There are inspectors who talk about doing the job right. Then there’s Ken Humphreys.
Ken has been a licensed home inspector in Virginia for more than 15 years, completed 9,000+ residential inspections, and built a near 100% request rate as a top producer at BPG Inspections – without a traditional marketing budget.
In Episode 72 of The Ride Along, Ken joins Brad Lowery and Matt Brading to debate whether buyers should be present for the entire inspection. Ken has a system that works. Matt Brading has a different one that works too. These two do not fully agree – and how they disagree is worth a watch.
If you’ve ever wondered whether your process is serving your clients or just your comfort zone, Episode 72 will make you think.
Stop hunting for the next episode – subscribe to The Ride Along newsletter and we’ll send each new episode right to you.
Transcript
Brad Lowery
Matt, I’m about to tell you right now, this home inspector that we’re about to interview is, he does everything right and the rest of us are all doing it wrong.
Matt Brading
Alright, I’ve yet to be convinced, but I haven’t even met him yet. Not officially.
Brad Lowery
We’re about to find out. Guys, I’m about to introduce y’all to a home inspector who followed me around on a job one time and told me I was doing everything wrong. And then I started doing everything. Some of it right, you know, but there’s a lot of y’all that are doing it right out there. But definitely helped my approach and I’m hoping it helps y’all’s approach. So we’ve got a Texan on here and then we’ve got another guy who tells everybody that he has a thick Texas accent whenever he does home inspections. So welcome to the show Ken Humphreys
Ken Humphreys
Thanks for having me back. Thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt Brading
Yeah, thanks for being here, man.
Brad Lowery
Now I’ve wanted to introduce y’all for a while because Ken Humphreys, we’ve brought you up on a previous episode. One of the other inspectors that we were talking with is so adamant about not having buyers on the job site that he has it in his contract that if a buyer shows up, the inspector reserves the right to stop the inspection at any point. I take contention with the fact that half of what we do is educating home inspectors and Matt, some were kind of in the middle. where he’s good with them like kind of coming at the end of the inspection, but he doesn’t want to miss anything during. So we’re going to get all into your thoughts about this today, So first, tell everybody about yourself first.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah, my take. So my name is Ken Humphreys. I’ve been an inspector in the state of Virginia, which is now a licensed state for over 15 years. I’ve got over 9,000 residential inspections under my belt in those 15 years. I have done over 500 inspections almost every year I’ve been an inspector. I am currently on target to be over 400 by the end of March. for this year. I don’t believe my way is perfect. I believe in this industry we are learning. I believe it is horses for courses, so to speak, as we would say back home. As in you need to know what your market wants. You need to know what works in your market. What I will tell you is what I have done and how I have changed over the years has helped me stay 100 % of the request with hardly any marketing at all. And I’ve got a name in the market that I live in now where people are coming out to me and offering me commercial contracts because they’ve heard my name or seen my work and being very happy with it. So I’m more than willing to share my thoughts on this topic with you, but I’m not going to say it’s perfect for everybody because we’re all different. We all have different skillsets. But for me, if I’m a buyer, one, I want to be there. I want to know what’s going on. want to make sure that my inspector is looking at the stuff that’s a concern to me. I want to address my concerns with the inspector as I’m going through stuff. And I’m a visual learner. Like most home inspectors, we’re visual learners. We look at stuff and we learn from it.
Brad Lowery
Your camera went away. there you go. Hey, I mean, not that we didn’t want to see your face. It does not take away. It’s a good thing this is an audio podcast, right? But
Matt Brading
Yeah, speaking of visual, there he’s back.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah. Yeah, well, it’s the voice against me the work. Just don’t kid anybody.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, because
Matt Brading
Was kind of thinking that, to be honest, when you started talking, I thought, hold on, I know what the deal is. It’s the voice.
Ken Humphreys
Do you know who Robert Oberst is? American strongest man. He’s a, he enters into, that’s who Matt sounds like and looks like a smaller version of him. You should look him up after the podcast and tell him you sound just like him.
Brad Lowery
It’s adding.
Matt Brading
Actually, I was playing it cool. Like I said, I didn’t know who that’s me. Is that that Yeah, I I try to be I’m modest. I don’t
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah, so where do we go in this? Well, basically most home inspectors are visual learners. We like to see stuff. And if we can see stuff and explain it as we’re looking at it, it’s easy for people to take in. You have to understand in the time that we’re on site, for me, it’s due to two and a half hours for a 5,000 square foot single family home with a client with me for the whole process.
Brad Lowery
Now that’s not writing your report though.
Matt Brading
Good.
