Why Your Contractor Can Miss What a Home Inspector Finds | Smarter Real Estate Investing Tips

Brad Lowery (00:00)
I think a lot of investors, they come to a property that they’re considering. And anytime that I’ve talked to them as an inspector, be like, Hey, I can come check that out for you. These are friends of mine that are flipping and renting out properties. like, no, no, no, it’s fine. I’ll have my contractor look at it.

Dylan Silver (01:46)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Brad Lowery and Matt Brading, hosts of the Ride Along Home Inspection podcast and seasoned home inspectors with over two decades of combined experience. They’ve worked with home buyers and real estate investors across DC, Virginia, Florida, and Texas, seeing the best deals and the worst mistakes. Their mission is simple, help people invest smarter by understanding what’s really going on behind the walls before they buy. Gentlemen, thanks for taking the time today.

Matt Brading (01:58)
Thank

Yeah.

Brad Lowery (02:13)
Yeah, absolutely. We didn’t pre-script that for you at all.

Matt Brading (02:14)
Thanks, Dylan.

Dylan Silver (02:15)
Now, when we,

hey, we do a little bit of due diligence out here. ⁓ Now, when we talk about home inspections, and I was mentioning to you guys in the green room, I think a lot of people don’t think about this as more than just a formality, hey, I’ve got to get this done before I buy a home or I buy a property, but that’s really the wrong way to be looking at this.

Matt Brading (02:36)
Thank

I yeah, I agree. I it’s not just a technicality like you have to do it. Most people are going into buying usually. I mean, whether you’re just investing in a property, it’s all an investment, right? If you’re buying a house because you’re, you know, buying a house to live in or you’re buying a house to rent out or whatever it is, it’s all an investment. But it’s usually one of the biggest investments, one of the biggest purchases of your life. I mean, yeah, there’s people that buy multiple houses as investment properties, but…

Regardless, usually this is a very large purchase and most of the time, I would say a vast majority of people know very little about the property that they’re about to purchase. And so they have a very small window of opportunity for it to get someone like us to give them a broad, general ⁓ idea of all of the systems related to that home so that they know they can make an informed purchase, whether it’s.

Dylan Silver (03:20)
Yeah.

Matt Brading (03:34)
get some repairs done, get some money back so that they can take care of those repairs or have other professionals come in there and take a closer look at certain items.

Dylan Silver (03:42)
What do most investors that you work with misunderstand about the inspection process and the importance of inspections in general?

Brad Lowery (03:42)
No, it’s true.

Yeah, I was going to tack on to what Matt was saying before, but this question tees it up perfectly.

think a lot of investors, they come to a property that they’re considering. And anytime that I’ve talked to them as an inspector, be like, Hey, I can come check that out for you. These are friends of mine that are flipping and renting out properties. like, no, no, no, it’s fine. I’ll have my contractor look at

And I’m like, okay, well, your contractor is simply looking at it from he has 20 grand to invest into this property. How do we make the most of it? And unfortunately, I see so many of these houses where

You get the good old-fashioned gray coat of paint some updated countertops in the bathroom in the kitchen and maybe some new appliances But they haven’t looked at

the roof, they haven’t looked at the age of the HVAC or the foundation. And as a result, you have buyers coming in and they see the the pretty facelift. And then I start actually digging into the real issues on the property and they go, Oh, we had no idea. And I’m like, Well, that’s because there was probably only a set amount of budget that they had for this property. Now, think about it this way, if you’re an investor, do you want to just find something that you can quickly put a set figure into, but you have no clue about the rest of it and that could

your selling

process when you go to flip it, or would you rather buy one that’s not going to cost you time and more money in the long run, which you could save yourself if you have a home inspector come in and do a top to bottom inspection to the entire thing.

Dylan Silver (05:55)
Yeah.

