Whether an inspector from the agent's referral list is working for the buyer or for the agent.

Question

Say a buyer's agent hands over three inspector names for a $310,000 house and the buyer picks the middle one at $475. Then someone tells the buyer never to use an agent's list, because the inspector who kills deals stops getting referred, so the list is selected for inspectors who go soft. The claim deserves checking because it sounds tidy, and tidy is a reason for suspicion. The inspector's fee comes from the buyer, once, and the referral stream comes from the agent, repeatedly. On incentives alone the story holds up. But it also implies every agent in the country is running the same scheme, which is a lot of coordination for something that would get talked about. What is actually wrong with this reasoning?

laurenkim53 · Answer

In a rural market with four inspectors within an hour's drive, every agent's list is the same four names. The theory needs a market with enough inspectors to sort them, and plenty of places do not have that.

omar_haddad · Answer

What's wrong with it is the assumption that a soft report is what an agent wants. An agent's nightmare is a house that closes and then leaks, because that's the call that ends a career by word of mouth. What they actually don't want is an inspector who narrates every hairline crack in a doom voice until the buyer panics over a $200 fix. That's a communication complaint, not a coverage complaint, and buyers hear the referral pattern and assume the worst.

gregpowell66 · Answer

Read the report rather than the reputation. Anyone who knows construction can tell in ten minutes from the report whether the inspector crawled the space or shined a light in from the hatch. Ask for a sample report on a house the same age as yours before you pay anybody.

aaron_fitz10 · Answer

@gregpowell66 That is the practical version. Also ask whether they will walk the roof or only look from a ladder, and whether that is their rule or the insurance carrier's. The answer tells you a lot about how much of the house you are actually buying coverage on.

aliyah_b · Answer

$475 on a $310,000 house is under two tenths of a percent of the purchase price and it's the only line item in my whole first-deal budget where I can't see a reason to shop for the cheap end. The $350 guy is doing more inspections per day to make the same money and I'd rather not be his fourth stop.

priya_n21 · Answer

Ask the agent flat out how many of her deals died on inspection last year. An agent who answers without hesitating, and whose number is not small, tells you more than the three names ever will.

Whether an inspector from the agent's referral list is working for the buyer or for the agent.

6 replies