Ken Humphreys
No, that’s not writing a report. I don’t sign on the idea of writing a report on site being the best product because the agent doesn’t want to be there any longer than they have to be in the first place. So even if you have the best report writing software in the world, doing it on site is going to keep you on site longer. It might not be much longer. It’s going to keep you on site longer. I like to write my report in between jobs or after I get home, put the kids to bed when I can sit down and watch a show and work on my laptop and research any new stuff I’ve seen for the day. So, two and a half hours generally on site with a customer, greet and meet, traditional way. I go through the house, turn everything on, come back and get them. Then I take them outside. I give them a blast of knowledge on the house, which is how the house is constructed for the age of the house. The idea behind that is quite simple. It’s to show them I’m organized to show them I’ve done this before. I know what I’m talking about. And that takes 50 % of your questions, if not more straight out of their memory bank to ask you on the way around. They’re not going to be, well, I read on chat GPT this. Well, chat GPT wasn’t in your frigging house. Shut up. Let’s move on with this. What’s a concern on a home inspection? We’ve got our concerns because we’re licensed and trained individuals. Anything that our client has as a concern should be a concern of ours. And how can they express that concern if they’re not there with you? How are they going to get more peace of mind if they’re not seeing what you’re doing? Do some of my buyers wander off? Do some of my buyers show up with 15 relatives? Yes. You just have to take the client, the buyer, and focus on them and just keep them moving. I don’t think it’s that hard to do once you’ve done it and you practice it, but I think it resolves a lot of problems before you get to them because they feel involved. They feel like they’re getting the money’s worth. They don’t come back to you late and go, did you check this? Did you check that? We’ve all been guilty of missing a photo in a report, right? You’re going through a house, someone talks to you, phone goes off, something like that. And you forget to take the picture inside the electoral panel. Then they go, did you check the electrical button? You go, yes. Well, it becomes your word against theirs. So if they’re there and they can see that there’s more, well, I don’t need to check that. Same as infrared. We don’t charge for our infrared scans at BPG because it’s what everybody should be doing on a home inspection. One in every 10 inspections, in my opinion, miss something if they don’t scan the house with an infrared camera, because you just can’t see it at that point. They see that.
Matt Brading
I’ll want to say just because I feel like it’s important that I should mention that that that you said right there is the first thing that I can get 100 % behind. I actually believe that 100%. I’m not saying that I disagree with everything that you said, but I will say that that right there that bit about thermal scanning and about inspectors that miss stuff if they don’t use it. I can get behind that 100%.
Ken Humphreys
Yes, we. Well, it’s not just checking for problems because you’ve got the infrared camera. It shows you the shows your buyer. If they’re present, can’t show them if they’re not there that you’re using technology. You’re using good tools to help educate them and find problems with them. It gives them peace of mind that, well, probably wasn’t a leak when was here doing the inspection because he scanned the house with an infrared camera. Yeah, it Ken Humphreys might have been. I might have missed it. We’re all human, but.
Matt Brading
Yep.
Ken Humphreys
That adds for that. it just, it’s an extra service that they’re not paying extra for. So they feel like they’re getting more value out of the product as well. So it’s like a win, win, win.
Brad Lowery
Put it.
Matt Brading
No, I agree. I think pulling that tool out of the box immediately adds value whether you find something or not.
Brad Lowery
Think it goes for any of the tools you’re using in the sense that they see you being hands on, they see your process, so they feel better about it. I think you can tackle some of that if you’re of the mind that they come and join at the end. I’ve had buyers, especially in Florida after the hurricanes came through, where one of them was like, hey, look, we know that there was a water issue with the exterior of this building. This was one townhouse in a row of townhouses and some of the neighboring buildings had moisture issues as well. So they’re like, we’re concerned that there might be a mold problem behind that wall. I’m like, well, I can’t be invasive, but look here, I could put the moisture meter right up to it. It’s dry right now. If there was something before, it’s not there now. I could do an infrared scan and show you that there is nothing even visually being indicative of moisture. And they felt much better about that house because they were there to see me do all of it. So.
Matt Brading
So we gotta back up one second because you were like, you can say that about any tool and I guess to some degree you can, but I don’t think that’s valid because every tool we carry in our bag, a lot of them, I mean, okay, moisture meters and thermal cameras are one thing, right? That’s not required of us. So that’s where the added value comes in, right? I mean, we gotta have some type of electrical tester. We can’t do our job without a flashlight or a screwdriver or something to actually access the things that we need to access and see the things we need to see.