Now, typically from what I understand, working with investors specifically in Texas, sometimes investors can have a wild, wild west approach to things. So they should be pulling permits, but they don’t always do, right? And so I think sometimes these things become somewhat of a formality to investors. But as you mentioned, like, hey, the buyer is gonna catch it. So how often are investors doing kind of like a pre-inspection before they start working on the property?

with a license inspector versus, you you mentioned just having themselves or their contractor walk the property.

Matt Brading (06:36)
Oh man, I wouldn’t say that that’s very often. mean, like sometimes they might have an inspection done maybe whenever they go to sell the property, like a pre-listing type of inspection, maybe sometimes, but most of the time it’s just a buyer. But you know, I would say like one of the biggest misconceptions really is pass or fail. Like that’s just not what we do, right? We’re not passing or fail. It’s more a condition report than anything. But I’ll tell you the thing that differentiates what we do, then maybe the perception of a lot of what a lot of people think we do is

Brad Lowery (06:38)
It’s not.

Mm-hmm.

Matt Brading (07:06)
You because you mentioned, you know, somebody having their contractor buddy go take a look or something like that. But like us versus a specific tradesman or a contractor, we look at the house as a whole and how systems relate to one another. I’ll give you two examples very briefly of homes that I inspected this week ⁓ that, you know, contractors had at some point probably taken a look at this or we can assume that maybe they had. And because they weren’t looking at the bigger picture, they didn’t see what we saw. One was a shower.

⁓ tile shower pan floor. And the problem was the drain sloped kind of slightly upward at the drain. It went back down and so we had a couple of little bellies there, right? And it’s like as a plumber does not install that shower floor. And so their concern really isn’t whether or not it slopes properly. It’s about that drain, the pipes, how they’re connected, does the water run, does it not? But when I’m inspecting the plumbing, part of it is to…

check how water is actually getting to the drain and it wasn’t doing a very good job of getting to the drain. And that was because of looking at the bigger picture. The other thing is I found a house that had a too small of an HVAC system. So 4,000 plus square foot house that had one five ton unit on it. It seemed very strange to me that it was so small, but I can’t judge based just on size. But based on my experience, I thought.

It’s enough for me to say, I really think you should get this checked out. So we had somebody come in and do a calculation and sure enough, it was too small, but the unit was only two years old. The house was 11 years old. The unit was two years old, probably replaced because they thought they had trouble. Turns out they just had too small of a unit. But yeah, I mean, the lady buying the house was like, well, don’t you think they would have noticed that when they put it in? It’s like, no, no, the people putting in that equipment are not running a calculation to a heat load on this house to determine if it’s the right size.

They’re just there to plug and play. You want a new system? Here’s a new system. And I know how to hook it up. And so, you you got to get somebody that’s got a broader sense of the entire house and how it all works together.

Brad Lowery (08:59)
Exactly.

And not just that, it’s, know, Matt and I drive this home on our show, The Ride Along, all the time, but ⁓ modern homes and even modern investment properties, there’s a big emphasis being placed on energy efficiency, which requires that the whole building operate well as a ⁓ one total system, right? These are not just individual components, your roof, your HVAC, your plumbing, your electrical, it’s all tied into one unit and each thing can affect the others. ⁓ Think of it this way. So there was a house

that was up for rent in St. Pete. And I got to take a look at this and was going through the seller was getting ready to vacate it, but rent it out and they wanted an eyeball on it. And I’m looking through and I’m like, well, it looks beautiful at first glance, modernized kitchen, modernized bathroom. Bigger windows have been updated. That’s great, especially in Florida. But I asked him, I’m like, okay, hey, I’m looking, I’m noticing that the HVAC is a little bit older. What’s your energy bill on this house?

And they said, well, it’s usually about, you know, 150 bucks, but it goes up to almost 400 during the peak of the summer. went, excuse me. This was a two bed, one and a half bath bungalow in St. Pete with a with an attached garage that used to be detached.

