Home Inspection Red Flags Every Real Estate Investor Must Know

William Richardson (00:00)
That’s a pretty good question. I like that. You know that every one of them should have a business plan already in place. Okay. And they have a profit margin that they should be looking for. I know the couple of them are like 30%. They want to invest and get 30 % for money right when they finish that. So when you come in, you know, you got some big ticket items on any old house. That’s the HVAC, the roof, plumbing, and electrical.

All right. And I’ll call that the four points.

Micah Johnson (02:05)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Bill, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate now since 2012. Bill, welcome in, man. Glad to have you.

William Richardson (02:16)
I’m glad to be here. I’m excited too.

Micah Johnson (02:20)
home for our call today, man, because you’re coming at us from the position of owning a home inspection company. And that’s a really unique viewpoint on the industry. I’ve, I’ve worked with many home inspectors in my career and it matters to have a good one. It matters to have someone who knows exactly what they’re looking at, what they help you see, what they help you do. So I’m pumped to hear it, man. I’m pumped for you to share some nuggets for our listeners and viewers. So let’s dig in, man, for those who aren’t familiar with yet.

Tell us more about yourself and what your main focus is right now.

William Richardson (02:52)
Well, we’re a veteran owned as I’m the veteran and family and we’re locally owned and all that stuff. ⁓ I, ⁓ just love, ⁓ going to work every day. Cause it’s the one thing I’d get to meet new people, new people would be able to talk. You’ll be, you’ll be surprised. I talk a lot. Yeah. I actually have to.

Micah Johnson (03:16)
Yes.

William Richardson (03:19)
Kick myself to stop talking and say, I have to work. Not, I’ll be there for hours. But when it, when I do an inspection, it’s about three hours. That’s if nobody’s there, but I always encourage my clients to come because their clients at last hour to get an, I teach them about their property.

Micah Johnson (03:39)
Mmm, love that.

William Richardson (03:40)
Yeah. So even always try to teach somebody something and I’ll give a little tidbits of knowledge here, eventually here. But I was taught by a guy when I first started home inspection business. you had to, when you got your license and everything, you had to have mentorship with an established person, but nobody wants to teach their competition. Right? So you had to a guy. So I found a guy in golf breeze.

And he was awesome, awesome guys names van Hibbers. passed away during COVID, but he was actually psych-pro. And I bought half of it from him when we became acquainted and liked each other and worked so well together because I told him that photographs and the most important thing in the whole job makes you take pictures of everything.

worked on that and we had competition, see who can get the most photographs after a while. And with our inspection, we have a little written, something written about everything, you know, like, uh, uh, we try to have a solution for our problems when, uh, find something wrong. And, uh, yeah, so we’d go along and, when I first met him, it was like 25, 30 pages for his report. And then after a couple of weeks and he’s saying, man, you got this thing, you got 80 pages.

And he says, well, got to have a lot of photos. So, yeah, so we got it saying that a normal home inspection, it’s 75 pages are right around there. And then if there’s any problems, it gets up to 120, 130 pages in the report. And our reporting program, used 3D, we still do inspections and it gets bogged down with too many photos. So I figured out how to get that around that. So I had to have them.

fixed a program so we could do our stuff. And we like to do it. And Vand, his number was, license number was 24. All right. My license number is, well, let me look and see, 7,024. Now we have Will and with me, that’s my oldest son. And his is like, oh gosh, it’s like.

A lot more, it’s like in a hundred thousand home inspector’s license in Florida.

Micah Johnson (06:10)
It’s

a booming industry, It has exploded. Take us back. What led us to where you are today? How’d you get here? ⁓

William Richardson (06:13)
yeah.

Well,

I retired from the Navy in 2011. I was going to school, used my VA GI Bill and also gave me a stipend so I could live a little better. And I had to take a business course and this business course made it to a business plan, but you couldn’t do it what you’re going to school for. Well, I was going to school for cyber.

William Richardson (07:28)
cybersecurity and stuff like that. It seemed like the way to go. uh, so I had to do a business plan. So this business plan was, um, didn’t know what to do. So I walked outside and I was scratching my head. See, there’s not much hair here. So I was scratching and, um, yeah. And I looked down and still yellow pages were delivered at time and it was in the driveway. So I picked it up and I’ll close my eyes, opened it up and guess what I came to home inspect. So I did the business plan for it.

