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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Fred Willcox, a pioneer in the real estate inspection industry. Fred shares his journey from starting inspections at a young age to becoming a key figure in establishing standards for inspectors in Texas. He discusses the complexities of modern home inspections, the importance of continuous learning, and offers valuable insights into avoiding litigation as a realtor. Fred’s wealth of experience and knowledge shines through as he emphasizes the significance of framing in homes and the evolving challenges in the inspection field.
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Fred Willcox (00:00)
Be careful with your recommendations. When I get a lawsuit in, the first thing I tell the lawyers to do is subpoena the business records of the inspector. Then we look at the realtor’s business records. If the realtor’s using the same inspector time after time after time, that’s collusion. Whether you intend it to be or not, it’s collusion.Quentin (01:52)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. Listen, I hope this is okay to say, I hope I don’t offend him. I don’t think I am. But I think we got a living legend here. It’s not too many times that we get to interview somebody that was the first at something. And so I’m gonna let them explain, but he’s been the first in his field. And I’m gonna let him explain it a little bit more. But one thing I want you guys to do,is to get ready because you know, we’re in real estate, selling homes, buying homes. And so the word inspection should be on your radar for sure. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about inspections today. And so I am so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Fred Willcox. Mr. Fred, how you doing today, sir?
Fred Willcox (02:41)
Doing great. How are you, Q?Quentin (02:43)
Oh, man, doing great. Happy to be here. Happy again to have the privilege of you sharing things through your lens. I get super excited when I when I talk to people because people are experts at what they do. I don’t care where you are. You know, you like you. And so I’m excited to learn more about what you do and you bring in your expertise to this podcast. So, Mr. Fred, let’s do this. I want to dive right in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days.Also, if you can us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got started. We love origin stories. And man, if you don’t mind telling me what part of the world you’re in. So what you’re doing right now, your main focus, that origin story and where you are in the world. So Mr. Fred, sir, you have the floor.
Fred Willcox (03:26)
All right, I’ll do them a little backwards. I’m in Houston, Texas. I’ve been here since 1980. I was born and raised in Beaumont, went to A &M, came here, been trying to leave since 1981, but I’m still here. I’m a real estate inspector and as Q said, I was one of the first in it. I actually started doing structural inspections when I was 14 years old in 1972. My dad was a civil engineer and we had a land surveying company.Quentin (03:28)
Got you.Fred Willcox (03:56)
And I wanted to work because I wanted to be an adult, couldn’t stand being a kid. So I actually started as a tell-tale on the survey crew when I was five. And when I was 10, I was the instrument man. So my dad rode with me everywhere or took me everywhere, taught me. And by the time I was 14, he thought I knew enough to be able to inspect foundations and structural frames. So we started from there.And then about 1976, we started doing what are now known as real estate inspections. And to the best of my knowledge, we were the third company in the state to do so. So I’ve been a member of all the associations, founded associations, educational associations. Then in 1991, the Texas real estate inspector was committee was created by the legislature to be the governing body for real estate inspections and.
As I told you earlier, through a tragic mistake, I was appointed to the original board. didn’t apply. And I ended up being appointed five times for a total of 21 years. I was the chairman, original chairman of the standards of practice committee. And it was my committee that wrote the standards of practice for the state of Texas. Texas was the first state to be licensed, to have licensed inspectors. So we were the first to have a state sponsored standards of practice.
I served as the chairman of standards of practice for 16 years, chairman of education for 14, and I’m a former chairman of the committee itself. So I have kind of a long history in the industry. I’ve also done the test writing for the state test and for the national test. So been around it a long time. Then as far as what I’m doing now,
Quentin (05:42)
Catch.Fred Willcox (06:33)
I’m semi sort of retired. I tried retiring. It just didn’t go well. My clients didn’t agree with that point of view. I’m not really soliciting any inspections. I’m doing inspections really for past clients and friends and that’s about it. Unless you have a really compelling story and you can really move me with it’s totally unique and something I’ve never seen before, then I’ll be interested.But we’re moving more, I’ve written a book on soils and foundations, which is my education. My education’s in civil engineering, specifically in geotechnical, which is soils and foundations. Then, I understand you’re not in Texas, but we have a lot of foundation leveling using what’s called the press piling method. And I was actually one of the developers of that. I have two patents in foundation leveling. I’ve leveled.
foundations all over the country. So I’m pretty much adept at the structures and the foundations. I had to learn everything else the hard way. So, ⁓ but we’re moving more into, I’m moving more into, I’m currently writing a book for inspectors on framing and how it works. Framing is far more important to the functioning of a house than the foundation is. We’re so geared in Southeast Texas to all the tremendous foundation problems.
