend or whatever, of renters for life, or something like that. And that’s what they were saying. You know, it was, it went along with the same trend of buying a house in the 90s. And they’d make little these, like little fake videos of what it was like. It’s not really what it was like buying a house in the 90s, obviously. But I did find that fact, and it is from National Association Realtor, just to backpedal here a little bit into that point, or not backpedal, you know what I mean. But women, single women held 24% share of the home purchase market over this past year in 2024. For single men, it was 11%. A quarter of the houses almost were bought by single women. That’s, that’s pretty big. Anyways, just going back to the market. I do see, I do see another trend of people going more towards city living. Do you notice that? And I looked up a lot of data on it, and it says that people five years ago were spreading out from the city, and now they’re pulling back into it.

Beon DeNood
Interesting. Like urban, urbanization, good old fashioned urbanization.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, well, and it makes sense, closer to wherever your job is, probably, smaller neighborhood with more services. And if you’re an average person that doesn’t know how to manage it and take care of it, septic systems and wells on rural properties are not always your deal. You don’t always like that, but that does help us to understand how and where we should market. So going back to your point about millennials versus Gen Z, Gen Z is going to be a completely different way to market to them than you are to a millennial, even just a social media, just something as simple as a social media platform, you’re going to go from TikTok to Instagram, and those two audiences are going to react very differently to the same content. So it’s even with the, with the city, people moving towards the cities, how we, how we market a service to someone in or around a city, it’s very different to how we market to somebody in the rurals. So if someone’s going to market to me. They’re going to talk about my well, and they’re going to talk about, you know, making sure you have a backup generator and giving me information on things that relate to my situation in the country. The city, you don’t have those things, even the services you offer. So if you’re towards a city, and that’s where you see a lot of your buyers flocking to, you know, septic inspections, I’ve always said are, like, one of the best things that we ever did as a company, but you’re not going to have septics out there. Really start pushing for those sewer scopes. And that’s a whole different thing. There’s a whole movement out there saying the home inspector shouldn’t do sewer scopes. So that’s just an example. So we need to know not only the generation of our buyer, but where are they moving to? Where are people going to? On the same token, as people move towards a city, they’re also moving away from the rurals, and those houses are coming up from for sale. So just know your market. You can’t market to everybody the same. If most of your people are going to be in the city, all right, cool, let’s talk about meth testing and sewer scopes and infrared. They’re out in the country, let’s talk about septics and well and water testing and things like that. Just kind of speak to our audience a little bit clearer, understanding those things can help us in this upcoming market.

Beon DeNood
So they’re, like, maybe you’re, you’re an inspector who’s classically been serving maybe a more rural area, but you do have an urban area nearby that you maybe haven’t particularly been targeting. So what you’re saying is, maybe, you know, pay attention to how the, if your market locally isn’t great in the rural areas, investigate local urban markets that are still maybe within driving range where you could possibly expand your reach a little bit.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, those are small idiosyncrasies. I don’t think anybody should overthink it, but we should at least have the 10,000 mile high view of that. Be like, okay, I live outside the city. People are pushing there. Maybe I should work some of my SEO, my ad campaigns, some of the agent offices that I visit, push maybe more towards the city for a little while and see if that picks up, helps me pick up a little bit of work.

Beon DeNood
Okay, yeah, good, good idea.

Ian Robertson
Something else interesting I found was that 26% of home sales over the past year were without a mortgage.

Beon DeNood
Really? 26% that’s a high. That’s much higher than I would have imagined.

Ian Robertson
I was a little surprised by that number too, because it’s, I mean, that’s one out of four clients hypothetically that we would have wouldn’t even have a mortgage.

Beon DeNood
Yeah. And I wonder if these, I mean, there’s probably no qualification whether these were investment purchases or, like, primary home purchases, or anything like that.

Ian Robertson
No. So, I mean, if you scrape off the top, let’s say 6% of were investments, that still leaves, and that’s just an estimate. I’m not that’s not a hard number. Still leaves one out of five of your buyers buying cash, good chunk, yeah, which kind of adds up, though. I mean, you have those multi-generational buyers. You know, a family buys a house, and, you know, the dad may have equity, and he pays, and the children pay, and they cover stuff, and..

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian Robertson
But, you know, a lot of these people have built up equity, and some sold at the right time. Like, I feel really happy for those people that bought a house in 1999 for $100,000 and then right as the pandemic was hitting in 2020 and then 2021 they sold. I mean, they would have made a mint. They would have made stupid money. So, yeah. I mean, interesting. If they have that kind of equity and they’re planning on moving anyways, go for it.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are families. I just thought of a family that that I heard of recently, they, the parents are boomers. They inherited quite a chunk of money, and it was enough to to effectively buy out the mortgages of the kids houses, you know, which they, which they did. And they organized some kind of like repayment, you know, between the family of those amounts. So, yeah, it is interesting. So families, you have the means to do that. It, it seems like they are doing that. I’m very surprised by that number, though, that’s, that’s a much higher than what I was. I mean, not saying that they all, all the people in that, you know, statistic, are doing that specific thing. But it is quite high. 26%, it’s quite high.

