Venting, frustration

[Ted Menelly]

Not a complaint, more of a vent.

I do not kn ow if this is happening to anyone else out there. I am sure it is.

I feel like I have done 10 to 12 inspection per week for the last couiple of weeks. The reality is I have not done near half that number in the past couple weeks. Reschedule, cancel, oops rechedule, cancel, nope reschedule, nope back on move to tomorrow. move to next week, nope back on for tomorrow etc etc etc.

Again not a complaint, just a vent, because I am actually working but seriously. Are you folks dealing with the I did 12 inspection thing and only did four or what??????

[wayne soper]

Yeah Ted, Same thing up here in CT. No one can get their $hit togeather because the banks and the lawyers can't get theirs together. Mostly the banks.
I guess they are having problems spending all that money we gave them!:mad:
I feel the same way but yes, We are working at least.
The + side
The Cream will rise to the top.
Bad brokers will have to retire and bad inspectors will go back to being Home depot stock boys
All we have to do is make it through this year and I think we will be " Back in the saddle again"

[Jim Luttrall]

I am seeing much more of deals falling through due to financing, etc.
Most of my clients right now are people selling houses and buying another with the purchase contingent on the sale of the current house.
It is not nearly as easy to make all the pieces fit; financing, appraisals, utilities turned on for inspections, etc.
You have got to stay flexible since nothing is a "lock" these days.

[Ted Menelly]

One example. I had two inspections today. One was npot good for the buyer so moved it to tomorrow am. The buyer did not like am but I convinced him about the flexibility thing. That one was for this afternoon. The one that was for this morniong got moved to Monday because none of the idiots hit a switch or turned on a faucet to find out if any utilities were on. The one for yesterday morning got cancelled because of financing and they are now looking for what they can actually afford. The one for Monday afternoon got cancelled becuse they called another half dozen inspectors and found one of those 200 dollar inspectors no matter what the size etc etc etc etc no matter what the knowledge or experience. I may pull off four this week and should in reality have had 8 but felt like I have done ten so far.

[Ted Menelly]

That's when it pays to use a scheduling service. They are really earning their money lately. Every time I check my schedule there are things changed and moved around. The utility situation is starting to piss me off though. I had 2 last week that I was assured by the agents the utilities were all on. Maybe they don't know gas is a utility.

I understand the scheduling service but then I would still have a changed schedule and then be paying someone else for the scheduling. I could just never see paying someone to be an order taker. I tested it once and they did not schedule anymore than I did as far as selling the inspection.

It has to be costing you thousands of dollars per year for an order taker/salesman. That could be a serious savings for retirement or a serious vacation every year.

[Matt Fellman]

I'm in the same boat here, Ted. It's just been crazy lately - between the utilities, the banks, the buyers, the agents.... I can't believe the stars ever line up for me to work.

One pattern I've noticed - when a buyer or agent calls and says they have 'verbal acceptance' from the bank. Figure on at least 2 weeks before they get the paperwork and are actually ready for an inspection. And, once they are ready to go I can pretty much promise 1/2 the time you show up something will be turned off and everyone will act stunned. I try to keep a good attitude about it and just be glad that I'm working at all. But it's tough at times.

As for the scheduling service thing - I looked into that a couple years ago and was amazed at how much it costs. I think it was around 20K a year for the volume I was predicting. That's totally crazy for an answering service. I actually kind of debated with guy and just asked him why I wouldn't just hire my own employee who could also do bookwork, send out advertising, go get the mail, make me coffee, whatever???? He didn't have a very good answer. I first heard of the whole concept at CE conference in Las Vegas a few years ago. I have to figure with the downturn in the market those guys are hurting too.

[Nick Ostrowski]

One of the things is the buyers get all amped up and want to schedule the inspection before the agreement is in place. I tell them to call me when they actually have an executed agreement of sale to try and avoid some of the last minute cancels. Even then, that doesn't always work. Sometimes the sale is contingent on the buyers selling their house and then their buyer can't get financing which makes all the dominoes fall down. There definitely needs to be a lot of communication on all ends to get some of these inspections to happen. And while you're jumping through hoops, you end up asking yourself if this inspection is even worth it.

I priced the call handling service and there's no way I want to pay close to $1,000 per month to have somebody else answer my phones. I do a good job of it myself and I have control of what is and isn't being said. Plus, I get to talk to the buyers and get a sense of what they want and what is important to them. You can't get that when somebody else answers the phone and you just get appointments.

[Bill Emelander]

Not very many schedule problems. Had client call Wednesday am for a Friday inspection. With in 2 hours and three call from Realtor it was put on hold. (Bank owned). At 7 pm client calls to see if Friday is still open, he found another home and dumped the bank owned. Too many issues.

Bill

[A.D. Miller]

Gentlemen quit whining. It could be much, much worse . . .

[Richard Thacker]

Those who have been doing this long enough have been there several times. It all part of the Law of Averages, Murphy's Law and Obama's Stimulus Plan. All things we can't control.:)