Preferences

I’ve written before about other inspectors, the kind the real estate people like, and some of my experiences coming behind them. Listing agents love boosters, they love smiling faces, they love the trappings and graphics of franchise inspector types, the logo knit shirts, the logo ball caps, the canned software, and the lighthearted approach to property transactions. I recently encountered a relatively new franchise that takes the booster ball and scoots through the diligence red zone to the cloistered closing table with a curious stable of older guy inspectors, mostly retired, avuncular types that don’t move very fast, that can minimize so called problems with a wink and a shrug. They fill out the canned software they carry and focus most on the reduction of buyer anxiety. There are inspectors who emphasize the gravity of the transaction, the fear of missing a problem that turns ownership into a dip in a money pit. They warn of toxic molds that afflict surfaces, of poisonous gases that pool in basements and crawls, of antiquated components that might swamp the whole household in a wave of negligent toxicity. All the realtor and the finance agent want to see is a signature at the bottom of a stack of pages, the kind the lawyers shuffle and scatter around the big closing table’s seats, with rapid fire legal banter not designed for the benefit of the signatory. I am neither booster nor fear monger. I am simply the building guy. I look at the building and I report what I find. I try to be as objective as possible. As some say down South, “I dont have a dog in the fight.”

source https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/topic/18993-preferences/?do=findComment&comment=173529