"Lit Ticker" wrote in message
Does anyone have experience in this area? There was an ad in the local
paper for a class that was 60 hours (10 hrs per day, Friday, Sat and
Sun spread out over two weekends). It included one field trip to
participate in a home inspection. After the class, you were supposed
to be prepared enough to pass a certification test in Illinois. I live
in Ohio where there is no certification requirements. The cost was
$1795, which after researching other classes on the web, wasn't
unreasonable. There is an opportunity to make $100/hr since each home
inspection takes 3 hrs to complete and typically costs $275 - $325.
The guy I spoke with said he knows one person that's making $200K/year
but is doing 3 inspections per day which is pushing it. I imagine the
hardest part of this business would be marketing your self to realtors
and getting your name known. The yellow page had quite a few home
inspectors available but I'm not sure what the demand would be to know
if the market is saturated. Does anyone know of any pitfalls to this
line of work? TIA
Lit Ticker

Interesting you write about this. Not long ago there was an article in the
business section of the Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio) about a local
entrepreneur which started such a business. He paid to become a home
inspector. Something he learned after the fact, was to belong to the NAHI
( http://www.nahi.org/ ) you must have logged 275 home inspections before
joining. What's interesting is, realtors only use inspectors belonging to
this organization. You must pay to belong, plus fumble through trying to
get your own business of 275 customers before joining. He had high hopes he
could get 275 customers within 3 years on his own, otherwise he would be out
of business and broke. Think about it, you won't get any referral business
through a realtor until after you join NAHI. Comes down to, do you think
you can survive for the time being running ads etc., for the first 275
customers? There are now some large companies which know how to play the
game, will you be able to compete with these on your own?