You Can Choose Any Home Inspector You Want

A listing agent pulls you aside and says, “We’ve had problems with that home inspector.” That sentence can change the whole tone of a deal, so we break down what it often really means and how you should respond as a buyer. From our experience, “problem inspector” is frequently code for “thorough inspector” and the only people scared of a detailed home inspection report are the ones hoping issues stay quiet. 

We share a real story where an agent tried to talk a client out of using a specific inspection company because of how detailed the work was, plus the ethics complaint that followed. Then we dig into a frustrating moment many service businesses face: a buyer who got a written quote, scheduled online at a lower price, and left a negative review after we canceled rather than reward the game. It’s a practical lesson in protecting your transaction, your budget, and your peace of mind with clear communication and documentation. 

We also talk bigger-picture real estate ethics: agents who push for a “smooth closing” instead of honest facts, why negotiation skills matter more than pressure, and why even new construction homes can have serious defects worth catching early. If you’re buying in Ohio, choosing a licensed home inspector, and trying to avoid being steered, this conversation is built for you. Subscribe, share this with a first-time buyer, and leave a review with your biggest homebuying red flag.

Transcript

What That Warning Really Means

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Yes, honey. What does it mean when a listing agent says that they've had problems with a a home inspector?

SPEAKER_02 0:11

What that means to me is that the listing agent had a crappy house and that the inspector did his job, called out said issues, and the listing agent got cranky about it because maybe the buyers at that time didn't have the skill level needed to take care of the house and fix it, or didn't have the money, or you know, whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Easy don't have the desire to fix it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Or or yeah. I mean, I don't want to buy a house and then go in and have to fix a bunch of crap in it unless I'm doing that on purpose. So, you know.

When An Agent Tries To Block

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So in our experience, often that is really what it means. I'm married, and this is over in Mechanicsburg where we used to live. There's an agent who what was it? She we somebody contacted us, wanted us to do the home inspection for the buyer. We had it all set up, and then that agent says, Oh, oh no, you we don't want you to use them because we've had problems with them. Which which wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

She sat our client down, and I think they were there for like an hour and a half or two hours with this agent explaining to her why they did not want her to use us. And the whole gist that she got out of that was that we were thorough and we did a good job. And she said, at what point in time would I not want to use you guys for my home inspection? And she stayed with us, told the other agent to go take a flying leap that it was happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yes, and and and and and she goes, uh and uh even the agent even told my guy we have a we have a hearing with them. I'm like the hearing was one that we filed against that agent for ethics.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

She tried to make it seem as if it was her against us, and we're like, no, no, no, no, no, that was us. We filed that hearing for this very same reason, actually.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Same reason. So we had some other agent who who did that, but he doesn't do that anymore because he he got his hand smacked by the I assume he got he got smacked down, got talking to like my hey, you can't do that. So you're as a buyer, you have the right to use whatever home inspection company you want. Now, always check the reviews, you always want to do that. Nobody's gonna have five stars all the way across. They should occasionally have something that's uh not fantastic about it.

The Review Scam And Pricing Dispute

SPEAKER_02 2:35

But you can't please everybody. I mean, there's always gonna be situations and scenarios that you know life happens.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, I mean, we got we had a bad review the other day, and what it was and this this person called, got a quote for it was a pre-dry wall inspection.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Got a quote in writing.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yes, and so they got texted. The here's how much it is four something for this size house, four hundred some dollars, and then this person went online and scheduled, but we we we had do not know what they did, but this is after they had the quote for four hundred some dollars, they went in and scheduled inspection, but somehow they did something, they manipulated the numbers or put it in the wrong spot. It was like$218. So, like, so I changed it back. So we changed it back to what they were quoted before.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

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SPEAKER_01 3:54

And and that that client, well, who who never not being a client, was complaining that we didn't weren't gonna honor that price. Listen, we are honoring the original price we gave you. It's not our fault. You did some shenanigans, and now you're gonna you know do this.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

