Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Staying Calm and the Importance of Home Inspections in Real Estate Transactions
Ever wondered how staying calm and composed can impact a real estate transaction? Discover the crucial strategies for managing stress as a professional that can transform your client relationships. We share a fascinating real-life scenario where an agent's unnecessary panic nearly skewed a client's perception during a home inspection. Learn how keeping your cool not only facilitates smoother transactions but also strengthens trust and communication with your clients. We'll also touch on our recent improvements in podcast sound quality, ensuring you have a better listening experience.
Next, we spotlight the indispensable role of home inspectors in ensuring a perfect match between buyers and their dream homes. Just like dating, the right house needs to meet the buyer's expectations, and unbiased reports are key. Through engaging anecdotes, we reveal the variety of buyer preferences and the complications that arise when repairs aren't properly addressed. From issues with electrical panels to chimney repairs, we stress the importance of skilled contractors to avoid delays. This episode offers valuable insights into achieving successful real estate transactions while safeguarding both buyers and inspectors.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Two-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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For home buyers: What to expect from a home inspection. YT video for home buyers
Homebuyers, Help Protect Yourself When Going Commando (buying without the home inspection) – Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. We're actually in our new little mini studio with a new house.
Speaker 3:Woo-hoo.
Speaker 2:So the sound quality on this one should be better, because we have our separate microphones, each recording our own track of recording. Yes, so this should be better. Should be better quality, which I know is irritating. There's some podcasts I'll listen to. I want the topic, but the volume is inconsistent. I'm like nope, can't do it, it's too painful. So today we're going to talk about that. Your stress level does not equal your client's stress level. Mean also that your concerns are not necessarily going to be your clients' concerns as well.
Speaker 4:But first let's listen to this Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs, from radon to mold to warranties For a great home, all right.
Speaker 2:So during one of our classes we talk about how nervousness is contagious.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And I can't think what class that is. Maybe it's how to get the closing table, it's. We have a presentation how to get the closing table with every client.
Speaker 3:I think it's mentioned in that one and then I think we also mentioned it in the home inspection is it managing the home inspection?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think it's in that one also basically that that concept is if you are nervous, people pick up on that. I mean, I think we've all walked into a room and you walk in and go, hey everybody. And you're like you know you missed some stuff. Yeah, you know something happened Like oh, this is not a good time. My happiness does not meet the mood here. But you just know, you know, you know, you know Some bad shit just happened.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:Somebody said something or somebody got some bad news.
Speaker 3:Or somebody did something.
Speaker 2:And everybody knows that you don't know, so they're not going to be mad at you. But it's not a good, comfortable feeling.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Imagine if you will, you're a real estate agent and you are really nervous, stressed out. You got bills coming. It's not been a good last two months or whatever. Maybe you're new, it doesn't matter. Last two months have not been good. You have a home, you have a buyer. They find a house, they have the home inspection. The house has a crawl space, the crawl space piers, which are the supporting user center, block right these are the blocks holding up these middle parts of the beam that goes the length of the crawl space.
Speaker 3:So it supports the floor. The floor supports.
Speaker 2:Those piers are not in good shape. Probably well if it's an older house. Often they're substandard. Where we got the center blocks are turned the wrong way. I see them being random. Stacks of rocks and boards are shoved in there. I've seen it. I saw one. It was. It was I called the. I named it the ballerina post because it was wide at the top and went down like a toe on the very I remember that that's been so long ago I called it the ballerina post.
Speaker 2:It, probably, where it was at, was not going to get a whole lot of weight by anybody walking into that area of the house. But anyway, that's not but it still needed mentioned in the report because- you have to mention it. So, anyway, we had an agent, another. Now this is about maybe two months ago.
Speaker 2:It's been a bit yeah anyway, she called our inspector and said hey, your, your comment regarding the peers being I think some standards of word is making me have a bad day. And the inspector's like he looked it up and goes well, that's not really anything unusual that we find and the client was there. Client didn't seem to give a damn well, and our inspector then called the client just to confirm because this issue was not like anything major it's a very common one, not hard to fix, actually.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:So he wanted to make certain that the buyer had the proper perspective for this issue, because the agent was likely going to make too big of a deal out of it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Spectre calls the buyer Buyer's. Like what? No, I don't care about that dude I used to live in california.
Speaker 3:I'm used to earthquakes, we're good I'm from where there's earthquakes.
Speaker 2:This is nothing. This is going to support everything we, you guys, have to throw at versus the earthquakes that they got there. So this is a case where the agent stress is not the same as the client stress. So so it tells me, did the agent talk to the buyer about the report?
Speaker 3:She couldn't have or she wouldn't have been freaking out. She just got to that part and thought, oh, foundation problem, client's gonna freak out. And then she just went from there Instead of taking a step back, calling and talking to her clients and going okay, let's go through this report. What numbers were you concerned about? Let him start that conversation off, don't you? Because once again, nervousness is contagious. He's coming from California. All of a sudden he's got a nervous real estate agent who's freaking out about the peers and he's thinking well, what am I missing? Estate agent who's freaking out about the peers and he's thinking, well, what am I missing? Maybe I should be freaking out about the peers. Maybe I don't want to get the house now.