And after I did the business plan, I said, ⁓ my gosh, this is what I need to do. Cause I’m, I was senior enlisted in Navy and all I did was inspect and I had construction experience before I went in the Navy. so I said, well, you know what? This is going to be perfect because it’ll work into it. So I did the business plan. ⁓ and after I did this plan, I finished, I never quit at anything. So I finished the course, got an A in it. They thought my business plan was outstanding and the whole course thing. I went.

I in, tried to do home inspection, tried to get the VA to pay for it, but I had a few injuries when I was in the military, but they said, no, we can’t do it. So I had to pay for it myself and I did it and everything. And here I am now, a couple of years later. Now I’m master inspector through internotching. Cause I always like to increase, always have to learn. What’s difference?

Micah Johnson (08:45)
10 years later you’re

Like what’s it take to be a master inspector?

William Richardson (08:56)
Oh, that’s like a thousand inspections and you have to send them off to Inurnachi and evaluate you and say, yeah, you could be a master inspector.

Micah Johnson (09:06)
So how long it take you to get to a thousand?

William Richardson (09:09)
⁓ it took a long time. took about six years. Okay. And after that, went and put it on my packet in for it. And I said, yeah, you can be a master inspector. I said, okay. So I saw my, my little thing. Yeah. Yeah. It’s no feather in my cap, right? That’s right. All right. And then, and then I also, ⁓ had, you know, I had some guys call up and wanting to be inspectors and I mentor about three guys in the area.

always for like in Milton and one of another one in Freeport. that, although them shadow me for a couple of months and stuff. And they always, I said, okay, I get calls from them all the time. And that’s all it is to ask me questions. said, yeah, I’ve seen that. And then, you but I have a problem. I called them up and said, Hey, you seen this yet? Oh yeah. So we got a little, got a little group of people here, you know, three, and then I’m taking on another guy right now. And.

We want to, ⁓ I try to make sure everybody is a good inspector. Right. It’s all about starting a routine. You stick to it every time, every time I follow those things. And if you start with the outside, that’s what you do. You start with the inside. Now it’s what it is, but you have to do the same thing over and over and over. Right. And you’d be able to find this fine stuff. And, ⁓ like, ⁓ my biggest thing is, ⁓

Micah Johnson (10:35)
Hold

on, go back into what you just said. Why is that routine? You said you got to it over and over to be able to find stuff. Why does that like unlock it?

William Richardson (10:42)
okay. Because you don’t miss anything. All right. You do the same way every time. Like we’ll start with the outside. You go around the outside, you do the siding and stuff like that. And you’ll get to look at it and stuff. ⁓ and, but you know, it’s your goal is 10,000 steps a day. Cause you got to walk around that house four or five times just to do the outside. Right.

Getting a routine, just walk it, cause you’re going to do trim and you can do siding. Then you’re going to do roof. Then you’re to do the ⁓ underneath. I like to crawl underneath there. Do you know that spiders have six eyes? They scare the hell out of me. It’s no problem. But spiders, you don’t know where they’re looking at. You don’t know what they’re doing. I’ve come across them again. mean, I’m like trying to back out. I don’t know what the heck it is.

Micah Johnson (11:33)
That’s it, man. There’s a lot of stuff lives in those crawl spaces in Florida. I’m from Florida too. it’s most people are what they’re not ready for is our bugs. They think the heat is what they’re going to have to deal with. It’s what lives in that heat. It ain’t just lives thrives in it. Like it’s its environment. ⁓

William Richardson (11:44)
Thank you.

State birds, mosquito and the state cockroaches.

Micah Johnson (11:55)
Yeah.

I always say mosquitoes are the safe bird. Don’t kill those.

William Richardson (11:59)
Yeah, they are the same.

I’ll tell you the worst ones are the no-see-ums.

Micah Johnson (12:05)
⁓ man, that’s it. And if you don’t know what those are folks, Google it. Cause they’re not nicknamed that for no reason. It feels like you’re just getting bit out of nowhere.

Micah Johnson (12:49)
Okay, all right, we gotta wrap up the Florida things, even though I could talk about those all the time.

William Richardson (12:54)
Yeah, Ford is great.