Now a contractor would look at all of that and go, that’s interesting. It’s probably just the old HVAC system. went, no, this is your ⁓ detached garage that is now attached. And I walked into the, ⁓ the finished, ⁓ kind of, it was, it was a separate room that I had built between the two. I wasn’t really a breeze way and I’m looking at it and I went, you guys have this insulated when it was built? And they went, no.

looked in I leaned on one of the walls and it was it was giving and I was like, Did you guys have this work permitted when it was when it was built?

Nope. And I’m like, okay, so your wall is under framed. It’s missing insulation. I take my thermal imaging camera and I’m looking around. I see that there’s a leak on the ceiling, which is probably coming from the roof meeting. There’s likely a roofing issue in addition to no insulation above the ceiling and between the roof. And like, well, this is where all of your energy is going straight out the house, straight through this breezeway. And I, and none of this work was done right.

Dylan Silver (11:57)
Yeah.

Brad Lowery (12:01)
Sure enough, they pulled the listing and when you know we need to go back to basics and overhaul all of this. So if you are somebody that’s looking to rent out a property, a home inspector can help you see things from the perspective of not just the future buyer if you’re looking to flip it, but if you want to keep it for your portfolio and rent it out, we can look at things from the perspective of a tenant because don’t you think that a tenant is going to come in and once they get this $400 energy bill, they’re going to go we can’t afford to live here for some people, right? Or they’re going to be calling and complaining to the landlord wondering what the

going on. This is unusual. The problem was solved because you have to do everything.

Dylan Silver (12:34)
Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Brading (12:35)
Yeah, I like to,

I like to add that, you know, a lot of contract, like think about our job as home inspectors is to identify issues and to, and to identify failures. And we see a lot of homes. mean, like my company alone is going to probably end the week with ⁓ upwards of around 20 inspections this week, right? That’s 20 different houses that we’ve looked at this week. How many houses does your typical contractor look at?

in a week. And I’m not talking about like, you know, somebody going in to check the HVAC, but actual contractors that are that are investing in these houses. It’s not 20 a week. I can tell you that. And so we are identifying a lot of failures. have seen a lot of failures. And so although you might work on houses and you might invest houses and you bought and sold houses tons of times, you’re just not seeing upwards of, you know, 20 plus a week like like an inspector, you know, 400 and something a year. ⁓

at minimum for like a one single man operation. It’s a lot of homes.

Brad Lowery (13:33)
And that’s not to do.

Dylan Silver (13:33)
I’d like to

ask both of you guys about this idea of being able to see behind the wall and that you can’t see under the floor behind the wall until you take it apart. Is that 100 % true or can a good inspector be able to tell you, hey, you’re potentially gonna have some foundation issues. Here’s what I would budget for this. Even if it looks on the outside, normal.

Brad Lowery (13:56)
You know that old,

Matt Brading (13:56)
I mean, I think it depends.

Brad Lowery (13:57)
yeah, there’s that old saying right where people say, hey, if I ever win the lottery, I won’t tell everyone, but there will be signs. Well, when you have a house that’s going to require a lot of hidden work, it’s not gonna necessarily tell you and scream it at you, but there will be signs and we know how to find them, you know.

Matt Brading (14:16)
Yeah, I mean, the things that you’re looking for, like foundation problems don’t often show up in the foundation itself. You have to know what to look for elsewhere to determine whether or not you might have foundation problems. That’s just one example. I mean, we used to have a trained eye on trying to find that kind of stuff.

Dylan Silver (14:36)
Now, when it comes to that issue specifically, because that’s something, again, a lot of people that are doing flips or any type of value add rehab are going to potentially throw a wrench into their whole budget there, right? Are there specific inspectors and folks that work with investors that can really consult and guide in a way beyond what maybe a retail inspector, someone that’s inspecting something for a home buyer might do?

