Jason Hartman discusses migration into suburban areas and the hard time people are facing. He interviews home inspections expert, Kathleen Kuhn, and reveals the most problematic area in home inspections. Kathleen gives the basics of home inspections and discusses advanced tools to do the job right.
Jason Hartman 00:54
Welcome to Episode 1481 1408 One. I hope everybody is doing well. And I hope you don’t live in Seattle. Wow. Can you believe what is going on in the world? I mean, if there ever was a time when that old kind of funny snarky saying was true, you could say this time in history is that time? What is that old snarky saying you ask? The inmates are running the asylum. Yes, the inmates are running the asylum. Sadly, people have been brainwashed by a pathetic public school and university system. They lack critical thinking skills. If you think I’m wrong about this, and listen, I know I’m not speaking to present company because Those people would never listen to this show. They don’t have the horsepower. I mean, seriously, they just don’t have the horsepower, mental horsepower, mind you. And the absolute lack of critical thinking ability is astonishing. Isn’t it astonishing? You know, I remember when I was in school and by the way, I don’t have any great education. I’m just curious person who’s self taught. I went to crappy integrated schools in Los Angeles, got robbed and mugged in the hallways at school on a regular basis. But one time is too often and it certainly happened a lot more than once. It’s absolutely shocking. But the ability to think critically, like when I was in school in my crappy schools I went to, we had lessons in critical thinking. That’s what they were called critical thinking and how you should learn to be skeptical. about things and questioned things, and how you should learn to see the other side’s point of view. And, and, you know, we have debate now, I was never on the debate team, but I was aware of it, it existed. And I remember I saw a couple of debates between students. And I remember my ex girlfriend, Elizabeth and a couple of other people in my life over the years have told me, you know, Jason, you should join a debate team. And I told him no, I shouldn’t because I really wouldn’t have any friends. It’s already too easy for me to win any argument. But if I actually got formally trained, that would not be good news now. Better not to be so good at it. Okay. But I mean, these people are destroying American cities. If there ever was a reason to move to the suburbs. Forget about COVID-19. It’s the wackos that the inmates that are running the asylum, look at what is happening and see I mean, this whole movement to defund the police. Oh, good luck with that. Why don’t these people just move to Somalia if they want no government and the interesting thing about it is this is really fascinating. The same idiots that want to defund the police. They over fund every other area of government that wastes all kinds of money, bureaucrats, congressmen, Senators, the National Education Association. Oh, I mean, the National extortion Association, the NEA and listen, if you’re an educator, I love education. I think it’s all great. But we don’t have education anymore. We have political correctness, stupidity is what we have. We have brainwashing we have a whole country that’s been brainwashed. It’s absolutely shocking. I mean, it’s absolutely shocking. These are the most intolerant people in the world. They’re not tolerant of anything, but their own beliefs, they’re going to destroy themselves. It’s absolutely ridiculous. So, you know that mass migration, I was the first to predict the migration away from cities away from Central living, it is going to just accelerate so much more now. I mean, the civil unrest will accelerate that. And I’ll tell you something. You know, I suppose this might go 6040 with my audience with you listening. If there ever was a reason to support the Second Amendment and to own firearms, you can see that there is clearly a reason, right. I hope you can and you know, a lot of people with this gun stuff, of course, there are gun nuts, okay. But the normal people with guns that have a rational view of the Second Amendment Not the wackos not the wackos to either side of the equation, you know, the truth is always some shade of grey, they make a mistake. Sometimes they go out and oh, I gotta protect my family and you know, we’re going to buy a few guns, but what they should be buying is more ammunition. The number of guns is not the most important thing. The most important thing is the amount of ammunition Okay, so just make sure you understand that whatever. Anyway, look, the world is not coming to an end life will go on obviously, but it’s just so sad to see what is going on in especially in Seattle. You know, the signs up. I mean, have you have you have you seen this, you know, the signs up that say you are leaving America and you go and enter a warzone basically where the police have pulled out and the mobs of absolute thugs are creating mafia style