Micah Johnson (12:55)
Okay. So you’ve built the business, you’ve mastered it on excellence. Now for an investor, let’s say a young investor that’s getting started. Cause I love, it’s actually great that folks have the shadow, right? Cause it kind of gives y’all control over your industry. You get to decide if you’re letting someone in. Now they’ve led a hundred thousand folks in, so that’s folks have done it, but it’s kind of a good wedge there. What should a new investor, what are some tips for them that you’d share just to be on the lookout for?

Like if they’re going to walk a house, let’s say they’re going to look at a house for the first time, right? They’re going in. What would you recommend them do? Hey, a routine, like take us into it. What should they look at? should they look for? What’s a deal killer?

William Richardson (13:38)
Okay. Well, I this is a pretty good question. I like that. You know that every one of them should have a business plan already in place. Okay. And they have a profit margin that they should be looking for. I know the couple of them are like 30%. They want to invest and get 30 % for money right when they finish that. So when you come in, you know, you got some big ticket items on any old house as to HVAC, the roof, plumbing.

And electrical, right? And I’ll call that the four points. right. All right. So you got the four points that you should always be aware of. All right. Cause, uh, in Florida, depending on the age, no up to the eighties, uh, you could have a little bit of wiring or you could have, uh, let’s say it’s poly butyl even to the eighties. Yeah. But as, as a two deal killers almost, unless you have it built into your profit margin to be able to replace it, you can’t.

patch it, you have to replace it you know about it. And I know that people don’t like to get into the walls. They like to see everything around it. But as soon as you pull on that, then you see poly gray piping as plastic. can almost assume it’s polybutyl.

Micah Johnson (14:53)
Take folks through that. what arrows, and this is a type of pipe that was used, especially in Florida, take us through the years it was used because it came in as like an inexpensive option that was going to get put out places and then it didn’t last. didn’t run. There’s just these places full of them that you do need to have a heads up for this. So where would they find a, what era homes have that piping in it?

William Richardson (15:08)
No, I work.

Okay. So it’s usually late seventies to mid eighties. You can have polybutyl. right. So, ⁓ you know, copper is king for plumbing. Copper was king. And then they went to a CVPC, you know, that’s the white PVC pipe and they had that with polybutyl at the same time. And they said, polybutyl is great, less fittings and stuff like that. And it bends and stuff and it’s easier to put in it.

Micah Johnson (15:38)
got now.

William Richardson (15:49)
Well, they found out those fittings were bad and polybutyl split after time and the fittings were all bad. So they, uh, and so then they came up with pecs. Oh, pecs is great, but they have some bad pecs too. So there was a time period and most of this is all for insurance. Okay. You can, uh, they don’t want to ensure a house that’s, um, got bad in and the same way it goes with the limo wiring too, even though, but polybutyl is bad because it’ll break.

and you flood a house out, you don’t even know about it. All right. So ⁓ the things to look for is if you got a gray piece of pipe and it has PB and on it and stencils on it, PB is a 1024. Now it’ll be definitely polybutyl. All right. And either you want to run or build it into you think that you have to change your profit. ⁓

Micah Johnson (16:43)
five grand. you just you just added repiping to the list.

William Richardson (16:47)
Then you got aluminum wiring. Okay, there’s another one. You had five grand to it too if you’re going to have to tear and

Micah Johnson (16:53)
What’s that look like? How would they know it’s aluminum wire? Like super obvious?

William Richardson (16:58)
It’s obvious if you know where to look. And people try to hide it too. That’s the worst part of this. You go open up the ⁓ circuit breaker box. That’s the load center. You open it up, take cover off and you say, it’s all copper. And you got aluminum coming in from the street. That’s fine. As long as it’s braided aluminum, it’s great.

William Richardson (18:06)
And then 220s can have aluminum wiring like to the stove or to the air conditioner. The biggest problem with that is because when people change out of receptacles, they’re always copper. It used to be aluminum, now they’re copper. All right. And then you have different metals, different metals. They vibrate with electricity at different rates and they get hot at different rates. And so the expansion and contraction will cause them to get loose.

which can cause sparks and can have a fire. I mean, they maybe had one and the insurance industry hopped on that and boom, they say you can’t have aluminum wiring in a house or if you insure it’s really expensive. right. you know, Alcola is an aluminum company, right? Their whole plant’s wired in aluminum. No problem with it, but everything’s aluminum. that’s why.