Matt Brading (15:45)
Man, I think that’s something that’s built like a relationship between an inspector and a realtor. mean, like, you know, kind of back to what you were saying, and I think it goes hand in hand. mean, I do phase construction inspections, right? So like, maybe I can’t see through your walls, but I know how they’re built. Okay. I know what’s going on inside there or how it’s supposed to be. And since I know that it helps me better identify problems that might be happening. So if something is

happening on the outside of wall, can’t see in the wall, but knowing what I know about the inside might help me identify exactly what’s going on that maybe a person without that experience wouldn’t be able to see. But I think that’s a relationship that you build. I mean, obviously as a contractor, you got to take a chance on some people. You do it when you’re hiring tradespeople. I think it’s the same way with an inspector. If you’re looking for somebody to do something like that for you, then I think you kind of do your research, talk to people, look at their sample reports.

determine whether or not you think they’re gonna fit the bill and then give them a shot and you build a relationship over time. Over time, that person, that inspector starts to understand what you expect as a contractor and what you’re looking for, what your red flags might be in terms of what they’re ⁓ identifying and ⁓ helps you, as inspectors, we know exactly what the expectations are on the other end.

Dylan Silver (17:02)
Brad, question for you. What’s the biggest mistake you see ⁓ flippers make when they are looking at a property and thinking, okay, this is not gonna be as much work as I thought it would be, but seriously, there’s other issues going on.

Brad Lowery (17:03)
Plus, yeah, go ahead.

We talking about the biggest thing that they ignore or the biggest mistake that they make?

Dylan Silver (17:24)
Let’s start with the biggest thing they ignore.

Brad Lowery (17:27)
biggest thing that they ignore would be, ⁓ I would say the majority of of the house. ⁓ Again, there’s that and I major system truly because again, it’s they come in with a they’re not looking at the entire house as a system. They’re looking at the the budget or the the budget for the house for the flip. They’re looking at the purchase price, the investment price, the resale price and they’re in this

Matt Brading (17:34)
Major sisters.

Brad Lowery (17:54)
it’s tight, right? They’ve got these to hit a certain profit margin, they’ve got to get this set amount of work done, or they’ve only got this set figure set aside for any investment into this property. And so they have a pretty good idea because of past flips that they’ve done of what they want to do with it. And unfortunately, it comes down to something that is what, you know, we call the glorified landlord special, right? ⁓ Where it’s it’s shoddy workmanship in a lot of areas so that there can

be a greater and more surface level facelift overall. So long as it looks good for the listing photos, often that’s what matters, right? ⁓ Kitchen and bath flip, yeah.

Dylan Silver (18:32)
Yeah, people are focused on kitchen and bathrooms, but that’s not gonna help with the

monthly, you know, maintenance and utilities.

Brad Lowery (18:40)
Right. I, I look at things from the perspective of again, who’s going to be in this house next, but also what future issues are going to crop up. And again, if you’re keeping this property for your portfolio, it’s going to cost you if you don’t take care of it. So, you know, again, when we talk about coming in and having somebody look at it just with their contractor, it’s not to, to diminish the contractor’s ability or skill or workmanship, but

They’re looking at specifically the project, what they can afford and the scope that it’s going to cover. And that’s it. It’s the minimum that we need to do in order to move this property along to either rental or to resell. And maybe that’s the biggest mistake that they make. They look at what’s the minimum as opposed to what’s necessary. ⁓ Because those can be very, very different things depending on how you’re looking at the house.

Matt Brading (19:30)
I really think that one of the things that they miss would be having somebody like a handyman or themselves do a lot of work around the house. I get it’s to save money. And I also get that flippers are in it to make money. And I think that they should be able to make money. I think that it all comes down to time because the quicker they can get the house turned around, the quicker that the last money they lose and the notes that they’re paying.

⁓ And then also, you know, if they can get it done, get it sold, then they make their money. Whereas if you took something like, if you hired actual professionals to do the work, then it would take longer, it would cost more money. You would ultimately have to ask for more money, which would take longer for you to make the sale. And so I think it’s all really about making the quick buck. And I think it’s just, I guess maybe I started off by saying,

They do the work themselves or they hire a handyman or something like that. But honestly, I think that they’re in it for the wrong reasons. They’re in it to make a quick buck. And I think making a quick buck is kind of dirty and ⁓ not really in it for the right reasons.

