Collusion Between Realtors and A Home Inspector from a Realtors List

(trust me… it’s real)

You just spent the last 3 weekends searching through multiple homes to find the one that’s just right for you. You made your offer and now its time to open escrow. Your realtor hands you a list of their 3 favorite home inspectors and says “choose one or I can make the appointment for you”. Now, you may think this is a harmless request and it very well may be from their perspective. They may think they are doing you a favor but in reality, they are just doing themselves a favor. However, there are many cases (most always) when chosing home inspectors from a realtors list is a very bad mistake.

Is there really Collusion between realtors and a “yes man” home inspector from a realtors list?

Hahaha… You bet there is. Is it the type of collusion that harbors unscrupulous acts or intentional mis-direction by the home inspectors and or realtors? Are you kidding me? Heck yes.
See what you have to always keep in mind is that as humans anything is possible. Add a bunch of money in the form of a commission check in the mix and the people who are already ungrounded in principles or morals everything is possbile. So to think that a realtor keeps with them a short list of home inspectors who “play by their realtors rules” or are “soft-ballers” when it comes to protecting the “deal” and not YOU isn’t practiced almost 100% of the time, you’re just kidding yourself.

Why do realtors have lists of home inspectors?

Yes… why are there such lists? Easy. To get the house to close escrow. In a business surrounded by so called “ethics” why on earth whould a realtor who is by-the-way not a contractor , handyman, or professional in construction even be qualified to widdle a list of thousands of Los Angeles home insepctors to only three or four? The easy answer is that they do this because they have formed a relationship between the inspector and themselves. The home inspector knows exactly what the realtor expects and delivers just that. Exactly what the realtors expects.  How do I know this? I too many years ago was this “yes man”, until I came over to the dark side.

And what does the realtor expect from a home inspector from a realtors list?

• They expect the home inspector to be fast
• Realtors want a home inspector to NOT be a specialist in any trade or construction
• NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER provide price guesstimates for repairs. Ever.
• A home inspector with a great soft mono tone voice and great bedside manner
• Home inspectors who deliver very very short reports
• Home inspectors who no dot scare the client
• A home inspector with little to no experience 
• A home isnpector who is not a DEAL KILLER

As a home buyer who do you need to inspect your home? The complete opposite of this list.
The home inspector from a realtors list will always be afraid that one wrong word… one mis-step in delivering the findings to the client or finding too many things wrong will banish them from the realtors list forever. And forever will their business (money) be removed from that inspector. So how would you act if you had 300 agents spoon feeding all their business?

The home inspector from a realtors list. So who are they?

For the most part, home inspectors who choose to place all their eggs in the baskets of the realtors must understand that they will have to walk this invisible line or face banishment. With this in mind, the home inspectors will thus choose which side of this business they will reside.

A home inspector from a realtors list will typically fall under a couple different catagories.

A. Passive, fast and non alarming
B. inept

The Passive, fast and non alarming home inspector

This home inspector understand that agents do not like sitting around a home for hours on end and prefer a fast inspector dispite what they say to their clients. Additionally, this home inspector also understands he must maintain a calm composure when discovering issues or delivering the issues to the client as not to scare them away from the agents money I mean realtors deal.. I mean from their future home.
With this in mind expect a fast inspection. Expect the inspector to deliver the issues and report and have very little in the way of “big deals”. Also, read the entire report because some inspectors have a tendency to hide larger issues inside the body of the report that you won’t find in “red” or on the summary. It’s an old school CYA tactic.

The inept home inspector

I actually dont blame too many inspectors for falling into this catagory. Truely, to no fault of their own, California has created this Free-for-all industry with ZERO minimum requirements or standards for working as a home inspector and as a result, anyone can and do, become home inspectors with a simple internet based certification course. I do, however blame some agents for capatalizing on the fact that so many of these newbies have very little construction experice and thus find very little in the way of issues while inspecting. The less a home inspector finds the fewer issues between the agent and a paycheck.

Who gets hurt from the home inspector from a realtors list?

Consequently you do of course. As a home buyer never use an inspector from a realtors list. Trust me, go to Yelp, go to google find a referral. The inspector you want to inspect your property is one who get 0% business from realtors and works only for you.

What do I have to gain from this article?

All things considered I have nothing to gain from writing this article. As a matter of fact, I may even be ridiculed, spoken badly of and blacklisted from the real estate community for speaking on this. That said however, I find it hard to blacklist the already blacklisted.  🙂

I have no problem speaking my mind in this industry because frankly, I unlike 100% of these other inspectors get ZERO business from realtors so in essence I have nothing to loose, nor do I care.
My entire business is about protecting the client. As a home inspector for over 20 years, having performed over 14,000 inspections, General contractor in two states, Swimming pool repair contractor, Chimney inspector and contractor, Level III thermographer I know a few things. I also know that this purchase is one of the biggest a buyer will ever make and as such, requires a thorough evaluation by an unbiased neutral disinterested third party. Not a “rubber stamping yes man“.