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Matt Brading
Some of those tools are just inherent. They’re there. They’re gonna be there. If you don’t carry that, you shouldn’t be an inspector. The difference in why I align so strongly with what Ken Humphreys said is that I feel that way about moisture meters and thermal cameras. They are not optional to me, but there are inspectors out there and there definitely are SOPs that make this optional or actually don’t even mention it. And to me, that’s not, I mean, that is… where I feel like a ton of value lies. And I’m going to say value added value because we are valuable. The truth of the matter is what’s right here and up here is where all of the value is. This is where all the value actually is, right?
Ken Humphreys
Well, an infrared camera is only as good as the person holding it. Like, I’ve had a customer show up with an infrared camera that they borrowed out of the local library. And they’re like, yeah, I got one of these. I’m like, look, you can see the window’s got a blown seal because it’s not picking up the heat. I’m like, well, first of all, glass is reflective to infrared, so that’s not true.
Matt Brading
100%. Yeah, your own reflection in a mirror.
Brad Lowery
Good try.
Ken Humphreys
Like there’s a ghost in the wall.
Matt Brading
Yeah, Ken Humphreys was messing with me before we even hit record here about from selling thermal cameras basically, because there was a company I’m no longer aligned with him, but there was a company that and look, they make a fine product. It is what it is. Okay. I mean, it’s not it’s not a fantastic thermal camera. It’s a really good camera for the money. I’m not going to mention them, but it’s cheap thermal camera but the fact of the matter is for years, I’m, this is a battle that I’ve had to fight for years. I have people, cause I’ve got a large social media following, right? So people reach out to me and ask me questions on, on a regular, and oftentimes homeowners ask me what thermal camera to buy. And I’m like, don’t buy a thermal camera, hire a home inspector. you feel like you got a problem, get a home inspector out there. Because I feel like, like you said, the person behind the tool is as important as the tool itself. Like you need to know what you’re looking at.
Ken Humphreys
100 % I had a broker turn around to me and ask hey I put a list together some of your tools can you tell me what I should put in my go bag so I can check stuff at walkthroughs and when I’m looking I go okay first of all I would check your liability make sure it’s paid up to date because everybody has their job you don’t go to the nurse and say hey I don’t need the doctor. I’ll perform my own heart surgery. watched a video. So let me just give me the scalpel. I’ll take it. No, there’s a reason we hire a mechanic to work on a car. There’s a reason we hire an engineer to design the layout for something. There’s a reason we hire a home inspector to come in and do. the way I describe home inspections to people, we’re the generalists. We come in with the GP you go to see when you’re sick. We know a little about a lot. But what we can do is when you’ve got a water problem, we can then suggest what could possibly be going on and who you need for deeper delve into what’s going on with that. And you’re right. That just starts with the inspector, staying on top of your education, making sure you see more stuff. It’s not time served. It’s making sure that you keep up with local trends. You make sure you know what your market is. You make sure you know if you’ve got, marine clay. You make sure if you’re on the West Coast, you know what a wind mitigation system is, stuff like that. Like it’s all about the inspector, but going back to the whole reason we’re having this conversation, if you don’t believe the client’s valuable being there for the whole inspection, how do you reassure them that you did that? Because let’s be honest, we have a job because people only care about what you’re doing when they’re watching you. We got a job because so many people and no one’s watching them. No one’s getting up in this attic. I don’t need put cover plates on these. We can go for lunch and we can be out of here in time. We live in a world right now where people don’t take as much pride in the work as they once did.
Matt Brading
Okay, so I there’s a lot of that I agree with and a lot of it. have a different point of view and I do have to roll up my sleeves a little bit here. Okay, because I’m a guy. I’m a guy you mentioned it. Okay. I gotta do. gotta do. Okay. You mentioned mechanics. You mentioned doctors. Are you watching over mechanics? Are you you there? Are they walking you through the process under the car?
Brad Lowery
Y’all comparing sleeve tattoos, man, you’re showing y’all’s ages now.
Ken Humphreys
I haven’t got my wide camera lens on to get my arms in.
Yeah,
Matt Brading
in the hood already
Ken Humphreys
yes.
Matt Brading
because most of them won’t let you in the garage.
Ken Humphreys
I haven’t been to a garage where I’ve had work on my car where they haven’t taken me out to show me something before doing the work. And I’m not a mechanic. Jiffy Lube takes you to look at your filter before they try and sell you a new one because they don’t want to just knock the dirt out of it.
Matt Brading
Well, that’s most of them. And also,
Brad Lowery
Is that because you asked?
