What is your primary job while performing an inspection?

[Les]

During a regular real estate sale inspection what is your primary job?  What is your primary function?  Do you feel like you are saving lives?  Protecting the client?  etc. 

I think the primary function/job is to observe house conditions and accurately report them.

what do you think?

 

[Marc]

My job is to assess/report the condition of the house so that the client's prospective investment in it is protected. Just another way of saying what Les said.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Marc

[Tom Raymond]

Our primary job is to manage expectations, because nobody knows that we are there to observe and accurately report the condition of the house.

[Chad Fabry]

The primary responsibility is to possess the required technical knowledge and the ability to convey that knowledge in an unbiased, matter-of-fact document.

[Les]

On 6/14/2022 at 12:01 PM, Chad Fabry said:

The primary responsibility is to possess the required technical knowledge and the ability to convey that knowledge in an unbiased, matter-of-fact document.

before you can "define" primary you have to identify the task. ???

[Jim Katen]

I believe it's my job to define the condition of the house and make recommendations for improvements where I believe they're necessary. 

[Les]

interesting use of define. 

[Marc]

Lots of different answers but one guiding principle in my answer is the belief that a home inspection is designed and intended for home buyers only. You can apply it to other situations but it fits best when used to meet the needs of buyers.

[Les]

39 minutes ago, Marc said:

Lots of different answers but one guiding principle in my answer is the belief that a home inspection is designed and intended for home buyers only. You can apply it to other situations but it fits best when used to meet the needs of buyers.

the client?  I agree. 

I am engaged in a mini debate regarding emphasis on the life saving aspect.  Many experienced people believe their role, possibly the main role, is lifesaving.  I do not agree.  At minimum they would like more emphasis on safety issues.  

My last exchange with that group was a tad contentious when they compared inspectors to;  nurses, doctors, police, firemen.  It seems that idea struck me as pretty ego centric. 

[John Ghent]

I would think that if an inspector promotes and advertises "life saving" reports he/she is inviting trouble.  I think we are/were in this business to be successful and prosperous and HELPFUL in discovering defects so folks can make  informed decisions to buy or not to buy.  We/I was not trained to be a life saver, just to be a great inspector.

[Bill Kibbel]

4 hours ago, Les said:

Many experienced people believe their role, possibly the main role, is lifesaving.  I do not agree.  At minimum they would like more emphasis on safety issues.  

My last exchange with that group was a tad contentious when they compared inspectors to;  nurses, doctors, police, firemen.  It seems that idea struck me as pretty ego centric. 

I think that group of people are examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect.  It often emerges as a symptom of incompetence.

The life-saving occupation list includes first responders and medical professionals - certainly not home inspectors.

Les is gonna lose a scoop of brain cells interacting with that group.

[John Dirks Jr]

Do a thorough inspection to the minimum Standards of Practice and always thrive to exceed them, no matter how long it takes.  Describe your findings to the client in person if possible and follow it up with a detailed written report that is specific to exactly what you inspected.  Try your best to keep your own emotions out of it.  If you don't know something, say so.  Don't make stuff up because you're too afraid to say you don't know.  

[John Kogel]

Main goal is to crawl all the way to the back and find the mess nobody knows about yet.

[hausdok]

The doctor analogy, if it's meant to mean that an inspector is more knowledgeable than anyone else on the topic, is a bit over the top. If by doctor one means a simple general practitioner, that works a little better. A GP doesn't pretend to be an expert on every subject - but he or she should strive to be really good at knowing how to spot issues with a patient, that many medical specialists might miss at first glance, and then know which specialist the patient needs to be referred to for follow up.

After all, a GP gets to do a mostly non-invasive inspection of your body (Except for that damned rubber glove bit.); and, if the GP finds what he/she believes to be an abnormality, tells you what's been found and then tells you what your treatment options are, if any. Like the GP,  we get to take a short, mostly non-invasive look at the patient (home) in order to spot symptoms. We report the symptoms we're seeing to the client; and, when possible, briefly explain, based on what is seen, how serious an issue it could be. From there, it's up to the client what happens next.