protection rackets, their extorting business I mean, who is ever going to set up shop in a place like this? It’s just absolutely beyond beyond. But you always have to realize that the media, number one, they sensationalize everything. If it bleeds, it leads, we just have to expect that and understand that. But number two, it’s always confined to a really small area, you know, having grown up in some really crappy places in Los Angeles. And I didn’t always like live in the worst place. I’d say the worst place I probably live was in an area of Culver City where I lived, it wasn’t that good, but it got worse after I moved as a little kid. You know, when I lived in marvista. That was pretty bad back then. Now it’s kind of nice because it’s gotten so expensive. I mean, the area is not that much nicer, but the people there who can afford to live there. It’s definitely gone upscale to some extent. But when I lived there marvista was a rough area. I think the movie is called what American History X. I went to Venice high school for a year. And that was right around the corner from you know, where I lived on Caswell Avenue and marvista. And you know, that was a that was a pretty crappy area back then. But then I worked at my mother’s pioneer chicken and that was in a really, really, really bad area. I mean, it was so bad. My mother was held up at gunpoint several times. One time, the robbers came in, and they hit her on the head with the the handle of the pistol, they shot the gun into the ceiling. Nice. I ran over there after she told me she got robbed, they stole like 1200 dollars and I saw the bullet holes in the ceiling or head was bleeding. You know, the police were there. But the police are pulling out of these areas. They don’t want to police in these areas. And now with all of the screen t against cops, and believe me, some of it is rightfully deserved. And also I have to mention, are you watching the conspiracy theories now? One of them is Extremely plausible that this was a false flag to start a race war. And you look at the stuff about that. And even if it isn’t true, it would have been so easy. Like this is a super easy, false flag to pull off. We’ll see. But anyway, back to the concept of localization. So I remember having grown up in these really pretty crappy environments, some of them not all of them, but some of my childhood was spent in pretty crappy environments. You know, where I definitely did not feel safe. As a kid, I felt vulnerable. I remember one night we had an attempted robbery in our house, and my mom woke up it just the right time and saw a hand a hand coming through the window about to open a door, and it was clear that we were home. It wasn’t right about midnight. Clearly the intentions weren’t to just rob us, right? It was murder, I don’t know. And she screamed and you know, the guy ran away. And by the way, How big is it? Is it to assume that that would be a man robbing your house rather than a woman? That’s very, that a fair stereotype? I’ll leave it to you. So anyway, my point was, I remember later when I was maybe in my early 20s. And I lived by then in beautiful Irvine, California. And what a nice area that was. I remember I saw the movie with a friend of mine movie colors, which was about all the gangs and like South Central Los Angeles and stuff. And I thought, isn’t it amazing that these people live in such a small, tightly circumscribed little neighborhood? And that’s the way LA and a lot of areas are, where you literally can just drive or take a bus or take a long walk a pretty short distance. And it’s like the whole environment just changes magically. And I thought, it’s that strange when I saw that movie colors and I saw how bad that Life was I could relate to it because I spent time in those neighborhoods. And I knew a lot of those type of people. I remember, we used to have people walking up and down the halls of my school with the various colors of the bandana hanging out in their back pocket. And you know, if you walked with a bandana hanging out of your pocket in the wrong neighborhood, you’d get shot. No kidding. You’d be dead. Okay, people would shoot you. If it was a crip or a blood bandana color. I can’t remember the colors. But you know, I mean, maybe you do. And I thought, you know, these people could change their whole life. If they just go three, four miles. Isn’t that amazing? how the human mind just when people would just stay in this little area three, four or five miles to change their life. They’ll get a job at McDonald’s, change your whole life. You don’t have to be in a game and just leave that whole life. Just go five miles in any direction. Totally get out of that environment. Isn’t that weird? It’s crazy how he Are we find we, we stay in this little life, this little environment in which we find ourselves? So that begs the question for all of us, really, because we’re all in some environment, and we are a reflection of that environment. And that environment is also a reflection of us and the other people who are in that environment. It