The numbers a local inspector gave me don't add up yet

260 solo is a lot of jobs. I've been asking around while I figure out my own career switch and the number I hear most for a one-person shop is 200 to 300 in a normal year, so he's at the top of that. What he's describing isn't a share problem, it's fewer houses trading.

Your 145k gross assumes every job hits the base 495 plus some add-ons. Did he tell you his actual average ticket? If half his work is the 495 tier with no add-ons, the gross drops toward 130k and the whole picture changes. That's the one input I'd want before I did anything with this.

The number he didn't give you is his E&O deductible and whether he's had a claim. Nine years in with zero claims and a 3,400 premium is one business. Two claims and a 5,000 deductible each time is a different one, and it's the reason he sounded bitter about compensation. Ask him directly. If he won't answer, that's also an answer.

Out where I look at houses the base fee is 350 and half the inspectors drive 50 minutes each way. 495 with a tier up to 750 sounds like a metro I don't live in. Whatever number you land on, it's local.

February off isn't a lifestyle choice, it's the calendar. Everybody transaction-tied has a dead stretch and it moves with your climate. I'd take his 1.5 a day average more seriously than the 3 a day he remembers from 2021, because that year is not coming back as the baseline and anyone planning around it is going to have a rough second year.

Rework the model as revenue per available day rather than per job. 260 jobs over maybe 230 working days is 1.13 jobs a day at an average ticket you haven't confirmed. The interesting question is what his marginal hour is worth. Report writing at night is unbilled labor attached to a fixed fee, so every hour he spends being careful lowers his hourly rate. That tension is the whole economics of the trade, and software that cuts report time is the only lever that doesn't require raising prices.

Check your state before you get attached to any of this. I'm going through licensing on a different track and the range across states is wide, some require a set number of supervised inspections plus an exam and continuing education, and a handful have no state license at all so the barrier is insurance and whether agents will refer you. Call the state board and ask what the actual path is, don't trust a training company's website about it.

The maintenance walk business is real, and it's slower to build than anyone selling you a course will say. I run a small service team and the pattern is the same across trades. Recurring work with owners is the revenue that survives a bad spring, and it takes two or three years of doing purchase inspections well before a landlord thinks of you as the person who watches their buildings. He wouldn't quote you a price because he probably has three clients and made the number up each time.

Worth knowing that inspectors are careful about where their referrals come from, and if you come in from the trades like I did, people will assume you're looking for repair work off the back of the report. That assumption costs you agent referrals fast. Whatever else you do, don't ever bid work on a house you inspected.

@cobalt's timeline matches what I've found trying to sell recurring inspections cold. The version that actually gets bought isn't "annual walk," it's tied to something the owner already has to do. Insurance wants a roof condition letter, a lender wants a report at renewal, a management company wants documentation before a turn. Attach the walk to a deadline somebody else set and you don't have to explain the value. Beacon, if you go into this, that's the piece I'd build from day one instead of five years in like he did.