Matt Brading
They’re trying to see you. They’re grabbing a dirty filter from below and you. Look, I’m going to use the example of, okay, you probably have doctor, right? Doctor doing something. Most of time you can’t walk around and ask the doctor questions while they’re working on it. Like a surgeon or something like that. You can’t be like, hey, what are you doing when you’re inside my body? But somebody else, a loved one getting some type of work done with a doctor, you’re probably not over their shoulder. I mean, like, you know,
Ken Humphreys
didn’t know it was mine! I might have looked over that blue fence when my wife had a c-section and seen way more than I wanted to see. So maybe I’m a bit different.
Matt Brading
We’ve all done that, okay? But you didn’t have them guide you through the process. Look, I mean, like, being there is one thing, right? But, okay.
Brad Lowery
Don’t tell Krista.
Ken Humphreys
Thanks.
Matt Brading
I do believe that clients, I’m going to, I want to back up to something, but I’m not ready to do it yet. I do believe that clients, want to be involved. And I do believe that, to some degree, I think that, cause I think my customer service skills and being able to communicate with them have benefited in the success of my business. So, although sometimes it can be a real mental and physical drain on me, I do encourage it. although sometimes reluctantly. But I gotta, I gotta back up to something here. You said you’re on pace to do 400 inspections by the end of March. That’s yourself? Hold on, man. That’s yourself. Okay, Ken. Okay. First of all, when we said that like people want to know what you’re doing, I’m 100 % give them visual representation of what I’m doing in my reports. I make it a point and I train my guys that whenever somebody opens up the report,
Ken Humphreys
Yes.
Brad Lowery
There’s a little cheat on that.
Ken Humphreys
Yes, that’s myself. Yes.
Matt Brading
I want them to their jaw to drop and be like, my God, this guy looked at everything. Right. And so I get it. I get that people are like that. But Ken, I’m going tell you right now, there is no way that I could do the volume of work that you’re doing at the thorough level of inspecting that I’m doing. I could not do that. And furthermore, furthermore, I’m not done. I’m not done. I’m not done. Furthermore, you mentioned
Brad Lowery
What can you gotta get you gotta tell them there’s a there’s a cheat on this.
Ken Humphreys
Okay, so there’s a little bit more to that.
Matt Brading
Doing a 5,000 square foot house in less than like two and a half hours. I’m telling you right now, if clients not there, I’ll be lucky to get out in four and I probably won’t. It’ll probably be closer to five and client is there probably closer to six. And I mean, this is, mean, I’m not saying you can’t do it. I don’t see how it would be comparable. Perhaps I’m putting things in my report that you are giving them verbally and not putting on paper, but It’s just, I want to be like, wow, this guy’s blowing my mind that he’s able to do this. What I am though is I’m powerful that it’s possible. Okay, go.
Ken Humphreys
And you want to be, you don’t believe this, I don’t believe it. All right, I’m with you. I get it. So everything I tell a customer on site meets my state standards of practice, which were licensed state. Virginia.
Matt Brading
Are they, is your state again? What is the standard? Is it like this low?
Ken Humphreys
No, we have more lawyers per capita than any other place in the world. So I see at least two lawyers as customers every week. And we have so much “sue you” money up here, it’s not even a joke. So I cover my SOPs, are basically similar to ASHI standards of practice, pretty much.
Brad Lowery
Every lawyer that works in DC lives in Virginia.
Matt Brading
We’ll go back to that.
Ken Humphreys
With a few changes here and there, to the point of where DPOR are our governing board, make us say certain things in there for CSST and knife or smoke detectors, not in all bedrooms. So we have our standards of practice, But my average report’s gonna have 60 to 80 pages and over 100 photos in it in that time frame. I’m not saying that your way isn’t right. Like it works for you and you’re very successful.
Matt Brading
There you go.
Ken Humphreys
You seem like a guy that you can have a good conversation with as well. just believe in, I believe, well, I haven’t finished yet. But I believe in walking and talking. I have a process and I go through a house very fast, fastest on my team. But at end of the day, there’s only so much for you to look at. There’s only so much for you to talk about. They don’t need to know the history of a light bulb. They don’t need for you to stand still.
Matt Brading
Go get that on is right.
Ken Humphreys
and tell them what you had for lunch. They don’t need to have a long conversation about a missing cover plate. It’s wrong. It goes in the report. It move on.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Honestly, if they’re doing more than 30 % of the talking, they’re talking too much and you’re not leading the inspection.