Surely inspectors should be professionals but not to the point where they think that their primary function is saving lives only. Usually, when I run into the "safety-related issues only" types, they are realtards trying to tell me how to do my job. They maintain that I shouldn't sweat the small stuff and should only report on safety issues. Translation - My client doesn't need to know about all of the stuff you see. Just tell my client about anything that has the potential to get me sued. If you want to report on small stuff, just bury it in the main report and leave it out of the summary. Make the summary only about the stuff I can be sued for.

I think our job is to thoroughly examine as much of the home as is possible, as best we are able without an invasive inspection, in order to spot condition abnormalities and/or maintenance needs, and objectively, without embellishment, report what we've found to our client(s). 

It's important to remember that, once you meet the client onsite, he or she is not the agent's client during the inspection but is your client. Ignore all of the visual signals that the realtorzoid is trying to make you pay attention to, and concentrate on what you're being paid to do - perform as thorough an inspection as you are able. Once you've done the inspection and reported your findings to your client, you can turn the client back over to the agent. 

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Jim Baird]

To focus on the building as much as possible and to report my findings in a way that ranks those findings along a scale of importance.

Buyers have lots of different reasons for their decisions.  Often they ignore items I find most important, but I am just the building guy.

[Jerry Simon]

On 6/23/2022 at 2:04 PM, hausdok said:

The doctor analogy, if it's meant to mean that an inspector is more knowledgeable than anyone else on the topic, is a bit over the top. If by doctor one means a simple general practitioner, that works a little better. A GP doesn't pretend to be an expert on every subject - but he or she should strive to be really good at knowing how to spot issues with a patient, that many medical specialists might miss at first glance, and then know which specialist the patient needs to be referred to for follow up.

After all, a GP gets to do a mostly non-invasive inspection of your body (Except for that damned rubber glove bit.); and, if the GP finds what he/she believes to be an abnormality, tells you what's been found and then tells you what your treatment options are, if any. Like the GP,  we get to take a short, mostly non-invasive look at the patient (home) in order to spot symptoms. We report the symptoms we're seeing to the client; and, when possible, briefly explain, based on what is seen, how serious an issue it could be. From there, it's up to the client what happens next.

Surely inspectors should be professionals but not to the point where they think that their primary function is saving lives only. Usually, when I run into the "safety-related issues only" types, they are realtards trying to tell me how to do my job. They maintain that I shouldn't sweat the small stuff and should only report on safety issues. Translation - My client doesn't need to know about all of the stuff you see. Just tell my client about anything that has the potential to get me sued. If you want to report on small stuff, just bury it in the main report and leave it out of the summary. Make the summary only about the stuff I can be sued for.

I think our job is to thoroughly examine as much of the home as is possible, as best we are able without an invasive inspection, in order to spot condition abnormalities and/or maintenance needs, and objectively, without embellishment, report what we've found to our client(s). 

It's important to remember that, once you meet the client onsite, he or she is not the agent's client during the inspection but is your client. Ignore all of the visual signals that the realtorzoid is trying to make you pay attention to, and concentrate on what you're being paid to do - perform as thorough an inspection as you are able. Once you've done the inspection and reported your findings to your client, you can turn the client back over to the agent. 

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

I love your first two paragraphs, Mike, and whole-heatedly agree.

Not sure about the rest; never read it (you write too much😏).

[mtwitty]

I think the primary function is binary. 

• To gather all available pertinent information relating to the home.
• To accurately and clearly relay that information to the client.

[Les]

22 hours ago, mtwitty said:

I think the primary function is binary. 

• To gather all available pertinent information relating to the home.
• To accurately and clearly relay that information to the client.

I agree.  

[Jerry Simon]

On 6/28/2022 at 7:40 AM, Les said:

I agree.  

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Jerry Simon