Dylan Silver (20:41)
If folks are specifically looking at new homes,

and I know you’re in Houston, Texas, and I was talking to you in the green room, I was in Houston at the tail end of last year, there’s of course a lot of development happening all over Texas, and in a lot of cases people can buy new homes for only marginally more than a pre-owned home in some areas. How important is an inspection on a brand new home?

Brad Lowery (21:05)
We talk about this all the time. Yeah, let’s put it this way. ⁓ Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it was right.

Matt Brading (21:06)
You want to take good footage on me too?

Brad Lowery (21:14)
I have walked into houses and I have seen uneven floors where the concrete slab was not properly floated. I’m talking not even within tolerances. There was a ⁓ hump in this brand new construction where I told my buddy who was buying this house, I was doing the inspection for him. I’m like, at least you know where to put your rocking chair ⁓ because it was.

completely and correctly done. We’re talking about the foundations, it’s a slab foundation. And from the start, from the minute I pulled up to the house, I could see exterior issues with the stucco finishing. ⁓ There were, and I knew that just right there, I’m like, if you can’t get the first thing right from the curb, and I’m already.

I’m already marking issues. I know I’m going to run into issues inside. There were framing issues with uneven doorways, the slab issue, plumbing issues. Again, these houses are going up so quickly now because again, think about the demand that we’ve had for inventory, right? There is so much ⁓ quick building going on to match demand because there’s been so low inventory for so long that all of the work isn’t exactly getting done well. so, know, Matt was talking about multi-phase inspections.

need somebody that’s going to be able to go on site to make sure that these builders are held accountable for their work.

Dylan Silver (22:29)
From what I understand…

Matt Brading (22:29)
first of all, if you’re

buying a new construction house, like anything, if you’re thinking whether or not you should get an inspection, first of all, go to my Instagram page and watch my videos, number one. And then if that’s not enough for you, go to Brent Fletcher’s page, go to AJ’s page, go to Preston’s page. I I actually pressed him to do a whole lot of new construction stuff, we got tons of people out there, Bow and Salt Lake, and we got people all over the country that are filming themselves doing this stuff, new construction. But it’s like, look,

It doesn’t matter old or new. Look, I’m not trying to encourage people not to buy new construction because there is a lot of problems going on there. And if you can get a home inspection on a new construction house and they say, hey, there’s nothing wrong with this house. It’s great. That’s fantastic. That’s not money wasted. That’s money well spent, but it’s not going to happen. And I guess I should go back on my words here because if you find that, then you probably had a terrible inspector because they, there is not a perfect house out there old or new.

And it’s like the old problems in old homes are different than the problems with new homes. But all of them are going to have some range of problems. And I mean, I look at it like peace of mind. I mean, as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into, whether it’s new or old, you know, it gives you a you’re in a position to better negotiate, whether it’s with the builder on repairs or whether it’s off the price of the house for buying a used house. But man, let me tell you, yeah, new construction.

I would venture to say it’s probably in terms of like craftsmanship and things getting installed wrong, the lack of knowledge that these people and tradesmen have out there, the lack of management that’s going on out there. It’s a real deal, man. And we really, not only do we, they need to step it up over there in management and everyone needs to do a better job, but somebody’s gotta be looking over them. If you don’t hire a home inspector, you may not have anybody looking over them at all.

Dylan Silver (24:22)
I’m thinking about,

if I’m out here buying my first home and I’m trusting, they say, hey, we’ve had an inspection done. I’m thinking, hey, I wanna have an inspection done, because I wanna be the one kind of foot in the bill. This person’s obligation is to me to say, hey, if there’s something here, don’t buy this rather than potentially pass it through even if there may be some issues. You mentioned, Matt,

that there’s no such thing as a perfect home. What are some things that you see common even on new homes or is it just different on every inspection?