goes both ways. It’s a self reinforcing self fulfilling prophecy. The senator si Hayakawa, who is this sleepy senator from California, he wrote a book on self fulfilling prophecy. He said this brilliant quote, he said, the self fulfilling prophecy is something that is neither true nor false, but it is capable of becoming true if it is believed. The self fulfilling prophecy is neither true nor false, but it is capable of becoming true if it is believed very interesting. stuff. So think about that. Okay, today, we’re gonna talk about home inspections. That’s our guest. But you know, I just, I can’t believe what’s going on in the news. So home inspections, let’s get into that. But first, I want to tell you about a prediction. And I’m looking at a chart here, and this is from the OECD. Okay, that publishes a lot of stats like this. And it’s a prediction, a projection on how hard the GDP will be hit for various countries in 2020. So gross domestic product, the wealth of an economy, how hard will it be hit in various countries, and there’s a whole list of countries on here, I won’t read them all to you. But the least worst of these are big economies. So well, I’ll give you the benchmark the global economy will take a GDP hit this year, the projection from the OECD have negative 6%. Now that’s opposed to a positive Positive of I don’t know what the I don’t have that stat offhand or in my brain as to what the usual global GDP growth is, right? It’s, oh, guess it’s like 4% for the globe because a lot of these developing countries grow a lot faster than than the developed countries. So so that means it’s down maybe 10%. And that sounds about right to me. But China down 2.6% is the projection Japan down 6% the world down 6% and then you inch up Germany gets a little worse. Negative 6.6 the United States negative 7.3 Brazil is worse off than the US Mexico is worse off Canada’s worse off Russia is worse off the euro area as a not the EU but the Eurozone. 9.1% negative GDP that’s pretty bad compared to the US 7.3. Spain really bad more than 11% Italy, even worse than Spain, France even worse than Italy and the UK K being the hardest hit of all now they had Brexit too. So that probably is the one two punch of both of those things. 11.5% decline. Those are all negative numbers, by the way decline in GDP projection for this year. So we’ll see how it turns out. All right webinar. Join us for our webinar on Southwest Florida, Florida is booming. The real estate market is booming, amazingly so to some extent, but people just want to get out of these high density areas. For not one reason now not just COVID 19 but also civil unrest and the threat of civil unrest. So the rise of suburbia I predicted that eight years ago and boy suburbia is the thing I’m suddenly in love with suburbia and that’s what we sell suburban real estate. You can find it at Jason Hartman calm and you can reach out to us and have an investment counselor help guide you through the process of creating an awesome plan to build your wealth. and protect your wealth through income properties, the most historically proven asset class in the entire world. Jason Hartman calm or one 800 Hartman but the webinar is that Jason hartman.com slash webinar, that’s singular. Jason Hartman comm slash webinar. Check that out. It’s a very short webinar. It’s only like 32 minutes long, but you can really get some good information see some good video about Southwest Florida we were gonna play some video on there, and I think you’ll really enjoy it Jason hartman.com slash webinar. Without further ado, let’s talk about home inspections. It’s my pleasure to welcome Kathleen Cuban she is president and CEO of housemaster and we’re going to talk about that all important component of your investment portfolio and that is home inspections. Always get a home inspection. Kathleen, welcome.
Kathleen Kuhn 16:58
Where are you located? We are heading quartered in New Jersey.
Jason Hartman 17:01
Fantastic. So you’ve got about 300 plus franchise units around the country are in 47 states, you’ve seen a lot of inspections being in the business for the past 40 years or 35 years, I should say for you 40 for the company. What are some of the most common items that people will see on Home Inspections most common problems,
Kathleen Kuhn 17:25
the most common problems really relate to water or moisture. So we find that whether it’s a roofing issue, whether it’s a plumbing issue, but basically houses and water don’t mix. So anything to do with water penetration generally is the most common and we find it regularly in many houses regardless of age, although age is often a factor. And it can be a result of as I said moisture or to penetration which really are two different things. For example, you could have a roofing problem that is a result of a moisture issue because of poor ventilation or You could ever room problem because there’s water seeping into the roof or a flashing problem. So water is definitely the number one thing that is the cause of the most common problems we find.