Every house I see has framing problems. Very few houses actually have foundation problems. So cracks that are being created by shifts in the structure are designated as being caused by foundations and causing people to spend thousands of dollars trying to level a foundation that has no problem at all. So that’s something we’ve tried to correct all these years and have some success at times.
but this is, it’s such a fear built into people that they’re terrified no matter what happens on that one. So go in there and then ⁓ Larry Foster, who’s license number three, I’m license number 160. And Larry was the original chairman of the inspectors committee. He served a total of 18 years and was chairman for 16. ⁓ And I are looking at doing ⁓ consulting for inspectors.
Larry does a lot of things on inspector boards answering questions, certainly a lot more than I do. I haven’t had time to get into that. I do a lot of litigation work and that’s some of what I wanted to talk about today.
Quentin (09:07)
So you really haven’t did a whole lot, huh? ⁓Fred Willcox (09:13)
I born to be a bum. It just didn’t turn out that way. I think I’d have been the world’s best bum if somebody just fed me money all the time.Quentin (09:16)
You’reSo when people talk, I write down their resume. Look, I just got to the end of my page. I had to stop writing. I was like, this guy, 14 years old is, I can’t even remember what you said when you were 14, because I thought you started working when you was 14. You actually started working when you was five, if I’m recalling right. And then, I mean, just.
Fred Willcox (09:45)
Yeah, I did. I did.Quentin (09:51)
1976, that’s when, you know, starting inspection, y’all was the third company.man, your dad was a civil engineer. You went to A &M College. Like, I’m just writing stuff, and I’m trying to keep it all in order. But you’ve been important five times, bro, which is a total of 21 years of service on the board. written a book, you write another book, you got two patents. I mean, so why is this, why this is so fascinating to me, Mr. Fred?
because I say this saying probably every podcast, destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning like when you go through your life, there’s moments that kind of make you who you are today. And there is like a compound of those moments. And so when you just so eloquently tell your story from five to 14 to the different iterations of your life and how you got, you said by accident, you got put on the board, you know, kind of by accident.
To me, you are the personification of destiny as no wasted moments. And so I wanna know, Mr. Fred, what has these moments taught you about yourself? Like what has it revealed to you? Has it revealed just how disciplined you are? Has it revealed humility? Has it revealed hard work? Like what has these moments throughout your life since you was five? Like what has these moments revealed to you, Mr. Fred?
Fred Willcox (11:46)
You can go through your life and look at a lot of things that happen. And, you know, we get where we are by every decision we make or every decision we don’t make. And that’s what puts us in a place. And it’s been said that 90 % of everything is just showing up. And I was talking about, were, were Tom. Well, I told the story about how I was not, I never applied to the committee, but was appointed.That’s because I showed up at meetings and was involved and had friends that were involved in all of this and they applied for me. ⁓ I certainly didn’t, I didn’t want to serve on it, but as I told you, I was too young and too stupid to know to say no. But you learn if you’re going to go anywhere in life, you look at everything you do and what you should learn from it. And I learned
a great lesson from a very minor event when I was 14. ⁓ I was actually running on my dad’s cruise when I was 14 and three different businesses. And I did a, I made a wrong decision and they did something stupid and then got to think about my decision and why it was a bad decision. And what that taught me was I was in no way qualified to hold the position I held. And I had a whole lot to learn. I was imitating
Quentin (13:09)
Yeah.Fred Willcox (13:10)
the actions of people who had been my bosses, I never learned, I hadn’t learned at that point how to actually be a quality, competent boss at that time. So in the inspections, when I was appointed to the committee and Larry appointed, Larry Foster appointed me as chairman of the standards of practice committee, I sat down and we had code experts and builders and everything else contributing, talking to me, calling me.And I thought I was a good inspector. certainly had the approval of my peers. And when this all started, I found out how blatantly stupid I really was. And we would be holding meetings and I’d have a legal pad in my lap taking notes so I could look things up when I got home because I didn’t know what they were talking about. But I would nod very pontifically, like I completely understood what I was being told. So during the education subcommittee,
Quentin (13:49)
May.Yeah.
Fred Willcox (14:09)
was not a demonstration of my ability as an inspector. It was the greatest learning experience I ever had in my life. And I got more out of that than anyone else ever has. So it really redoubled to me the necessity of keeping up and learning and progressing and growing. And houses in 1976 were very simple.Houses today are extraordinarily complex. If you’re an inspector and you’re not working diligently to stay up with the new technology and what’s happening, you’re hopelessly outdated. One of the original inspectors was an engineer and his claim to fame was that he had never read a book since he graduated from college, which meant he quit learning when he graduated from college. And so he was of no real benefit to anybody.