Ian Robertson
Well, and you think about it, boomers, they tend to, you know, if they’ve been retired, a certain, let me say this, a certain group of boomers would have retired with a bit of money, and they may just say, you know what, borrow for me, kind of like you just said there, borrow from me. And that’s where some of it could come from, but yeah, I agree. 26% that’s, that’s a high percentage.

Beon DeNood
So yeah, I mean, ultimately, it doesn’t affect the home inspection market much, right? Because it’s still a transaction at the end of the day.

Ian Robertson
It doesn’t, it doesn’t, you know if you have an FAA loan or certain loans. Sometimes we actually make good money off of that, because they have certain requirements. And somebody with a loan, some mortgages require you to get a home inspection to keep the loan. Okay? They don’t not. They’re like, we don’t want to see the report, but we want to make sure that you got it, just in case something happens. Not all of them, but some of them do, and when there’s a mortgage, there’s good and there’s bad. But also, if you don’t have a mortgage, very likely that person is going to be more careful and have money to spend to get a really good inspection.

Beon DeNood
Right.

Ian Robertson
So there’s upsides to both.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, good. That’s what I was thinking like. If I’m gonna give my Johnny a whole pile of cash to buy a house, I want to make sure it’s a good house, right? So do the inspection. But, you know, to each his own.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I mean, I’m sure there’s gonna be people that skip the home inspection, even without a mortgage and somebody breathing down their neck. But right, skipping inspections is not happening as much. So I still hear some home inspectors say, anecdotally, oh, people are skipping inspections. Statistically speaking, it’s not happening nearly as much. There was too much liability. A lot of these brokerages that are national and regional and all that stuff, they all said, no more people. Let’s, like, we’ve had too many lawsuits. Let’s, let’s quit this. And some of the legislation that’s still kicking around out there, I don’t think. I don’t, I don’t know. We’ll see where those go. But, um, it’s not happening as much. So that’s a good sign for us, too. So a lot of good stuff happening in this upcoming year. If it were me, and I mean, it is me, here’s what I’m gonna tell you to that I think you should focus on, in just my opinion, new construction if you can. Find out what new construction things need to happen in your area is, are they lacking blower door technicians for energy audits? A lot of that are required. Can you do a phase inspection in your area and don’t just brush it off right away, say that, well, they don’t do that in my area, like Ian said. Give it,give it a real shot. Find out if people are doing that. Try marketing it to some of the agents that do new construction. See what you can find. 11th month inspections later on this year, but focus a little bit on new construction. I love doing new construction, full on home inspections right before they moved in. Sometimes agents around my area call them something silly, like a pre-possession inspection. It’s a home inspection. It’s the same thing. I would also focus on, if you live in a rural area, start looking at the urban areas near you and see if you can market to them a little bit. Maybe, I hate saying this, expand your service area a little bit to just get closer to the cities and then find out what services the cities are looking for, because that’s where people are going to at the moment. But that’s, that’s what I would say for a quarter, Q1 not the whole year, but Q1, that’s what I would give my consideration to. How about you, Beon?

Beon DeNood
No, yeah, those, those sound like really good suggestions. Um,the one thing, and, and I don’t want to turn the conversation going in a different direction here, but looking at the rest of the year, what are some sort of, do you see any sort of macro situations or things that could affect which direction the market’s going to go for the rest of the year?

Ian Robertson
You mean, like Inspector Toolbelt dominating the home inspection industry? Yes.

Beon DeNood
I wish that could, if we could, I could say that resulted in more home inspections, but I don’t think we have that sort of pull but..Yeah, I mean, I know one of the things that that has come up, I’ve seen it, I’ve been watching it on the forums a little bit as well, is with the new administration coming in here in the United States, there’s been some talk about tariffs, possible tariffs, whether they’re going to happen or not, and what impacts those possibly could have. One of the big concerns I know in my wife’s family, it’s all construction family. So the immediate concern was like, well, if there’s tariffs on Canada, 80 to 90% of the lumber that they’re using to build a home comes from Canada, how’s, how’s that gonna affect things? You know? So I guess there’s a few situations to watch as we go through the year to see how things develop, because they will have, they probably will get worked out longer term. But if anything does come to fruition, we probably will see a shorter term impact that could affect the volume of like so say, new home sales has been recovering, but it could affect that, because it will affect the construction industry, but just something that was on the top of my mind. I don’t know if you think that is likely or that it can affect it, but that was something I’ve been keeping an eye on.