But it’s because it when you add a receptacle or switch or something, it’s all coming. No, but they have a mitigation thing. called a Lumicon where they bond the aluminum wiring to copper and you have copper pigtails coming off of it. But that they’ll insure it now, but you know about next week or next year. don’t want it. Insurance insurance in Florida is a killer. That’s the deal killer for a lot of people.

Micah Johnson (19:04)
aluminum receptacles or switches.

William Richardson (19:29)
Cause it can just like your roof. Okay. Now we’re going to Ruth. So I’m Let’s do roofs.

Micah Johnson (19:35)
So

we hit electrical one of the four points. Now we’re on the roofs. Let’s go.

William Richardson (19:38)
All

right. 2005, you had Ivan in this area, right? You had Michael east of us, and then you had Opal and stuff to the west of us. so 2005, okay, that makes the roof pretty old now. It’s 20 years old. All right. You buy a 35 year roof after Ivan, they were making you a change it at 15 years. Insurance was trying to do it.

But luckily, the state hopped in the Santa said, no, can’t do that time. The governor, he was a good guy. but, ⁓ so they, ⁓ I made it so, ⁓ you can, ⁓ it eight to 10 years, I mean, eight, five to eight years, you should still be insurable, but you pay a lot more for insurance because the insurance company knows that thing can blow off anytime. Right. Okay. So, but they were trying to make you change it at 15.

But so all roofs, when you have the real estate deal, it should have permits on them. And I know that realtors are supposed to ensure that all permits are closed. But when I go in there and do a home inspection and do the four point on it, I say, or the wind mitigation, I say, hey, permits, know how many, probably is the secret here, you know how many I find failed or haven’t been closed permits? About 50%.

So I really, yeah. When I tell the agent, say, amen. don’t know if you checked the, ⁓ the permits, but, you got open permits and some of them failed, haven’t even closed yet for the roof. All right. So they got to have a good permit. That’s the only way you can prove the age. I try to get, if they don’t have that, they can go back to, the permitting agent, like, ⁓ the county or city and pay a lot of money, you know, $75 or something and get them to come out and repermit it or,

I try to get purchase orders or something if they have that available, just to prove the age of the roof for insurance. right. Some insurance companies will take that, but they definitely want closed permits saying, it’s going to go. also, Owings Corning had a big problem after Ivan and the big one in Southern Florida. Gosh, you can’t remember it. The big one, Miami Dade area that wiped out all that.

After that, Andrew? Yeah, Andrew.

Micah Johnson (22:01)
Way back in the day? Like 1994? ⁓

William Richardson (22:04)
Yeah. After that, yeah, 96, I think it was, ⁓ they had a lot of roots. put a lot of shingles together. No, I’m very good. So they deteriorate lot quicker. So, but you have to make sure. ⁓ but neither, when I get up and inspect the roof, I look at it, you look for granular and bend it back, see if it’s still flexible. And you can get an estimate about how old it is until yeah, they’re telling the truth. You know, you can figure it out by.

Uh, after it’s installed, how old approximately within five years, I just looked at the roof. Okay. All right. So, uh, you get a good idea. So that’s a two, that’s a big one. And we got one left and I think that’s, um, HVAC. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know, you you ever try to buy, I just had to buy an Eric finisher for my house. It’s 8,000 just for the outside unit. Now you get the inside, it’s about $10,000 for an HVAC unit.

⁓ my gosh, that’s a pretty penny in it. It is. Yeah. But the way to keep in Florida, to keep your air conditioners in tip top shape, you have to have a ⁓ HVAC guy come yearly to clean the outside unit, clean the inside unit, make sure that the gases are right. Make sure your capacitors, start capacitors for your compressor outside are all good. Once, ⁓ and then keep that up, they can last indefinitely.

Micah Johnson (23:07)
It is. had to do it three years ago.

William Richardson (23:33)
Right. Until they rot. know, eventually. Yeah. Eventually. So yeah, the average life in Florida for an AC unit is 10 to 15 years. But if you keep the year maintenance up on it, you can extend it to 20 years, 25. So it’s well worth that a hundred dollars a year for that HVAC guy you trust. So you’ve got to be able to trust your trades that somebody will come in and do that stuff. And so that’s we come in.