And at what point in time, I mean, I'm sorry, but if if I'm told a price and then I go and I do something and I don't have that price, I'm gonna be like, hey, what's what's up with this? And actually, if that person had done that, I'd have probably met them in the middle. Like I would have.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

We were going to. We were we were going to meet them in the middle, so it'd be like three something, somewhere in the middle. We were going to meet them.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Then I realized that they'd already been told the price by Amy. And at that point, I'm like, you're you're just a fraud. You're you're trying to thieve. And how do I want to do an inspection for you when you could come back and lie on us and say, you know, we did or didn't do something? And I'm like, I I don't even want to do that anymore. I don't want to play that game.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

No, no, we have to be respectful to our our inspectors because here because they get paid like a percentage of out of the services that they provide. Might here's this guy wanting to cut the inspector's fee in half for his own benefit. Like, no, we're not we're not playing those games. That person's gonna be dishonest and sneaky.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

About a price up front. What are they gonna be like after we do the inspection? And what are they gonna try to get?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, we don't want to do that. So we we cancel that one. Yes, I did. We canceled that one because and then they gave us a bad review, which I we didn't do anything for them.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

We they were not our client.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

No, but uh pretty certain I responded to that review. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

I can send a screenshot of the whole conversation where they got that first price.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

The the the screenshot of that. Yeah, that was in writing. It doesn't matter. No, it doesn't matter. Well, it does every every now and then you get like a bad review, it just proves all the fantastic five stars we have are legitimate. We're not like making them up and I mean they're they're they're they're real. So, but you're never gonna make everybody happy.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

No.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So that person was trying to scam everybody happy.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

We're just trying to make our clients happy.

Ethics Versus Desperation In Real Estate

SPEAKER_01 6:09

No, we work for the clients and we help out agents if they're ethical agents. Well, we live in the world of reality and condition and actual conditions of a house. We don't make up stuff. I had an agent years ago throw away my brochures out of that real estate office because I found a uh foundation that was cracking and bowing. How dare you? How dare me protect the client like that?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

And and I don't know when when did it change? Like I remember when we first started out, there wasn't like animosity between inspectors and agents. It was more like we're all here working together on a team for the benefit of the client.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

I think it's always been there, but it's it's it's less it's more pronounced now because I think so many agents. And it's just overt are are desperate because they don't have they don't have the business skills, some of these people, to run it run themselves competently. When you see posts that say, hey, I need this deal to go through because I need to pay my mortgage later on this month. You're not unbiased, unbiasedly going to protect your client. You have a fiduciary responsibility to make certain that they are protected, and here you are.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

I don't worrying about your mortgage and not about whether or not your clients in a good deal.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Which I understand that you you need to make your bills. We have bills as well. We have lots of bills with you know taxes that we get to pay for this employees, and yeah, it's it's not exactly fun, totally owning a business because you're a lot of taxes you gotta pay. But I understand the need to make money, but you don't make money at the expense of somebody else. Yeah, you can't do that. That's the issue.

New Builds Still Have Real Defects

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Make it at the expense of your client. That's and not only that, but that's that's going to catch up with you because people know, like they're not stupid, they know when somebody's out to protect them versus when somebody just wants the sale. I mean, how many times have we been contacted lately by clients who don't want to use inspectors that their agents are talking about, or we're the second inspection because they had the first one that their agent recommended and the report was crap?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Oh, yeah, we several times so we had something the other day. The agent did not want one of her specialists to do the inspection because she had a bad experience with him before.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

And you pulled up that report.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

I pulled up the only experience she had with him before was an inspection from a couple months ago. And this is the listing age I'm talking about, and it was a new house, but the new house legitimately had problems and it was not built well. Our inspector called them out, which for a brand new house, you should not have a whole lot of things. Some of these things no, it was it was not it was not built right, it was not proper some of the things that they did. Well, the client just happened to be, you know, maybe didn't want to deal with anything. So they did not buy the house.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Well, then it's in new builds. You should that that's their prerogative. You shouldn't have to be forced to buy something.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Some be forced to buy any house.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Even if you're not having it built specifically for you, but that agent, oh, the inspector is a problem. No, your builder, that builder of this house was the problem. You just don't like facts. And if you if you cannot sell a new a brand new house and negotiate getting things fixed, you suck as your job as an agent who can because you don't have negotiation skills.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Well, and not only that, but how ethical are you? If you're trying to force somebody to buy a house that's that crappy and you're mad that that sale didn't go through, what does that say about you as a person? Well, what does that say about you as an agent, as a business owner? You have no ethics and no morality.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