Matt Brading (24:53)
I mean, yeah, it’s different on every inspection, but I mean, like it also varies a great deal regionally, ⁓ you know, and also different eras lend itself to different problems. I see at least some level of roof problems on almost every single house I inspect, whether it’s misplaced nails or missing or ⁓ poorly installed flashing, ⁓ flashing boots around vent stacks, stuff like that. Lots and lots and lots.

of HVAC issues out here in Houston. We are in a super hot and humid climate out here and HVAC is absolutely important and we see a lot of missteps there. Listen man, more than once we found termite, active termite activity on new construction houses. So I mean like you never know what you’re gonna get yourself.

Dylan Silver (25:43)
Brad, this is a question for you. mean, when we talk about termites, right? What happens if you miss, if somehow, you you’re buying a property, it’s missed in the inspection, you have an inspector come out after you purchase the property, can anything be done? Or is it like, once you sign the paperwork and you’re in the home, you kind of at a loss?

Brad Lowery (26:04)
Are you talking having a home inspector out or a termite inspector? ⁓

Dylan Silver (26:07)
So after closing, I’m saying, if you’ve moved

in and you’re realizing that there’s issues that you think were there before the home was sold, can you do anything at that point?

Brad Lowery (26:17)
Well, mean, think about it in terms of being a realtor. Your home inspection report is often what you’re going to be using for your contingencies in your contract, right? When you send that addendum in for things that need to be done before the house goes to closing. I did a ton of inspections up in Washington, DC and Northern Virginia during COVID where everybody was waiving inspections. So I was ending up doing a lot of pre-offer inspections where I would just kind of walk and talk through the house and kind of look

Dylan Silver (26:43)
Hmm.

Brad Lowery (26:47)
things quickly before they would decide to even make an offer. But there are a lot of people that I would get calls from after they purchase going, so we didn’t get the inspection and then something happened. Can you come look and see what else is wrong? The reality is you’ve inherited the problems at that point. But a home inspector can still come out to tell you what’s needed because that could be preventative maintenance that it can lead to preventative maintenance that saves you money. And that’s really kind of what I keep coming back to with why investors should consider having a home

Dylan Silver (27:03)
Yeah.

Brad Lowery (27:17)
inspection for their property before they purchase it. You don’t want to think about this as another thing to spend money on. This isn’t just another inspection that needs to be done, another cost incurred. ⁓ It’s found savings and avoided risk that it can lead to. and even from even post purchase, if you’re doing a post purchase inspection, that can still open your eyes to what needs to be done to help you avoid something that could be catastrophic. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars in repairs as opposed to

few hundred bucks for an inspection. So it’s always worth it.

Dylan Silver (27:49)
Follow up question to that.

Matt Brading (27:49)
Were you at?

Dylan Silver (27:51)
Is there something Brad that you see investors consistently underestimate the cost of time and time again?

Brad Lowery (28:00)
roof, HVAC, water heater, foundation repairs, deck repairs. Yeah. Let’s pick one and start with it. Let’s think about it this way.

Dylan Silver (28:05)
All the above.

Matt Brading (28:07)
Kind of all of it.

Brad Lowery (28:13)
Underestimating the expense of avoided maintenance I think would probably be the biggest thing, right? Again, if you’re keeping a property for your portfolio, assuming that the roof has longer than it does, if you’re not a roofer or you didn’t have a roofer out there, or assuming that you could just do a localized repair as opposed to a replacement. ⁓

Matt Brading (28:19)
That’s a good one.

Brad Lowery (28:36)
⁓ These are things where if it’s done poorly or at cost, it can lead to bigger repairs that cost you even more in the long run.

Dylan Silver (28:45)
Yeah, no question.

Matt Brading (28:46)
So your previous

question, Dylan, was that in regards more to like things being missed and the liability that lands on a home inspector?

Dylan Silver (28:52)
In general, think a lot of people have a concern, especially if it’s their first home purchase, like, hey, how much is riding on this inspection? Like, is this something where if it’s missed, can we do anything?

