Why Home Inspections Save Real Estate Investors Thousands

Kristen Knapp (00:01.057)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen Knapp and I’m here with Alberto Cruz, the founder of GoPro Home Inspections, a top home inspection company in central Florida. I’m so excited to talk everything home inspections with you. Thank you for being here today.

Alberto (00:15.246)
Thank you so much, Kristen. I appreciate the invite as well.

Kristen Knapp (00:18.175)
Yes, so let’s just dive right into your background. Tell us how you got into this line of work.

Alberto (00:25.198)
Well, I got into the line of work with family that got into real estate. So my brother and my wife, they both became realtors. At that time, I was overseas in Afghanistan. I was a military police officer in the army. And when I got back, they had already been working in the industry about a year. I wanted to work law enforcement, getting out of the army and

I got picked up by Corrections, so I worked for Florida State Corrections for about two years. At the same time, I went and I got into the home inspection course and got licensed by the state and started my business back in 2014.

Kristen Knapp (01:07.437)
What inspired you to kind of make that shift from law enforcement to inspections?

Alberto (01:12.108)
Definitely opportunity, just realizing that small business is a big opportunity and growth and really what you put into it, you kind of get out of it. And my brother and my wife are like, we’ve seen a few inspectors do their thing and I think, you know, based off how you carry yourself, you do great in the industry and

And they weren’t wrong. Now we’re 11 years in. We’ve inspected about 15,000 houses. This year, we’re about 1,000 houses inspected already. I think it’s pretty amazing.

Kristen Knapp (01:42.263)
Wow.

Kristen Knapp (01:45.633)
That’s incredible. you’re basically with your company, you’re kind of modernizing the process, correct?

Alberto (01:51.148)
Yes, yes, definitely. When I went through the course and they’re talking about how inspectors, for one, would take about three to four days to send inspection reports just because the process is lengthy. Imagine back in the day just using like a disposable camera, taking pictures of a house, and then having to go to CVS, get those pictures done, put that into an album.

Use Microsoft Word, type up a report, print those pages out, put into a binder, that kind of thing. it was very lengthy. You know, it takes some time. But now everything is with an app. The software is there. You take pictures within that app. The report’s about 95 % ready when you leave the house and then you just kind of proofread through your pictures, make sure all the pictures are nice and clear and how you want them, put in the descriptions that you needed and send it.

So our report starts to be sent out within 24 hours.

Kristen Knapp (02:49.943)
Wow, I can imagine that’s a big reason why you have so many people coming to you.

Alberto (02:55.071)
Peace.

Kristen Knapp (02:56.745)
And so let’s talk about just the home inspection process in general. What would you say to someone who just wants to use their handyman or their project manager to do the home inspection rather than go to an actual home inspection company?

Alberto (03:10.108)
Yes, and I would say that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes that I see within our industry is that an investor or even a homeowner could be like my cousin or my uncle or my dad, you know, knows about construction. I’ll have him look at the house and give me the green light with a project manager or a GC or a handyman.

They’re the ones that are going to be charging you to do the work. So they’re going to give you the green light, even knowing that it might be extra work moving forward. And with the dad, you know, he might be able to look at and say everything looks structurally sound or whatnot. But if he’s not opening up like the electric panels or the ACs going into the plumbing or know what he’s looking for into an attic.

I mean a lot of things can get missed. Having an inspector, you’re having someone that’s non-biased, he’s not going to charge you for any work that needs to be done. He’s looking specifically, you know, make sure you don’t have aluminum wiring, that you don’t have cast iron, polybutylene piping. You know, if there’s any pests or issues with air ducts, structure, insulation in an attic. We spent some time.

Our process at our home inspection is typically two to three hours, depending on the size of the home. And we’ll finish it off with a thermal scan, make sure that there’s nothing to be unseen, for evidence of moisture and things like that. So definitely do not hire your GC or handyman to do your inspection. Leave it to the pros or model.

Kristen Knapp (04:43.021)
So you’re saying it can kind of be not enough inspection or not enough care put into it or too much where they’re wanting you to fix things that you really don’t need to. Yeah, I can see that being a really big advantage of having just like a non-biased third party person come in. Is there something you see all the time in inspections that people might

Alberto (04:57.115)
Exactly.

Kristen Knapp (05:11.069)
not realize is something that’s going to get nailed. Maybe, you know, first time renovators.

Alberto (05:18.153)
something that we see all time. Every house is so unique that we get that question, like, what do you typically see? And I’ll tell you, every house is so different from how it’s built, who built it, to how it’s maintained. know, a house with kids, without kids, with pets, without pets. You know, does it have trees that overhang or are there no trees around the house? You know, the elevation of the house, you know, if the house is built up or if the grade and elevation is not correct, where water goes

Kristen Knapp (05:27.105)
Yeah.