Micah Johnson (23:37)
like that.

William Richardson (24:03)
I do inspection. go on to the differential temperature. If it doesn’t come within 14, 14 degrees from intake to exhaust. If it does that, then it’s good. Check your A-frame check outside. And the biggest problem I find is to go outside and look at the compressor out there. It’s not level. All right. You know, air conditioner runs like a top. Top has processions. It runs, you you throw that top up and it wants to stand up. I always point up. Well,

That’s what the air that compressor wants to do. And if it’s not level, it’s like this and it’s fighting to come, come up top, just go straight up and down. Um, so if it’s extra wear and tear on a compressor, which is the heart of an XC, you want to keep that level. That’s the number one cause I’m going bad. Not being level. Really? Yeah. So that’s all the tricks I have. And that’s what you have to look for. If you’re an investor, that’s why you should hire somebody like me.

Micah Johnson (24:47)
It’s the thing that does it.

Well, I’m telling you more and more I’ve seen the action taken in the industry to get inspectors on site sooner. I’m seeing more sellers do it. I’m seeing more investors do it because if you can head it off at the past, at the past, then what you really eliminate is the buyer’s wedge. It’s there like when I was an agent, that’s how I got started. That’s what you use. The inspection report is your wedge against the price or whatever you’re trying to get. Is there anything else? Right. And that’s what you’re.

And home inspectors are paid to find stuff. Like that’s your job. So I always hear from people playing in like, well, there’s the, you know, it’s all good. No, I literally paid somebody to go find. They’re supposed to tell me stuff that’s wrong. Okay. Like that’s their job. If nothing’s wrong, I don’t trust them. There’s something wrong. Brand new construction’s got something off. There’s something there. Okay. Like it’s never just perfect. So it’s, it’s that lever.

And as an investor, if you take the legs out upfront and know, it gives you options. No one gets to come in and say, well, you found this. Well, you literally just say, Hey, here’s the inspection report. Here’s the things I did. Here’s the things I’m not going to do. And here’s how much I reflect that in the price.

William Richardson (26:16)
Three wholeheartedly.

Micah  Johnson (26:17)
gives you

so much power in the deal and you’re only talking about a couple hundred bucks, right? Like, or 500 bucks, depends on how deep you’re getting into there on what you’re getting, but that’s honestly, feel like sellers should take it on. It’s a normal buyer’s expense, but what sucks for buyers is when they don’t buy the house. You’re talking about spending a significant amount of money to find out if something’s wrong with it. That’s where the we’re in a buyer beware state. Most States are like you gotta.

You got to look out, it’s up to the buyer to look out for themselves. But anyways, that’s my rant. The more of that information up front you have, the more valuable it is for everybody really.

William Richardson (26:56)
Yeah, I agree. Excellent rant. I always tell, I was in the military, right? I always tell my clients, said, okay, you’re a warlord. I’m the arms dealer and your realtor is your general. I try to find you ammunition. You get, you go and figure out what’s more important to you. And ammunition wise, you tell your general and y’all go and work it out. Cause you know what a good deal is? Which one?

Okay. A good deal is when all parties are happy. Exactly. You try to make a good deal, but you know, and the problem is people live in a house. think they can live in it for 20, 30 years and they don’t realize it’s falling down around them. And that community inspect. That’s why I try to get that pre-listing inspection. Cause once you’re under contract, what’s that mean? Contractors because it’s always in their assessor has to be a contractor unless you deal and say, well, you can have a handyman go and take, make those repairs. So.

But when you have a contractor, costs a lot more money than a handyman. Right. All right. So, so they pre-lift the inspection. should. I find all the things and then you’ll know what you want to deal, what you want to repair and what, ⁓ you know, what, you know, a competent inspector would find that you know is there. So you got to go and you can have this inspection at the sale and you have all the receipts where it was fixed. And now.

Now that people come in confidence and they say, wow, man, they found this, this and this wrong and they have it all fixed. Man, why do we have to have an inspection? Because they did it on that side and, and the buyer is more confident coming into it.