Jason Hartman 18:11
Now, are there certain items on inspection reports that tend to look more serious or more ominous than they really are? And then conversely, are there some items that don’t look like too big a deal, but they really are a big deal?
Kathleen Kuhn 18:27
Well, that’s a great question. I think it kind of goes back to water penetration, water penetration or a roof leak sounds very, very scary. When in reality 75% of all roof leaks are actually a flashing leak. And a flashing is a angle barrier anywhere where you’re going to find a protrusion in the roof or a whole roof. So it’s you’re going to find a flashing around it up, you’re going to find a flashing where the the valley where the garage may meet the roof. And they were and if they’re not properly maintained and they’re subject to penetration as you can imagine. And those flashings where and they will cause no leakage is the flashing always that piece of metal that you see around the chimney where the chimney meets the roof, or where event meets the root, you know where there’s a vent coming out of the roof, and you’ve got this metal flashing isn’t always isn’t always metal. Metal boats also coated very, very often it’s coated and sealed. So, because metal will deteriorate, but so it’s often sealed, and it needs to be sealed or it needs to be evaluated on a relatively regular basis, the flashing doing most homeowners just don’t do that. And certainly if the home has been vacant for a while, it’s not going to get that kind of attention. So while it may look really bad, because the roof seems to be leaking in several areas, but very possibly, it’s really not the roof, that’s the problem. It’s really replacing the fast flashings or fishing, fixing the flashings, and that’s a much less expensive undertaking than a major Roof Repair
Jason Hartman 19:59
but it’s seen serious when someone gets the report, they’re likely to freak out and say, Oh my god, the roof is leaking. I can’t buy this property. I’m here.
Kathleen Kuhn 20:09
And I think inversely, you know, water in the basement people see water in the basement and they get worried about mold and they get worried about all these things. And very often not always, but very often, it could be an easy fix, such as grading the property away from the foundation, or fixing gutters and downspouts. So drainage away from the foundation can can again if it’s not occurring, it can cause water penetration, and people think oh, the basements wet. I’m going to have all these issues but very possibly, it’s an easy fix again, great around the foundation and making sure your gutters are and downspouts are operating properly and fixing those can be relatively easy.
Jason Hartman 20:49
No Are you actually or were you actually a home inspector yourself? I know you were originally a franchisee of the company. But were you trained in Home Inspections personally?
Kathleen Kuhn 20:59
Well I was trained But no, I never did hell but you never know. So
Kathleen Kuhn 21:04
managed by inspectors obviously.
Jason Hartman 21:06
Got it. And when you managed your inspectors directly as opposed to being at the corporate level, where were you located? Was that also New Jersey?
Kathleen Kuhn 21:14
No, actually, I was in Westchester County, New York. Okay, got it. But
Jason Hartman 21:17
similar climate then basically. Yeah. So what I’m getting at by that question is, since our investors are investing in many, many parts of the country, are there certain geographies that sort of get off more easily with fewer problems than others? And I can kind of think of some in some areas you have tornadoes in some areas, you have hurricanes and some you have earthquakes. In some you have lots of rain and some it’s very dry. You know, there’s all these in some areas, you have big trees, and those can be problematic. You know, there’s all in some, you have more termites, some you have less termites, you know, you have all these issues. Is that You’re an ideal location?
Kathleen Kuhn 22:04
Wow, that’s a tough question. I don’t know if there’s my ideal location.
Jason Hartman 22:07
I’ve tried to answer that question myself.
Kathleen Kuhn 22:11
So I’m certainly certainly the construction in some parts of the of the country, I would say the south east, some of the Southwest, again, not as prone to rain, they have their own other other issues. But the construction in those areas, some of the newer construction, and some of the older construction is, I would say, easy to maintain and repair versus older homes in the North East store that have a little bit more a number one, they’re older. That’s the factor at the end of the day. Age is a factor in the condition of the home, the older the house, unless it’s been fully renovated, is going to play a role. So a house that’s newer, and if again, you look at the construction over the last 10 years in the southeast and many areas in the southwest, that houses are going to be newer and Construction is more straightforward very often. So that does make repairs and issues less prevalent.