Matt Brading (29:04)
So, I mean, yes and no, it depends. That’s going to be the answer to almost every question. It depends. ⁓ But I mean, like the thing is in most states with regulation and with that ⁓ when they require inspection license also requires to carry insurance and usually it’s arrows and emissions insurance. So mean, like, look, most of us as home inspectors do our level best to try to find everything wrong with the home possible. OK, but we are doing so on the day of inspection.

Brad Lowery (29:10)
Yeah.

Matt Brading (29:33)
And so something like a termite infestation, it depends. Like, you know, whenever we found that on new construction houses, like they hadn’t been there for months. I mean, they might’ve just arrived days before that. And when there were no signs, you know, because obviously the house is new, it hasn’t been up very long. We find one mud tube of the foundation. Well, you’ve got a termite infestation, but I can’t really answer you how long it’s been there. But it’s like, if somebody buys a house, like right now, okay, we’re…

Dylan Silver (29:47)
That’s it.

Matt Brading (30:02)
⁓ In springtime, it’s it’s late March. This is the hot season for termites to go find a new home I was doing an inspection the other day. They were literally releasing swarmer reproductive termites from underneath a sidewalk slab where a Wooden expansion joint was there was termites eaten at that and there’s a colony under there and they were releasing swarmers from that site to go find new homes Okay, this is the time the hottest time to start finding

⁓ termite infestations. And so like, if you if somebody were to get a home inspection done right now today, I might not find any, but they might move in next week. And that means that no one would probably look at it between now and when that person moved in, they could have a termite infestation. Does that fall on the home inspector? That’s one example. The same thing can happen with leaks, roof leaks, you know, if it’s not raining. Everything is on the day of inspection and how we look at it. I mean,

you know, the weather plays a factor, the heat plays a factor, the cool plays a factor, everything on the day of inspection. That’s really all we can do and we do our best. But yeah, can it come down to a liability thing with the home inspector? Is there something that somebody can do if something was missed? Yeah, mean, they can, number one, I always suggest to people if they’ve got problems with their home inspection, they don’t feel like they really got what they paid for.

call the home inspection company first, know, and talk to them about it, see what they had to say about it. Because a lot of times people are like, well, hey, you know, I got this problem. And it’s like, yeah, with your water softener? Yeah, like that’s not in my scope. I don’t look at your water softener. So I mean, like we needed to, you know, maybe you didn’t read the agreement, but we needed to define what the expectations were of the inspection, what we were there to do to begin with and find out if it wasn’t our scope and if it’s something that we might’ve missed. And then maybe there was some recourse there. But for the most part, I mean,

Brad Lowery (31:41)
Yeah.

Matt Brading (31:57)
Everyone I know goes in there and does our very best. I can tell you right now, we’re not ⁓ Superman, we’re only human. So we’re going to miss something from time to time. But I guarantee you with the amount that you’re paying for that inspection and the amount of time we’re spending there, you will find value in that report. A lot more value than anything we might have missed on the day of inspection.

Brad Lowery (32:19)
And I’ll give you one other thing that, and I know we might be up against it on time here, but something that I think is often missed by people that are looking to invest in the property, especially since you mentioned them first time, real estate investors might be your return ⁓ for the property value after you’ve done the work. ⁓ I’ve seen very unfortunate circumstances where people were looking to buy in Florida because the whole Florida market was hot. And so they didn’t do their comps well. And again, this goes beyond the scope of a

inspection but they didn’t do their comps well, purchased a house in a neighborhood, did the work, thought they were going to make bank on this place and they couldn’t even get a return on their investment and they ended up it ended up costing the money. So it wasn’t just you know lack of an inspection or you know cost of the home and repairs that ate them it was the overall value of the house that they overestimated because they didn’t do their their work properly or the research properly beforehand.

