"A realtor working for the buyer simply looks for homes that the buyer may be interrested in and shows them the home.

Appraisors calculate square footage and ammenities in the home and base a value against other homes within a given area.

Surveyors are using a GPS or other device to make measurements against a given dimmension.

Mortgage brokers are falling all over themselves trying to get business. They are simply the middle man and use your credit rating and hook you up with someone willing to take the risk and len you money. The main factor here is the vuyers credit."

Jon, I think I know what you are saying, but I think you are over-simplifying these jobs a bit. There are people in all these lines of work that are good enough to make a difference for their client. However, we as HIs must not think as much of ourselves or we would be able to demand and get more money for our services. If we are worth so much more than these other services, why in the world do we make so much less than they do on average? Part of the reason for our less than professional wages is the fact that most home insectors do not know how to truly market their services so they try to get work on price alone. To make it even worse, most home inspectors get most of their biz from realtor referrals and the realtors know what everyone is charging and some of them think they are doing their client a favor by getting the lower priced inspection for them.

Another reason is the fact that the business is too easy to get into so many folks do it part time. Now don't get riled up if you are part time, because I too started that way and it is probably the most common way to do it. But you don't see many licensed professions of any kind where the majority of the practioners are part timers. Why, because you have to be more committed to getting that license in most professions. We must first raise our standards before our pricing will be on par with other professionals.

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