Micah Johnson (28:36)
It

creates a stronger deal. creates a stronger deal. And if you’re in a market where buyers, lot of markets are quote unquote buyers markets right now, a lot of inventory out there, like what can you do to get ahead of folks is do those things. how can you, where are the speed bumps, right? And to be good at anything, you’re always trying to remove your restraints. What’s in, what do you got to get rid of that’ll help deals go smoother? And this is one of those things that.

William Richardson (28:39)
You’re so

Micah Johnson (29:05)
Just the more you know, better, the more you know, the better. I know guys that have been investing for years and years and years and years now, and they know the things you know, but especially the new guys work with professionals. Find somebody like Bill out there and new girls. don’t mean anything, but, ⁓ find, find a professional to work with because there’s nothing like

William Richardson (29:25)
Hahaha.

Micah Johnson (29:31)
getting the information from people that are good at it. That’s why I like to bring professionals on the show. Don’t learn from people who aren’t actually doing it. Especially in real estate, the industry changes too fast. It’s just a quick moving environment. You gotta be with folks that are doing it. So again, take the time to find a professional like Bill that can show you these things. Because what you said earlier is something I really, really loved. In the inspectors I used, ⁓

Back when I was a realtor, they did that same thing. They’d educate people. They would bring folks back in and explain to them. They didn’t just send them this long report they were going to get that can feel very daunting, especially to just a regular homeowner or person by him because you don’t see him very often, once every five years or so maybe. And just taking them through, hey, this is what this is. This is what that is. This is how that works. This is what you need to pay attention to here.

It’s so helpful, man. Like what, have you found that do for your clients?

William Richardson (30:32)
well, you know, it takes a lot of my time and inspection to do this, but I, they, they feel more confident like, you know, they know the toilets flush. They know the water comes out. show them underneath the thing. have a flashlight. I’ll put it on strobes. They see no leaks because of strobe lights, dusting finally.

Micah Johnson (30:52)
What does it do? just shows it like dripping or something?

William Richardson (30:55)
Yeah,

I can show drips. You won’t be able to see it. You put it on strobe, know, those flashlights and you can actually see the drips coming out. I put it up to ⁓ the shower and put it on strobe and you can actually see the drops.

Yeah, throw a flashlight, show them there’s no drips under there. And it’s just that and you know, turn on the AC, warm them and show them and all that stuff. that stove, the fans, everything. I like to, you like I said, number one thing is flush the toilets, make sure. I said, okay. Or my favorite thing is it’s got a closet. I get clients to walk into the closet with me I said, okay, now it’s officially a walk-in closet.

Micah Johnson (31:41)
Right, there you go, you see all the good jokes.

William Richardson (31:44)
Yeah, they love it. I’ve got a lot of them.

Micah Johnson (31:47)
Got

to man. That’s what makes you a good inspector. Cause it, it is a service to people. It’s not just look good, know how to pick a house apart. It’s not a communicate. Stuff. Most people have no idea about effectively so they can make the largest financial transaction of their life. Most, most of the time, like it’s not little things, especially on the retail side, like investor world, we deal with it a lot, but retail side, they don’t deal with it a lot.

That’s not their world. It’s where when you, you can’t use real estate language because they don’t know what we’re talking about at all. Okay. You have to say it, everything in the version they would understand it. ⁓ okay. What are you excited about for this year? What’s what’s been happening in the world of inspections that you’re pumped about? What’s changed?

William Richardson (32:40)
All right, well, I’m gonna go talk about new construction a little bit. Now that, let’s see. Need to make sure, you know, we do get new construction stuff because later on down the line, the wind mitigation forms, 1802 and stuff, they wanna know what kind of attachments you have for the wall, roof wall attachments and stuff. And unless you have that documented with my…

stick inspection for a new home, ⁓ then you won’t know because you realize that you have hurricane clips. Now they have screws that come up from the bottom that go up into the rafters. ⁓ that’s the new thing. do you know who dictates what kind of clip you have or what dictates it? It’s not code. It’s the truss manufacturer.

tells you they have a warranty on every piece of this new construction. They have warranty from different providers like you got the trusses, the roof trusses, they come in and they hoist them up there with cranes and stuff. Well, they’re the ones that tell you what kind of connector you have to have. Now they have screws that are real long stainless steel screws about this long. They screw them up into there or still the old fashioned hurricane clips or the straps. And sometimes it’s a mixture of both. All right.