Ian Robertson
To be honest, I know that people were worried about certain policies and things going into place, but to be honest with you, I didn’t make that direct connection with that information. So that’s a really good point. They can expect the new construction market to go up all they want, but if there’s tariffs on Canada, that’s a lot of lumber. I mean, that’s basically a lot of what they import to US. So that could affect it. I guess we’re looking really far ahead. I think this year, because we don’t know what’s going on yet, the new administration hasn’t made certain things, but really comes down to what are we going to do in Q1 in my opinion, I think Q2, I think we can take a longer look for the rest of the year, but I think we’re too early on in the year to go past Q1, but that is a very valid point that you brought up. I’m going to take a closer look at that and see how that develops over the next three months.

Beon DeNood
Yeah, no, it’s like you said, it’s not something shorter term that that will affect us, and it’s something that could just, just disappear completely and be a non-issue, but we’ll keep an eye on it. There’s a few other policy rumors that may also have an impact on the housing market, but again, we wait and see how, how those, you know, what the end result is with them before we start speculating on how it will affect things.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, good point. See, that’s why we have you on the show, Beon, appreciate it. Yeah, good insight.

Beon DeNood
You’re welcome.

Ian Robertson
But listen, thank you so much for taking time out being on episode one of season five of Inspector Toolbelt Talk, Beon, thank you so much. Looking forward to the whole rest of the season.

Beon DeNood
Awesome. Thanks, Ian.

Ian Robertson
Thank you.

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.

PODCAST SUMMARY/BLOG

The world of home inspections is constantly changing, and as we enter 2025, significant trends and market shifts are emerging that every inspector needs to know. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting, understanding the landscape of the real estate market is essential for future success. The latest episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk marks the launch of Season 5 and kicks off with a wealth of information about the current market outlook. Notably, we’re seeing shifts in buyer demographics, where rising interest rates and evolving consumer preferences are impacting how inspections are conducted and prioritized.

One of the most notable trends discussed in this episode revolves around the increasing number of multi-generational households buying homes together. This new dynamic demonstrates a significant shift to a more collaborative approach to homeownership, where families combine resources to secure a desirable home. With economic pressures mounting from rising interest rates, this trend helps alleviate financial burdens while providing an opportunity for families to support one another. Inspectors working in a multi-family context should adjust their approaches to ensure they understand these dynamics, which can lead to more straightforward inspections with less client anxiety about financial implications.

Additionally, the episode highlights the resilience of the real estate market and its ability to adapt to higher interest rates. Listeners learn that many buyers are finally adjusting to the new financial landscape of 2025. Expectations are that the new norm of higher mortgage rates will stabilize the market, leading to an increase in home sales, particularly in new constructions. Experts predict an 11% jump in new home sales, presenting an opportunity for inspectors to capitalize on this growth. The importance of building relationships with builders and new construction services cannot be overstated, as these areas will require diligent inspections to ensure safety and compliance in a rapidly changing market.

A significant concern that arose during discussions focused on the expected changes in home inventory across the country. As previously mentioned, inspectors will need to keep an eye on rising inventories, with predictions of a 10-15% increase in 2025. Areas like Austin, Texas, known for skyrocketing values, may see a slight dip in home values, prompting a more varied buying experience. Inspectors should prepare for a more diverse set of clients who may not be in the typical first-time buyer demographic. As purchasing dynamics change, so too will the need for inspectors to tailor their services to suit a more sophisticated clientele—one that may include older buyers or those who have built substantial equity in their existing homes.

Another emerging trend discussed in this episode was the move towards urbanization, as more buyers express desire for city living conditions. The shift back to urban settings indicates a need for inspectors to understand the unique challenges and opportunities that city properties present. Factors such as inspections for multi-family units, older construction materials, alongside issues related to city regulations, become even more relevant. At the same time, there’s inherent risk in abrupt shifts back towards urban living—inspectors must prepare to handle different inspections as well as the ramifications of a potentially overheated city housing market.

While the discussion surrounding market changes was enlightening, it’s also essential for home inspectors to remain vigilant about their marketing strategies. With 26% of home sales involving cash purchases, it becomes imperative for inspectors to target different buyer demographics effectively. Whether through social media campaigns or local advertising, tailor marketing efforts to both urban and rural lifestyles based on the influx of urban families. In emphasizing localized campaigns, home inspectors can significantly increase their market share, ensuring that both first-time buyers and multi-generational families are engaged meaningfully.

The podcast provides actionable insights for inspectors eager to enhance their business models in 2025. With fresh evidence of evolving buyer behaviors and significant developments on the horizon regarding new construction, the insights shared in this episode serve as a roadmap for inspectors looking to keep up with industry changes. The call to action for all inspectors is clear: stay informed, adapt quickly, and engage thoughtfully with your clients and community to foster lasting relationships that benefit both inspectors and homeowners alike.