Speaker 2:that's where it happens that reminds me that one client I had, the one time she I did inspection for her, ended up doing another inspection for her about two weeks later, completely different house and she had a completely different agent. Nothing wrong with the first house. That was that nothing. There's always a little thing but nothing big no, it was in good shape yeah, so she told me that her previous agent had tried to hide a small condensation leak coming off the uh furnace yeah, from the air conditioner running, not a big deal.
Speaker 2:It was a stupid little pipe that came loose because the agent was so nervous about that pipe. The client wondered if the agent was nervous about other issues as well, lost trust in that agent and canceled that deal and found herself another agent and another house, yep. So you can't, don't freak out, don't freak out. It don't don't freak out.
Speaker 2:Well, what kind of irritates me on this, this most recent one, that the agent wanted to blame the inspector for her having a bad day over a crawl space that was designed like that 20, probably 20 years before the inspector ever got there. Like it's an inspector's fault that this thing was repaired that way who knows how many years before our inspector got there.
Speaker 3:Well and keep in mind too, everybody wanted home inspector licensing. Well, with home inspector licensing we have no recourse, but there are specific requirements that have to go in the report. That is one of those things Like we can't just leave that out. First of all, we would be opening up ourselves and you as an agent to potential lawsuits, Because if there's any possible thing where you would know about that or where you were trying to hide that or whatever, a client would be all over that. We're not here to tank deals. We are here to inform the client about the condition of that house at that specific snapshot in time, and that protects you and us when we do our job correctly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, been in a mastermind group for years okay, for a long time and we still are.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Part of another group, so I have never met a home inspector who says his goal or his enjoyment is to kill a deal. It is always to do a good, thorough, accurate report that protects the client and keeps myself out of trouble. That's really it.
Speaker 3:Well, think about it. If you have an inspection company that goes in with the whole purpose of killing a deal, they're not going to be in business long why. Why would any client want that and trust them? If your whole purpose is to go in and to cancel that deal, people are going to lose trust in you because you're going in with an agenda. You're not going in and just reporting on the status.
Speaker 2:You got to go in there with open eyes and just no, no really predetermined ideas, not really. Now the house is built, let's say 1971, I may be thinking, oh, aluminum wiring, I'm gonna look out for that, but I'm not assuming that the house built in the 70s is going to be, uh, a mess. I have lots of issues. I remember that one house that was in Columbus.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I love this house.
Speaker 2:The last time it was updated, I bet it was 1969.
Speaker 3:It had a pink toilet and pink toilet paper. Can we just talk about that for a? Second it had pink toilet paper to go with the toilet. How long did they keep that toilet paper?
Speaker 2:It was late 60s, early 70s style, never updated. And, yes, there are people who went in there and go no, I'm not buying this house.
Speaker 3:It's got too much money to fix it.
Speaker 2:There were people that came in and said this is perfect, they're not changing a darn thing because they like that style. They're going to keep it that way thing.
Speaker 3:Because they like that style, they're going to keep it that way. Wait, wait, wait. So does that mean that for every house there is a perfect buyer, that you just need to wait for the right one? You?
Speaker 2:just need to marry those two together, that's all it is it's dating. You're dating for the house. Does this house fit? Are we compatible? Yes, no, or or you go. This house is too high maintenance. Nope, I can't do it I can't afford her or. Or or get this oh no, you go on a date with, say, a guy goes on a date with some woman, she's beautiful, wakes up the next. They have a really good time. Okay, next morning I'm like dude, no.
Speaker 3:All the makeup's off. All the makeup's off, that is false advertising.
Speaker 2:That's like you go to a flipper, buys a house. That's a piece of junk and he justaps on like new paneling or sight on the inside a little bit lipstick on the pig makeup and doesn't do any significant structural things. The thing has some mental issues. On the inside of the attic space up the attic there's some structural stuff. There's a bunch of bats. Up there there's issues she's having a meltdown you gotta date the house, check it out, make sure it meets your standards. But we had something.
Speaker 3:The last week it was last week.
Speaker 2:We did the inspection agent, who's also the seller, okay listing agent and the seller were the same person yes, anyway, they were calling us all upset, blaming us for well, today they didn't really blame us for what was there, but they blamed us for reporting on because they just had a contractor work on it, and I'm kind of confused about that.
Speaker 3:I think that house fell out of contract because there was more than the client was willing to take on, like this was a first-time house for them and it was an older house, like it was early 1900s it was an older house. It was an older house and they just didn't have the skill and the experience.
Speaker 2:Very pretty house it didn't meet that.
Speaker 3:Very pretty, very pretty not meet their needs and they just they didn't have the ability to take care of it, and so and that makes sense, because not everybody's handy Right or has the time, effort or money to fix up a house.
Speaker 2:Especially now, like you've got couples that are working. Things are tight.
Speaker 1:Because, things are tight.