Jason Hartman 23:08
Okay. Now that’s the next question I was going to ask you, is there a certain style of home construction, when it doesn’t matter if it’s new or old? I mean, there are old houses that are like bulletproof and new houses. They’re not that well built. But you know, the materials used obviously vary quite a bit over the years. Are there certain construction styles one over the other that you like better or worse than others?
Kathleen Kuhn 23:33
Well, it’s funny because at housemaster it’s not up to us to judge what’s a good or bad house right or what what somebody likes somebody else doesn’t like but I would say that certainly when you get into some of the the stone construction, that’s probably better then in areas particularly that are prone to termites, for example, then then other types of construction. So it really depends on the area, but I would say definitely that you know, that single storey slab construction home is again, that’s really what I refer to as a pretty straightforward, straightforward structure.
Jason Hartman 24:10
Now, you don’t get worried about that one, though, when the pipe breaks under the slab, I mean, nothing is perfect.
Kathleen Kuhn 24:18
there’s pros and cons. Yeah, there’s pros and cons to all of them. And when you’re doing a, you know, or if you have ductwork, you know, let’s just say there’s ductwork built into the slab, and you’re in an area that that construction is and you need to treat treat the house for termites. So that’s going to be a bigger issue. If there’s no incept ductwork maybe that it’s not as big of an issue. So it does, it always depends on the house. Every house is somewhat different. So yes, well, construction can be great, but there’s definitely some downsides of slab constructions as well and making repairs and such.
Jason Hartman 24:48
All right, what would you like people to know, you know, what are what are some of the things that in your business really come up over and over?
Kathleen Kuhn 24:57
Well, I think it’s important to I think why One of the biggest things is the additional services. I think that most people understand that they should get a home inspection. And that’s going to be all the major elements of the condition of the property. But there’s so many other services that housemaster offers or any professional home inspector offers that really need to be considered to, and such as, and a lot of these are very regional. So if you’re in the northeast, you want to also get a very fuel tank evaluation because if you buy a property and it still has a very fuel tank, or that tank or the area has not or it has not been properly disposed of, that could be a very big ticket item. And if you’re buying a home, just for some people that may not have caught that because you said it kind of quickly. She said buried fuel tank, in other words, a propane tank that’s underground, right? Is that mostly what you’re referring to exactly? Okay, mostly more common in the northeast. sewer line scoping. So most people don’t realize that they are responsible for The sewer line from the house to the street in the street municipality takes over. But if there’s a problem between the house and the street, that is the homeowners responsibility, and there’s no way you’re going to know there’s a problem until you have a problem unless you get a sewer line scope. So doing a sewer line scope is very, very prudent. Anywhere, there’s two lines, which is pretty much just about everywhere. Along those lines, how much does that cost can run anywhere from 250 to probably upwards of $450 or more, depending on the area.
Jason Hartman 26:37
Okay. So let’s talk about the cost. And of course, these are just your prices, not everybody’s prices. It’s a competitive market. There’s lots of choices out there, but what do you charge for, you know, generally for the basic home inspection, and then, you know, we’ll talk about these add on services. Let’s make sure we we build this correctly. Go ahead.
Kathleen Kuhn 26:55
Yeah, and the prices of home inspections, even just the standard Home Inspection there From area to area. So on average, our average is about $500 for a standard inspection, and might be a little bit lower in some areas where maybe in Florida or I bid a little bit higher in areas like Westchester, New York, but anywhere between four and $500 is generally going to be a basic inspection for a home, let’s say up to 2500 square feet. Okay, the additional add ons would be a sewer line would be an add on and that is a comprehensive additional service that requires additional certification and equipment as well as very fuel tank same thing. Another very common survey given the numbers for all of these things, okay, so for a sewer line inspection can run anywhere from an additional 250 to $450 depending on the area, very fuel tank scan, which is just a scan of the property basically, trying to assess whether there is a very fuel tank generally runs between 275 and $350. Again does vary by area And I would say another very common inspection or one that we highly recommend, if the home of course has a well and septic system, you need to have those checked out. We do do them in some areas, but in many areas, we will just coordinate those for our customers that they can well is going to really vary by area. So I really can’t give a price because in some areas, but first off, listeners, very few of our properties
Jason Hartman 28:25
have buried fuel tanks, we don’t do much business in the northeast. So that’s not an issue. Very few of them have septic or Well, most of them are connected to utilities, right? But occasionally, that comes up so go ahead with what you’re saying.