When he started again, simplistic houses, he was a good inspector. If he followed, he’s since passed away, but had he followed that same trim today, he would have no clue as to what he’s doing in a house. So we used to walk through houses. ⁓ Our knowledge of electricity was to feel the front of the breaker panels, that the breakers weren’t hot, everything was good. You turned on the air conditioner and held your hand up to what we called a vent, which is a register.
Quentin (15:04)
Yeah.Mmm.
Fred Willcox (16:15)
Yeah, it’s cool. And you turn on the range and the oven and rinse the water and that’s about it. Well, of course, now we have the rules in place, which on the electrical is pretty comprehensive. And if you’re not doing it, you’re missing fire hazards. Now, fortunately, the way our electrical systems are designed, they’re incredibly safe, far safer than the average person realizes.Quentin (16:21)
Wow.Fred Willcox (16:44)
So we get away with a lot of things that are wrong, but you’re getting away with it. It’s not right. And the threat is there and you need to correct the threat so it doesn’t come and bite you on the backside when you’re not looking. Air conditioning, as I said, in Southeast Texas, we’re hot human. You just way outside to the air conditioner. There was no insulation. It ran all the time. And because it ran all the time and it was so outsized,Quentin (16:49)
Mmm!Fred Willcox (17:11)
It can keep the temperature down and keep the relative humidity under control. Well, today equipment is much more effective at removing heat. So it removes heat quickly and you’re cool. But because it’s removing heat quickly, it’s not removing the grains of water from the atmosphere. So the relative humidity is too high. So then we get into the equipment’s actually oversized and there was a symposium now about six years ago fromall the big people in the HVAC heating, ventilation and air conditioning industry. And they came out and said, well, some of us have known forever is that air conditioning in hot human regions is actually designed backwards. The history of heating and air conditioning is heating, is keeping people warm so they don’t die in winter. Well, if you design a system to heat a house, that’s the opposite of designing a system to cool a house. So the national standards are written up North.
Quentin (17:54)
Mmm.Fred Willcox (18:11)
where people freeze to death. We don’t worry about freezing in Southeast Texas. My wife and I have gone as long as seven years and never turned the heater on. So it’s not a real big necessity here. You can live without it. Refrigeration or air conditioning, you can’t live without down here anymore. So we’ve got have it, but that’s the inverse. It’s not what people are taught. SoIt’s very complex. So this symposium came out and said, look, if you’re building in a hot human region, you simply have to have a dehumidifier. And that’s pretty much right. The problem with the dehumidifier is they’re really meant to remove puddles, not lakes. So we go into new houses these days, the equipment’s designed for the old standards of practice, not the modern way of designing a system. It’s way oversized and the relative humidity in the house is over 70%.
Quentin (18:50)
Mmm.Fred Willcox (19:05)
which means your skin will always be wet from perspiration. It’s not gonna dry. This is where you really get into mold problems. Relative humidity is supposed to be between 40 and 50%. Some people will go up to 55, but I find the air to be heavy and uncomfortable at 55%. But if you’re beyond at 55%, let’s give it that, you’re gonna be growing molds in your house.Quentin (19:14)
Mmm.Fred Willcox (19:32)
So the relative humidity is hugely important. And people don’t check that. They look at a temperature differential and say it’s cooling. Well, the temperature differential is just a small piece of information in a very large puzzle. And it means nothing. You may get a temperature differential of 20 degrees, but all that’s telling you is the evaporator’s clogged up with dirt and it’s taking the air forever to get through it. So it’s getting colder, but you’re not moving the correct volume of air through the system. So the house will never.cool correctly. So if you’re just getting an inspection report that says the temperature differential is 17.4, therefore everything’s okay, that’s not true. It’s not accurate, it’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. So again, the world has just flipped upside down. We thought this would all get easier as we got older, it’s gotten more and more complex. For now, we just changed refrigerants in the air conditioning systems.
Quentin (20:12)
Mm.Fred Willcox (20:29)
From 410 a to 454 there’s 430 something and there’s 30 something. I don’t even got the names down on them yet so and ⁓ They will be changing again. I was talking to a gentleman in the HVAC business last week and he said the real push is to get to propane because most efficient ⁓ Material to exchange heat of course it has that little problem in that it explodes but other than thatQuentin (20:49)
MmmFred Willcox (20:58)
Yeah, it’s fine. So that’s apparently where the industry ultimately is trying to go. So it’s really, it’s very, it’s a huge, if you’re interested in learning, inspecting is the best job in the world because nothing stays the same. You’re always having to catch up. So there’s, we’ve went through just as an example, houses, ventilate the attic, ventilate, ventilate. There’s no such thing as too much ventilation. Turns out there is.Quentin (21:00)
Yeah.Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
Fred Willcox (21:27)
And nowwe’re over ventilating, which is causing us to reach the dew point in the attic and the attics are raining and people think it’s the roof. It’s not, it’s we’re having to shut down ventilation in the attics. And then I’ve just finished a book, uh, questioning whether we need to have houses that breathe at all. And of course you do because you need oxygen. So, uh, oxygen levels are supposed to be 21%. If you drop them to 19, you
Quentin (21:35)
Mmm.Yeah. Yeah.