I like to make sure that, you know, I like that we have all this documented. I keep my, when I have a client, ⁓ I like to be their inspector for life. I’m only, I’m 68 right now. So I’ve got my son coming in. I’m he is. He’s been working with me for about a year and a half now and he’s almost ready to be on his own. So he’s my oldest.

Micah Johnson (34:30)
Getting him out of the nest. Let’s go.

William Richardson (34:34)
He came from Hawaii. I was there for 14 years. love the place, but I wish I could go for to live there, but he and his wife came over here and now they live here and, I got to go on for it. So it’s a family owned business.

Micah Johnson (34:51)
Real estate, real estate allows you to get connected to all sorts of types of companies in it. Like home service businesses have been exploding lately. It’s, it’s, need them. We need them run well. We need good folks in it. And it is, it just, it allows you to create the life you want, create the legacy that you want. It leaves something. There’s something that your kids can keep doing if they want to do it. And that’s, that’s what I really like about it is.

I mean, we all say we want to build time, freedom and generational wealth. Well, what’s, what is that exactly? Right? We got to figure that’s, that’s just not, they’re fun three words to say, but for each of us, we got to solve that, what that looks like and what we’re leaving behind. And it’s just a great avenue to do it in, man. really, I really love that part that family’s coming on.

William Richardson (35:36)
And the family’s the most important thing. you know, uh, but my, uh, our, uh, company motto is looking beyond the obvious. So I just try to make sure, uh, we do, uh, try to do that. And, I’m going to have to say my, son’s a little anal retentive, but I have to keying back a little bit, but it makes a good inspector to be one to know why he wants to know why everything’s this way.

I said, sometimes you can’t, you just got to report it. uh, yeah, but he likes to know where, you know, if he’s sick out of stain, he gets up in that attic and tries to figure out why there’s a stain in that ceiling. And he doesn’t stop until he knows why there’s a stain. And I told him, well, that’s probably two rooms ago. And, uh, cause all I do is put a moisture meter on it. If it’s dry and you don’t have to worry about it.

Micah Johnson (36:10)
do it at your house.

That’s got the shortcut son you gotta learn.

William Richardson (36:36)
⁓

Moisture meter, there’s tools in the trade we have. I got thermal camera that I use. ⁓

Micah Johnson (36:45)
You’ll have cool tools.

William Richardson (36:47)
Yeah, I cool tools, ⁓ thermal cameras, moisture meters, then we have things, know, ⁓ stud finder keeps on going off every time I touch it. can’t use one.

Micah Johnson (36:59)
I got the same problem, same problem.

William Richardson (37:01)
Okay, good. ⁓

Micah Johnson (37:03)
My wife doesn’t think so, but I do. ⁓ But no, she says she does. So, well, Bill, man, these are the kinds of conversations I can have for a long time. I really appreciate you being here today. Thanks for sharing just your expertise with us. What drives you in behind it? For those that are listening in that want to learn more about you, possibly connect with you, what’s the best way for them to find you?

William Richardson (37:25)
Okay. On my webpage is www.site-pro.us and you can find all my pricing and everything is there. And I publish it. It’s published there. So there’s nothing to hide and go to Instagram is sitepro99. You get ahold of us either way, phone call. You get that from the webpage and from Instagram, text us through media anyway, and we’ll come back to you.

And remember, once you’re

Micah Johnson (37:58)
Man, love that. Thanks for sharing that. So check the show notes. We’ll have all of Bill’s links there for you. Like you hear me say all the time, use professionals, work with people who know what they’re doing, who are on your side, who are on the side of the deal even. It’s not about wrecking stuff. It’s about making good deals happen. So again, Bill, thanks for being with us today. Appreciate your time. think we need more folks out there like you doing it the way you’re doing it. Thank you, man. Thanks everybody out there for being with us.

William Richardson (38:21)
You’re doing a good job. Thank you.

Micah Johnson (38:26)
If you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode. If you think someone else could get value out of it, share it with them. And if you’re not a subscriber yet, you know what to do. Click the button. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators, just like Bill, folks out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us today. We’ll see you all in the next episode.