Kathleen Kuhn 28:42
So then I would say the other test would be a radon test. And a radon test generally will cause a cost in the range of 150 to $250, if done in conjunction with the standard home inspection, and there’s different types of radon test, but overall, that’s what’s going to cost. It’s going to take A few days to get the results and and that’s one of those things that can really put off a buyer if a high level is comes up. So if you know about it could easily fix you in what areas is does radon become an issue? Well, a lot of people think it’s just it’s that’s another northeast issue, but we see it all over Charlotte all over North Carolina. I mean, we do tests all over the country in the Midwest. So it’s such an easy test and if you’re selling a home, if somebody is moving from an area that has radon, they’re going to do a radon test. So although it’s more common in some areas, it’s generally worth it to do it anywhere in there’s no mitigation for radon is it’s just either there it’s not you don’t fix that. Oh no, there’s it’s very easy to mitigate. Okay, what do you do? It’s actually very easy to mitigate radon because radon is really a it’s a gas that that basically gets caught in the home so years ago when our houses were not as tight because they’re more airtight. Now in an energy efficient it’s become more of an issue. So radon comes up from the ground and gets to Trapped in the house and they all it’s very easy to mitigate it because you basically pump it out. So if you purchase a house and you’re going to renovate it or you’re going to fix it for investment purposes, it’s very easy to just install an exterior pipe or a radon mitigation system, which is basically a fan and a pipe that goes out from the basement or the lower level. Okay, the time to make that repair is them.
Jason Hartman 30:22
Okay, got it. And the one thing you did not mention yet is re inspections. So if the seller of the property has done a renovation, and sometimes they don’t finish everything on the renovation before the buyer buys, you know, we’re in a hot market where things are moving quickly, even now, and by the way, the date I’m recording this is in the middle of our pandemic. Hopefully this will end soon and as well as it can be expected. And you know, properties are moving pretty fast. And so a lot of times the seller is not finished with the renovation, by the time the buyer Does the home inspection and we always tell buyers they must have the inspector go back, do a re inspection and make sure all of the repairs have been done before they close to speak to that issue if you would,
Kathleen Kuhn 31:13
yeah, that’s not a that’s not an uncommon request. And we have it housemaster. We, every customer gets inspection report and includes digital images. So we’re able to take images of things that were in progress. And then the re inspection report would then document not only writing but visually, the repairs that were made. And every customer gets what we call a house master Cloud account, which is ideal for investors, because all their inspection reports and documents are housed in one online repertoire, or that you know, that holds all their documents. So it makes it very easy for them to manage their various properties. So that’s a big plus. And generally that will run a respecter is generally going to run in the $200 range depending on the size of House.
Jason Hartman 32:00
Okay, that’s fairly expensive actually compared to what we’ve seen any anything for that? These are large houses by the way, they’re just little rental properties. So
Kathleen Kuhn 32:09
again, that would be but the inspectors time and he’s got so many appointments in one day and he’s going to take it so that has the flexibility if the if the investor is very flexible well that when the when the appointment can be done that could be a price concession. But if it’s going to take depending on how many repairs as required, if it’s going to take a lot of time, then we’re giving up a full inspection appointment. Okay.