Fred Willcox (21:57)
cause people to have permanent brain damage. So it gets remarkably complex in an industry that’s always been very simplistic. The world’s changed.Quentin (22:07)
Yeah.Yeah. I love it, man. So I know you talked about some of the things that are next. You’re innovating. looking ahead. So tell me what’s next for you. What are the next goals that you’re trying to hit? Because I know you like teaching people. You’re definitely a wealth full of knowledge. So tell me a little bit about what’s next for you.
Fred Willcox (22:27)
Well, I planned on retiring, as I said, but that just didn’t work. So I’ll continue writing. I do speak some, not as much as I used to. ⁓ And then ⁓ Larry and I are talking about doing this ⁓ consulting. I do a lot of litigation work and I’ll continue doing that. Again, that’s part of what I wanted to talk about with you today is the litigation part because realtors do some things that really get them in trouble.Quentin (22:29)
No. Yeah.Yeah.
Fred Willcox (22:56)
AndI thought I might want to give them some directions on how they can avoid litigations where inspections are concerned.
Quentin (23:04)
Gotcha, gotcha. Well, listen, we coming up on time, but I do in two minutes, if you can talk about this litigation part, because I think this is something people need to hear. So if you can, within two minutes, me some more about that litigation, because I think our audience need to hear that.Fred Willcox (23:21)
Two things as a realtor you need to know.Be careful with your recommendations. When I get a lawsuit in, the first thing I tell the lawyers to do is subpoena the business records of the inspector. Then we look at the realtor’s business records. If the realtor’s using the same inspector time after time after time, that’s collusion. Whether you intend it to be or not, it’s collusion.
So that gets the realtor heavily involved. The second thing is,
Don’t answer questions about the inspection. I don’t answer questions about real estate when people ask them. I refer them back to their realtor. That’s the realtor’s expertise, not mine. When the client says, what about this electrical stuff? And you as the realtor says, it’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it. Then the house catches fire from an electrical problem. You just bought a lawsuit. And you should never have answered that question unless you’re an expert in electricity.
If you have that qualification, feel free. If you don’t refer it back to the inspector, that’s what we get paid for. It is a rule of the inspectors that we are to explain our findings. It’s also on the report form. That is an obligation. The inspector has to be able to explain what they’re writing up. So don’t you explain it. Let the inspector take the liability he was paid to take and you avoid it.
Quentin (24:45)
Yeah, we definitely have to have you back because I think there’s a lot more that you need to say that people need to hear, especially within that litigation and rule world. And so, yeah, we’re going have to do this again. ⁓ But listen, if someone, they heard you, they want to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate, get some more education. How can they reach out to you,Fred Willcox (25:08)
Easiest way to get me is to text me at 713-461-0009. Don’t call me. I almost never answer the phone and I hate talking on the phone, but if you text me, I’ll respond. If you call me, I probably won’t.Quentin (25:25)
Gotcha. So listen, letme say three things to you, Fred. First, man, thank you for your time. You could have been anywhere else in the world, but you’re here. And I know you and I talked about time. We talk about sometimes you starting 2 AM in the morning, right? So your time is precious, man. So I thank you for being here. Secondly, man, thank you for your story. Thank you for your narrative. I believe stories are so powerful.
I believe they plant a seed in people and you never know when it’s going to grow, but the seed is there. And so today I think you’ve planted some seeds for people, maybe even some relatives to kind of course correcting their language and their workings. And so I appreciate that. And lastly, man, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that to this podcast and these years of experience bringing that to this podcast. I greatly appreciate you being here today.
Fred Willcox (26:14)
Thank you for having me, I enjoyed it.Quentin (26:16)
Absolutely, absolutely. And so listen, y’all check the show notes, get in contact with Fred. Do not call him. Do something else other than call because listen, he don’t like to talk, but get in contact with him for sure because definitely a wealth of knowledge, especially in the inspection world. But if you’re to contact him, definitely remember where you got that contact information from, here. So make sure you are subscribed here. That way you can continue to hear in these great stories from people.just like Fred that just have incredible journeys. so Fred, Mr. Fred, sir, thank you so much again for being here and everyone else listen, y’all have a fantastic day and I’ll see you on the next time.