Dylan Silver (33:16)
Bonus question for you guys. I talk with a lot of out of state investors and of course, know, Texas, there’s a lot of out of state investors. That’s where I’m licensed. One of the things that I haven’t thought about is, you you might have people who are investing from one. ⁓

market in the country that now have new problems now that they’re investing in the Sun Belt in Texas, in Florida, in Alabama, in Oklahoma, wherever, you know, they’re investing in. What are some regional issues that you see people facing that are unique to that market?

Brad Lowery (33:49)
not being on site. this is also Matt, could vouch for this as well. ⁓ Why inspectors are wonderful people. We don’t just have to do a first time purchase inspection. We have a friend in the industry, Inspector Beans, who does ⁓ property rental inspections where once a lease is up and a tenant moves out, she goes in and does a regular routine annual inspection on that property for the owner, for the landlord to make sure that everything’s up to snuff or if there are repairs that are

needed, she can document those for them. So it costs less than a standard inspection, but it’s just another way to get information so you can avoid problems ahead of time or catch them as they happen. So that would probably be the biggest thing is not being able to be on site. You don’t just want a good property management company. You want somebody that understands the whole home as a system that could go in and check on it every once in a while.

Matt Brading (34:44)
Yeah. And to expand on the question that you asked, like, ⁓ it depends, but, ⁓ and I mean that, but I mean, like, you know, here in Houston, for example, we are on expanse. Most of our, ⁓ most of our houses have built slab on grade on expansive soil. Okay. Expansive clay. And so that is one thing that is a regional thing that and the hot, humid climate that we live in, honestly, you just need to do your research and find an inspector that

Brad Lowery (34:48)
you

Matt Brading (35:13)
is an expert in their area that knows the construction in their area because their regional variance is real. What is wrong with a house here for the most part, like in terms of code, it’s one thing, but there are a lot of things that play a big factor in ⁓ problems that we find in homes here that aren’t a problem in other parts of the country and vice versa.

Dylan Silver (35:36)
One of the things I’ve been thinking of recently is how there’s been some cold winters in Texas and you have pipes bursting and all types of issues, right? And you wouldn’t think investing in Texas, you’re gonna have issues with the cold, but that’s exactly what happens. And you wouldn’t see that if you’re investing in the Northeast as much because those homes are gonna be winterized maybe ⁓ better, for lack of a better word. We are coming up on time here, gents, any new projects that y’all are working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you? How can they find you?

Brad Lowery (36:06)
man, follow the ride along podcast. First of all, you can follow us on YouTube and on social media as well. Matt will tell you his handle. He’s got the biggest following here. And again, I think it would be wonderful for the real estate investors watching this show to go follow his channel, especially because he sees so much and documents so much on video as to what’s wrong, not just with ⁓

with pre-existing homes with brand new construction as well. So it’s a, you know, just another great year of content coming up for us. But Matt, what have you got? You’ve got some pretty cool stuff.

Matt Brading (36:39)
Yeah,

definitely follow the ride along channel as well. But yeah, my handle on Instagram and most everything is texas.edge.inspect. I’m pretty easy to find. can just Google Texas Edge Inspector, Texas Edge Home Inspections. Also like projects and things that are coming up. I mean, we got to tell you about inspection fuel because we do have a porch is putting on an inspection conference that we are super excited about in September and it’s in Louisville, Kentucky.

Brad Lowery (36:57)
We do.

Matt Brading (37:07)
and there’s going to be, mean, we we’ve got a list of really good speakers, including Matt rising or are we, are we allowed to say that? Can we say that we can say that already? Okay. Yeah. ⁓ keynote speakers would be Matt riser. kind of spoke out of turn there. I didn’t know that. So anyway, lots of really cool things happening at that. Lots of great education, always a good time at inspection fuel. And so look forward to some information coming out.

Brad Lowery (37:14)
of the wheelchair. We could say that. Yeah, it’s it’s not official. Yeah.

Yep, definitely.

Dylan Silver (37:31)
Gents, thank you so

much for joining us today. Thanks for your time.