Alberto (05:48.068)
towards the house instead of away from the house. There’s a lot of things that go into it. And depending on the year of the home, there’s more risk just with certain products being discontinued or known to fail. So if you buy a house, would say from 2010 and up, you shouldn’t have anything that’s discontinued or failing in a sense. That’ll give you red flags for insurance. But.

Architectural shingles for example last 20 to 25 years and three tab shingles last 10 to 15. So if you have a house from 2010 and have a three tab shingle roof, know just the roof itself is kind of near the end of its lifespan. And if you’re purchasing a house you definitely want to know if there’s any shingles missing etc.

Kristen Knapp (06:34.401)
Yeah, that’s good advice. And being in the Florida market, would imagine it’s, the air is moist and I imagine you get mold a lot, right? Is that something you see a lot?

Alberto (06:46.917)
very very much so. Ventilation is super important within the homes in Florida as well as having your house completely airtight. Going into the inspector corps we’re taught that we’re pretty much living underwater in Florida so your house has to be like a fish tank you know they can’t get and water should be coming in there’s like no air should be coming out.

Kristen Knapp (07:08.747)
Yeah, and like, what is it? The things you can buy, the dehumidifiers, do those help?

Alberto (07:15.738)
If you haven’t dehumidified, it’s probably because you have a problem. Unless you’re very just sensitive to humidity in the home or whatnot.

Kristen Knapp (07:23.778)
Right.

Alberto (07:25.657)
But AC size is definitely important. People have a misconception that a bigger AC is better for you than a smaller one. And if you kind of put the principle of a body in motion stays in motion. If you have a big AC, your house will get cold too fast and then you don’t get that humidity sucked out of the house. Because your AC apart from keeping you cool also takes the humidity out.

So having the right size for your house is extremely important, as well as having ventilation, for example, in the bathrooms. Back in the days, as long as you had a window in your bathroom, you were good to go. But in Florida, nobody opens up their windows, so all that humidity from the hot water kind of stays in your bathroom. That’s where you start seeing little spots of humidity on your ceilings and things like that.

Kristen Knapp (08:10.999)
How do you figure out what size AC unit is best for you?

Alberto (08:15.276)
Yep, we go by a rule of 600 square feet per ton. So if you have a 2,000 square foot house, you should have a three, three and a half ton AC.

Kristen Knapp (08:27.405)
Oh, that’s very simple. That’s very good information for people. has there ever been a time, like do you see people ignore? So when you do these inspections, you make these recommendations and all that. Do you see people kind of ignore this or try to take the easy way out to repair and then it just ends up being more more work?

Alberto (08:48.216)
Yes, I’m actually going through somewhat of a scenario like that where a roof had some previous repairs done, but were not done by a licensed contractor to the point where it just looks, you know, it didn’t look right. We put it on our report. Their handyman, et cetera, came out and said that the roof was okay, but they were not licensed at all.

That was just a word from a handyman. And then I suggested to them, whenever we put issues on a report, it has to be evaluated by a licensed contractor and take their word for it. Because a contractor’s license is better than ours, in a sense, in a hierarchy, right? So if a roofer says it’s good, then it’s good. But if a roofer says it’s bad and it needs to be repaired or replaced and this is what it costs, take his word for it, not the seller’s word for it by any means.

Kristen Knapp (09:13.132)
Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (09:41.717)
Yeah, that’s good advice. And do you ever have like recommendations of contractors or do you stay completely third party?

Alberto (09:48.163)
Yep, we do have a contractors, I prefer contractors list, so we have it on our website. So contractors that we worked for or we have recommended in the past that just do good work, we’ll recommend them. Some people are moving from out of state or even realtors that are just getting in the industry or haven’t been in the industry that long. So there’s nothing wrong with us recommending contractors, unless as long as they’re licensed and insured.

Kristen Knapp (10:15.093)
Yeah, awesome. So can you share just a time where you saved someone from a big financial mistake?

Alberto (10:24.095)
We that’s a name of the game is a and I’ll tell you that there’s no obviously there’s not a bad house just you know if it doesn’t make dollars doesn’t make sense so it is the slogan so there’s three three factors when purchasing a home

Kristen Knapp (10:26.486)
Yeah.

Alberto (10:41.223)
is how much money do you have in your bank account, what are you buying the house for, and what is the house worth. If those three things make sense, then think a rooster would show you a green light. As an inspector, I just tell you the condition of the home. You find your contractors that tell you what is going to be the cost to do those repairs.