Speaker 3:They're not going to have time to come in and fix things or money to come in and fix things. But you'll find someone who's got skills and can come in and do that. Yep, they won't well, I know.
Speaker 2:I know one of the things that the seller complained about was we wrote up issues regarding the electrical panel and I looked at the report and the pictures and there there are legit issues with the panel.
Speaker 3:Oh, the chimney.
Speaker 2:Chimney crown was not done exactly how it should be, but not a big deal. But it's easy to patch cracks, but if you're a home buyer and you got, oh, that chimney really needs to be fixed. I love fire, but I want to use it. I'm scared shitless of heights.
Speaker 3:I'm not getting able to use it. I'm scared shitless of heights. I'm not getting able to fix it. Well, and not only that, but how. The last company that we talked to that comes out and does chimney repair was 18 months out to be able to schedule to do a chimney repair. Now, that's been a bit so. I don't know if that timeline has changed or gotten better or gotten worse, but the last we knew it was an 18-month-out appointment, which is partially why we do chimney scopes now.
Speaker 2:Hopefully it's not that far out anymore. Right, but the thing I want to get to was just because you had somebody fix it doesn't mean they fixed it correctly. It doesn't mean they fixed it correctly and, as far as I know, the contractor told, told this lady that he fixed it perfectly, everything's good. Or she, the seller, said, hey, just fix these few things, didn't tell him the whole deal and everything, and so he only fixed a few things and now she's mad it got busted. I don't know, does it matter? Homeless pressure. Deal with what is versus what you hope hope is, and try and make everybody happy, because if we mess up on our job, there's gonna be a lot of people unhappy and there'll be a few people that will be unhappy because we do a thorough job.
Speaker 3:But I would rather have that than somebody move in and it's dangerous or they can't afford it, or if they use the chimney it can catch fire. I would rather have somebody be unhappy because we did a good, thorough job.
Speaker 2:That increased their safety.
Speaker 3:That increases the safety of our clients, like, how many times have we gone in? And even for sellers, like we've gone. Listen, you guys need to change the angle for this. You're going to get carbon monoxide poisoning. Or did you know that there's, like, this huge gap and you're getting carbon monoxide everywhere? What about the one seller? What about the one cellar? We did an inspection and we found that the pipe was separated, coming off and that carbon monoxide was leaking.
Speaker 2:Was this the water heater?
Speaker 3:I think it was a water heater and the cellar goes. Oh, is that why our carbon monoxide detectors started beeping? We just threw them out because we thought they were wrong. Yeah, yeah, we just threw them out because we thought they were wrong. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We did talk about that story. Yeah, home inspectors work in the realm of reality. Now here's something that's outside the scope of the inspections. It doesn't mean we can't mention it, but it's beyond the scope is give reasons for something. Let's say there's a basement. We can look up to see the joists and the subflooring from the floor above and they painted one area of it. Say they got some white paint.
Speaker 4:They painted one area of it.
Speaker 2:That's unusual. Sometimes you'll paint the whole ceiling and make it look nice. You usually do black, For whatever reason. You usually do black and it looks nice. But if you've got one section painted, it might.
Speaker 3:That's a red flag.
Speaker 2:This is an indication of there's been some kind of water issue, maybe a mold remediation done, because that's what a company would do.
Speaker 3:They wouldn't paint the whole thing.
Speaker 2:This is one thing like hey, we don't know for certain, ask the sellers about it. But roger roger, a friend of ours, the mechanics bird, had a quote the other day that his dad told him. You remember that what that was no okay what it was.
Speaker 2:His dad always told him you cannot lead an orchestra unless you're willing to turn your back to the audience, which I like that because you just have to say forget these people. I'm leading these people to do what do an awesome, respectful, high quality performance here. I have to ignore these people because I got a mission, basically what it?
Speaker 2:says because? Because you're always gonna have people complain. If you're a real estate agent, you're always going to have people complain. If you're a real estate agent, you're always going to have someone complain that you didn't answer your phone. At 11 o'clock at night, at 11 o'clock at night, or at 7 o'clock in the morning. You still didn't call the person back. I'm like you have your own life and schedule you need to take care of. No, you have to turn your back on people.
Speaker 2:Establish those boundaries At least temporarily because you have priorities that you have to take care of, Just like home inspectors. I don't care if the seller's going to be upset. This needs fixed because this is going to kill somebody, like carbon monoxide escaping.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Like chimneys that are damaged, electrical issues that are like loose wiring. Things happen. So I think that's about it on this one. Do anything else, but your stress does not equal your client stress. Like laura said, talk. Talk to your your client. Ask them what things concern them, because they may have something that's totally that you wouldn't care about, but you, but you may bring up something that's no big deal to them Now.
Speaker 3:Now you're going to make them worry, so let them lead you, ask them. Ask them questions like open-ended. So did you look over the report? What numbers are you interested in talking to me about? What numbers, if any, concern you make it open-ended. Make them talk to you. Don't put ideas into their head.
Speaker 2:That's the best thing you can do. All right, that's it, everybody. Thank you, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast. Until next time, learn and go do stuff.