In the News - The Financial Post

June 5, 1982

"No Stone Unturned – Home Inspector can be buyer’s best friend"

By Ann Shortell

Picture windows, large lots, and million dollar views matter not at all to the home inspector.

Consumers can find it disconcerting that an expert ignores the best qualities of the house of their dreams, but the inspector is basing his business on the things the potential buyer doesn’t notice.

In many ways, the home inspection business is the polar opposite to the real estate brokerage trade. While the realtor represents the vendor and is trying to make a sale, the inspector is acting for the buyer and carefully examining the house for potential problems. As a result, business picks up during buyer’s markets, when there’s more time to think about a purchase, and much more to choose from.

The profession is a recent addition to the world of real estate employments. Although companies have been entering and exiting the market frequently in the past decade, there were few, if any, before that. When inspections first became readily available across the country, inspectors say that irate realtors treated them as fly-by-nighters, hucksters out to spoil deals when-ever possible.

The Toronto Real Estate Board, for example, banned home inspection services from advertising in it’s publications three years ago. Board officials say it didn’t have the space to sell ads to all the individuals calling to promote home inspection services, but it was also worried about an industry which has no licensing or organizing bodies.

Although the ban still applies these days, much of that initial skepticism has been over-come. Some inspectors get a good deal of business from repeated recommendations from carious realtors.

Independent report

One inspector says that more and more consumers are questioning technical points when checking out a house. Also, realtors occasionally suggest a vendor contact a home inspector to provide and independent report on the cost of fixing an obvious fault in the house, such as a wet basement, giving a buyer and seller a basis upon which to barter.

There are, by one industry estimate, between 50 – 75 home inspection firms in Canada (quite a few of them in Toronto and Vancouver), and those in the business say that’s more than ever before.

Recently, a group based in Toronto has been organizing the diverse firms: the Canadian Society of Home Inspectors, launched this spring with half-a-dozen Toronto members, plans to contact inspection firms across the country, and begin standardizing and “regulating the industry for, within.”

For instance, one proposal is that no inspector can bid for work which needs to be done on a home – a restriction which is particularly pertinent when the inspector is also a contractor.

Inspectors have varied backgrounds – many are structural engineers or contractors. One Toronto exponent, Alan Carson, of Carson, Dunlop & Associates, trained as a fire protection engineer for an insurance company. He and is partner also recently published a do-it-yourself home inspection guide. The closest comparison perhaps could be between home inspectors and home appraisers, but while inspectors look at properties in terms of structural soundness, appraisers are concerned with market values (including location and view). “The bottom line of our report would be quite different,” says Carson.

The inspectors see their role as that of systems consultant with the “systems” being the heating, wiring, plumbing and structural components.

“As a company we’ve taken the attitude that it’s important to deal with the large, expensive problem area in the house,” says Carson. His firm avoids specialized areas such as storm windows, certain lighting systems, and cosmetic and architectural criticisms. And, “in all the major systems of a house, we know where to call in the specialists.”

Firms such as Carson & Dunlop are looking some years down the road, and try to estimate the costs of repairing and structural difficulties.

Carson says for this reason an inspection can actually promote a sale – by showing, for example, that a roof leak can be easily and cheaply repaired, and the entire roof is good for some years. Conversely, it can also reveal that what appears to be a perfectly good roof could mean $3,000 in replacement costs within a year. But there are no guarantees on the accuracy of estimates.

Inspections usually take a few hours. Some firms prefer the client to come along and see how they work; others don’t. Some sample fees: $150 – 250 for home service referral company the Blue Army’s Vancouver office; $200 or more at Carson & Dunlop; and $250 - $350 at Calgary inspection firm Home-Alyze.

Little Stability

While inspectors like to see themselves as consultants, helping people plan expenditures for the long term, their business hasn’t bee a long-term, stable one for many years.