And if you can say that house is worth $400,000 and you’re getting it for $250,000 and you just need $50,000 in repairs, then you know got like $100,000 there to play with, and it makes sense. But if it doesn’t, then you would just cancel within that inspection period and you would get your deposit back. And that, in a sense, what it cost you was an average of $400 $600, depending on the size of the home.

and you get your deposit back. Because that deposit a lot of times could be anywhere between $2,000 to $10,000 depending on how attractive you want your contract to look to the seller.

Kristen Knapp (11:38.125)
Mm-hmm, yeah, that makes sense. And what’s your favorite part of the job? Like, what keeps you in it? Because you’ve been doing it for quite some time, right?

Alberto (11:46.657)
Yes, 11 years now. I love that every day is different. You know, I make a joke. I could be inspecting Shack’s house in Windermere in the morning and then doing a crack house in Pine Hills in the afternoon. And you know, it’s just every day is different. And that’s what I like more than anything. Climb, road service, people are always, you are fun.

Kristen Knapp (12:04.428)
Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (12:09.227)
Yeah, and it sounds like your business is really expanding. mean, doing 1,000 inspections, we’re only a little halfway through the year. That’s crazy. What does your team look like?

Alberto (12:20.064)
Yeah, so we’re a group of five. two guys here in Orlando, one north in Howay in the Hills. So he goes up to Ocala. We do the Space Coast up to Daytona, New Smyrna. And west, we go all the way out to Lakeland. And I tell we go all the way down to Miami if it’s a Friday. But other than that, we probably go down to about Poinciana.

Kristen Knapp (12:46.221)
And what sets your business apart?

Alberto (12:50.962)
I would say follow through or just a complete overall. We’re not the most expensive or we’re not the cheapest. We might not give you the report within 30 minutes of us leaving the inspection, but you’ll have it within 24 hours and there’ll be at least 100 photos in that report compared to you’ll have it in five minutes, but there’s only 10 photos on it.

of NMJS the negative thing. I think overall it’s an overall well-rounded report, a service and product at the end.

Kristen Knapp (13:25.237)
Yeah, a lot of attention to detail, sounds like. And how does your background kind of in like law enforcement, how does that kind of help you with this and help you be diligent?

Alberto (13:36.0)
Starting with the military, like I said, attention to detail, be aware of your surroundings, be professional, right time, right uniform, attitude. It’s a little extensive to say, but when we go into IED training, which is explosives, we go into clearing buildings, et cetera, there’s always a way to do things logically and efficiently. And I think I brought that into home inspections.

And then in corrections, we’re just always looking for contraband. So I’m just kind of always looking for issues or things that could come up and kind of bite me in the future. So take care of liability. CYA.

Kristen Knapp (14:16.703)
Yeah, that’s awesome. you guys are like, what’s next for the company? You guys are building a new platform, it sounded like.

Alberto (14:22.848)
Yes, so the biggest issue that, you know, I guess probably in a lot of industries is that I don’t give them fish, you know, I teach them how to fish, you know, so I’ll hire a new inspector. He’ll become an amazing inspector within two years. And that’s and after those two years, he goes and does his own inspection company does this thing, which is awesome. But.

As a business owner, since you kind of lose and then have to gain back and then retrain. So I’m creating a platform as to where inspectors can refer work one to another. And that way, if we don’t lose the relationship or even in a sense, the profit of the inspection, we can refer it out, make something, and those inspectors also get busier as well. So look out for that coming soon.

Kristen Knapp (15:11.117)
Yeah, I think that sounds awesome. Kind of like more collaboration rather than competition, which helps everybody lift up.

Alberto (15:17.139)
Thank you. Yeah, Bill. That’s right.

Kristen Knapp (15:21.525)
And how can everybody find you?

Alberto (15:23.902)
So we’re on Instagram, TikTok now, YouTube. Hopefully we can get the media marketing stuff on those a little up. 407-300-5330. We have a day shift and night shift admin person. So we know people work weird hours and they can call us if they come out late for work. And online, www.GoProInspect.com.

Kristen Knapp (15:52.991)
Awesome. Well, everybody, please check that out. Sounds like you guys are really, as we said, modernizing the whole home inspection process. And it seems like people can save a lot of money and save a lot of headaches by working with you. Awesome. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here today. I think people learned a lot about home inspections and kind of just the generals of it. So thank you so much.

Alberto (16:16.27)
I appreciate you, Kristen.

Kristen Knapp (16:17.805)
All right, well subscribe to this podcast if you loved it and please check out Alberto’s company. And yeah, we’ll see you next time. Thank you so much.