Jason Hartman 32:34
So talk to us since we we brought that up. I want to ask you, I want to make sure we talked about two things. Number one, the use of drones, drone helicopters and home inspections. And number two, how things have changed given the Coronavirus environment. We’ve heard a lot about appraisers and how they’re modifying the way they do business in the midst of the virus outbreak. What about inspectors home inspectors are what are you differently
Kathleen Kuhn 33:01
well we’re doing primarily is we’re not having as many people attend the inspection that’s number one. And of course if the inspector is not feeling well they will cancel and reschedule. We are asking our customers to acknowledge that any attendees of the inspection are also don’t have any symptoms and or have not been tested positively. And then we’re taking all the CDC precautions so mass clubs, washing our hands, we bring sanitizing wipes with us. So we wipe down our tools, we wipe down the counters, we wipe down whatever we touch, as well as use gloves, including our phones. And that’s primarily what we’re doing. So most of the time we’re asking buyers to either not attend the inspection or not join us on the interior of the inspection. And that’s that’s really it. I mean, our inspections as they said at housemaster we include digital images. So the report is very thorough, well written we are offering buyers couldn’t be on the inspection, a virtual review of that report, so that normally we like a buyer alone We can answer all their questions. And so that that makes the written report more meaningful, since they may not be able to be there on the inspection, where then once they get the report, we will review that report with them remotely, so make sure all their questions are answered.
Jason Hartman 34:13
And how about the use of drones?
Kathleen Kuhn 34:16
The use of drones is definitely booming in our industry. It’s an ideal tool for multitude of reasons but certainly houses that you can access the roof. And it’s amazing the quality of images that we get we even there’s software that we use that will actually create a flight plan. And it’s really spectacular. So in areas like Atlanta and just many areas Denver where there’s a lot of large groups and very high rooms that normally would not be able to be inspected can now be inspected
Jason Hartman 34:48
in Do you also roof certifications? Probably not right?
Kathleen Kuhn 34:52
It depends on the office. So some offices will offer roof certifications. Okay, and do you want to explain a little bit about what a recertification is in anything cost associated with well depends on what kind of roof certification you’re looking for because there’s Commercial Roof certifications, and then there’s like FHA or VA recertification. So it really depends. I mean, in some areas, you just, it’s just basically a roof inspection. It really depends on what the purpose of the or what exactly the root certification you’re looking for. If it’s just a roof inspection, the cost can be under $200. If it’s a commercial roof inspection, it’s much more involved and requires thermal imaging, etc. You have for commercial property. Okay, yeah. And we’re not dealing with commercial properties very much at all. So, okay, good. What else should people know maybe something I haven’t asked you? Well, I think it’s important. What people should know is that when it comes to finding a home inspector, you’ll obviously want somebody you’re comfortable with. You want somebody that’s got a very detailed report and housemaster we guarantee our inspections, which is very unique. So it’s not a third party program, but we stand behind the quality and thoroughness of our inspection. And that’s really what what somebody needs in addition guarantee mean,
Kathleen Kuhn 36:00
it means that any of the conditions that we find in the house, if they’re anything that’s inspected and documented to be in satisfactory condition, is we’re going to stand behind that for 90 days after closing. So what that means is if you move in or if the buyer moves in, and they’re our North investor and the tenant moves in, or its investor, yeah, the tenant moves in and their hot water heater failed, we inspected it, and we said it was in satisfactory condition, we would pay up to 1500 dollars for the repair of that item. So it’s really just peace of mind with our investors or our customers, that we’re going to be as thorough as possible on every inspection. Okay, what else were you going to say, Kathleen? The other advantage is that housemaster cloud, so that’s a that’s a great tool that in addition to just an online place for all your inspection reports, because there’s features in that so for example, if you’re negotiating with a seller, we have a repair list generator tool, you know, right into the inspection report, right pull right from the report online, the conditions that you’re going to try and negotiate and send that document right out of out of the housemaster cloud. So you’re not cutting and pasting and circling. And, you know, it just makes negotiations so much smoother and easier.
Jason Hartman 37:18
Okay, that’s good to know. Good to know. All right. Well, thank you very much for joining us, Kathleen. We appreciate it and stay safe out there. All right, you too. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any episodes. Be sure to check out the show’s specific website and our general website Hartman. Mediacom for appropriate disclaimers and Terms of Service. Remember that guest opinions are their own. And if you require specific legal or tax advice, or advice and any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional and we also very much Appreciate you reviewing the show, please go to iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you’re using and write a review for the show we would very much appreciate that. And be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.