And this same agent, because our same inspector was gone inspector was going to inspect another house, and she contacted the buyer's agent and said, Hey, and then that would be a problem. The agent called and said, Hey, I had we had problems.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

We just want this transaction to go smoothly.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Well, you need we list good houses or are no proper negotiations and setting up expectations. So we called, talked to the buyer's agent, and go, no, this is what happened. We I looked up the report, it's legit. And I told him, You do want to throw an inspection for your clients. Like, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah, yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

I just well, this is the inspector that's gonna do it. Because this is the only one we had that day, plus we were booked up there, so this is the only only chance that's gonna happen. Um, so he did an inspection, and then but this listing agent set him up with her sellers. Told the sellers that he was he was terrible, so that was just very unpleasant for the inspector.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Oh, yeah, to the point that the seller was calling him names and called him a dick.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Under his breath, though, we did not inspector.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

She was saying other stuff to his face, and it was just it was horrible. Like and once again, where are your ethics?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Well, here's what I thought. Why don't we just report report them? That's what I thought. I'm really kind of unethical, and I'm I'm thinking about giving a review for that agent. Because, you know, they give us reviews when they don't like certain things, even though they're in the world of reality. And and I'm and I don't like also when agents go, no, you they they tell you too much.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

How much is too much? Who who are you to decide what that client wants to know?

Trust Earns Referrals And Long Careers

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I've never had a buyer go, no. I don't want to know those. Skip, skip the extra information. I just know I want the state minimum, barely legal home inspection. Like, no, nobody wants that except shitty, shady agents. Yep. And if you're afraid that's gonna ruin a deal, well get a new job. You you you need some negotiation skills, you need to set the new job. Expectations up for your client, for the buyers.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Get out of the industry, get a new job.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

If you can't fix it, yes. Wow, those those agents that that can't close deals or they can't negotiate and they're just like get shady and they don't have referrals because their past clients aren't happy with them, they're gonna get out of the business because they're not gonna they're building their business is never gonna build up because a referral base never climbs. Because none of past clients will recommend them. You have to build up your referral base, and that's based upon doing a good job.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

So there's to let you know that this actually does work. There was an agent that we knew in the Dayton area, and he's been doing this forever. Guy's amazing. He's he's he's a genuinely good, decent human being and a good agent. He literally sends out two emails a year to past clients, and that gets him all the business he needs for the course of the year. He doesn't do any other marketing, he has absolutely no need to because his past clients know him and trust him and know that he will take care of them and their friends. And that's how it should be.

How Buyers Protect Themselves

SPEAKER_01 13:21

That's a dream that our goal every agent should have. I can send two emails out, and past clients will recommend me to friends, family, business worker, you know, co-workers, they'll refer that all out. Yep, you have to be ethical to get that referral in the first place up front to build that trust to get those referrals. So I think that's about it on this one. Always do the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

And then uh I mean I'm not saying all agents are bad. They're definitely not. We have several that we would recommend right off the bat to people, but that I would use myself. Yep. Well, here's not only burns me. It was an agent who gets who gets mad doesn't recommend us, but as soon as she or a family member is buying a house, we're the one doing that inspection. That just that just shows you how uh unethical. Unethical some are. Or they have different standards for the client, different expect different standards of protection for their clients versus their family. So always get inspected, and if you can, get it inspected by habitation investigation.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Ask them who they would use for their kid.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

You're expecting them to be honest, yeah. You're expecting the shady ones to be honest. That's true. No, they will not. So, all right, that's it. Always always check reviews, always get an inspection. Yep, bye-bye. Bye.