Thread: April Fool

I had a 3:00pm inspection this afternon in Philly for a past client on his current property so I hopped in my car at 2:00 for the trip down. At 2:55, nobody is answering the door so I called him. When he answered the phone and I told him who I was, he groaned and asked me if I was in front of his house (he was over an house away in another county). He said I was supposed to be on his list of things to cancel today but he forgot to call. He said he hoped that he wasn't the only reason I drove down into the city today and I didn't hesitate to tell him that was the case. He said he'd understand if I had to bill him. That's good cuz he's getting a bill. I spent 2 hours and 20 minutes in the car in the rain in slow traffic because somebody can't pick up a phone.

I'm not feeling very charitable, past client or not.

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Must be contagious this week - Monday PM postponed to Thurs PM, Wed PM cancelled Wed AM, Thurs PM cancelled yeah Thurs PM.

We only bill if the inspection gets done before cancellation, happened once last year, waited 4 months for payment.

Cancellations are a tough one in this business. You can get a signed contract before scheduling the job but that's just not realistic in most cases. Without a signed agreement you really have no legal basis to demand payment but can still sometimes collect. Making matters worse is that real estate agents spend their life running around for no money so they don't have a lot of sympathy or motivation to help you get compensated if/when you totally waste your time. The key element many of them overlook is that when they do finally get paid it's several thousand dollars or more. We're in it for a few hundred bucks.

Sorry for the rant.... this has always been an annoyance to me. I pretty much just assume a certain number of cancellations each year and build it into the fee structure/cost of business. Otherwise, I get too mad

Then you have the Realtors around here that are selling on the average of 2 houses per month (Average sale of a house is $200,000) which that Realtor brings in about $58,000 a year after taxes but does not include all their monthly and yearly business expenses. So when they have to spend the time and money to show houses to clients that never end up buying a house, I have to agree with Matt that there isn't much sympathy from Realtors when there is a cancellation or delay and our time is involved.

When my wife was a Realtor, she thought there were some good home inspectors that she knew would do their best, but she was still nervous at times because of all the houses they looked at, the time on the phone and internet plus the money she had invested in that couple. After negotiating with the other Realtor to come to a price, it mainly came down to what was discovered at the home inspection and buyers attitude afterwords.

I always tell Realtors that they should charge a $ amount up front just to get started like Lawyers do. That would help eliminate some of these "so called" home buyers that end up just wanting to look at houses.

Many Realtors around here don't make that much money when everything is added and subtracted at the end of the year, but some of the problems they come across is because of their own practices.

O-well, it's 2am and time to hit the bed. That's all I need now is to dream about Realtors.

I would have just driven home and stewed the whole way without a thought towards collecting any reimbursement for my time but he brought it up and said he would understand if I had to bill him.

Your wish is my command.

I had a "potential" client call Saturday morning to schedule for Tuesday, canceled Monday afternoon, called back Monday evening to reschedule for Friday, called Tuesday afternoon to haggle price and then cancel for Friday. Thursday morning at 7:30am my lead service sends me her contact information.

I called her and greeted her with my name and company name. Then I politely inform her that I am unavailable for any inspections for her and she needs to find a different inspector. There was silence at the other end. I thanked her and hung up.