Matt Brading
Yeah, but sometimes they do. I mean…
Ken Humphreys
But you, I can show you ways around that. Once you get the hang of making, if you want an answer, if you want an answer with him, you got to come with me. You got to come with me if you want the answer, because you’re not going to hear it otherwise, because I’m going to be in the other room and I talk funny. So, but going back, going back to the numbers you brought up. Yeah, it’s called English. Okay.
Matt Brading
Well, you do talk funny. You sound
Brad Lowery
Let him hit the numbers, or Matt, let him hit the numbers.
Matt Brading
Like a dog got some peanut butter in his mouth. is like a holiday goodnight. You ever heard? Anyway, isn’t there French?
Ken Humphreys
Okay, so going back to the numbers, residential inspections this year, I’m at 120 for the year so far. The reason I’m be at 400 by the end of this month, I did a residential inspection for a JD Marriott residence. They seen my inspection report, weren’t happy with the quality control, so they signed a commercial contract with me to inspect 400 and 455 units in two buildings for them over the month of March. No one’s there. I’m in and out and I’m doing a cosmetic take of functionality and what I see inside the units. The VRV systems, so I don’t have to open anything up on that. I can get through. So that does pan out my numbers for March, but I’m at 120 for the year so far. And January and February are slowest months in Virginia.
Matt Brading
That makes a little bit more sense. Yeah, it’s still water. Yeah, yeah, no, that’s still very large.
Brad Lowery
And you usually you
Ken Humphreys
Yeah. Thank you.
Brad Lowery
Usually average 600 to 650.
Matt Brading
Wasn’t talking about that.
Brad Lowery
I was gonna say dude Matt, this is the guy first of all where I told him before where you even got on I was like 70 % of what we say on the phone like we can’t say on the podcast because most of the comments are like that It is yeah exactly
Ken Humphreys
You
Matt Brading
Yeah, well, I mean, that’s all of us.
Ken Humphreys
You know, so
Matt Brading
I mean, stop recording and this thing goes completely off the rails, right?
Ken Humphreys
I love to sit on the fence on a debate and have a debate either way. And I’m never going to tell you your way isn’t the best way of doing it because if it works for you and you’re successful, it works, right? But from my IQA reports for two of the biggest multi-inspection companies in the country, from around the country and the consistency in report writing.
Matt Brading
Me too. OK.
Ken Humphreys
is about 75 to 78 % consistent on what people will put in a report. So if I can put, say 80 % of the same stuff you put in a report and I can do it in half the time, right? And I’ve got just, I’ve got 100 % request rate. I’ve got good volume numbers and no life because I spent too much time working. Yeah, it’s not.
Matt Brading
Okay, yeah, I was gonna go there, but okay, go ahead.
Ken Humphreys
It’s not saying you can’t, it’s just the whole reason you ask questions about stuff is to streamline. Like my driveway presentation has changed so many times from being sued, from being questioned on stuff, for things changing in our SOPs for the state. So over the years, I’ve had to tailor it down to where I’ve got to now. My driveway’s presentation is to the point now it’s got the right details in there to show I’m organized, what I’m there for, what I’m going to do. So I spend 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning of a greeting, me explaining everything. And I spend another 10 to 15 minutes at the end going over my key findings. That’s with taking the customer. Yeah. Nope, nope.
Matt Brading
Is this part of the two and a half hours that you’re inspecting or is that an additional 30 minutes? That’s just insane, man. That’s just insane. Like, all right. All right. I’m gonna tell you what lies blown mine, right? So, okay. I am all over the place. There’s so many topics I want to bring up. First of all, I mean, I’m glad that you acknowledge that personality and the people this does make a difference, right? Because I’m the first to tell you that the client isn’t the problem. It is me. Okay, but
Ken Humphreys
Yeah.
Matt Brading
You know, I actually want to interact with them too much. Okay. And I feel this need inside me to do it. Because there’s people are like, okay, we’ll stay out of your way. We won’t bother you. But yet I go out of my way to get them because like it just is in me to do it. And I think it’s a double-edged sword. It’s like I love and hate it and they love it. Right. And that’s part of what makes it so exhausting to me. But anyway, I mean, that is yet to each their own. Right. But I want to say like, I like, I’m, glad to be able to have adult conversations about this, right? Where we can disagree. now we might get into some actual physical combat or something if we were in front of each other. I don’t know that could happen, but like a cordial thing. Okay. So before, and I am a little amped up. not going to lie because prior to this, I anticipated an ambush a little bit.
Ken Humphreys
Good luck.
Matt Brading
Because I know Brad and I don’t see an eye on this. I know how you see because he told me about you. Feel like he’s probably told you about me. And so I feel like I’m the odd man out here and it’s fine. Whatever. But I was bringing that up to you probably don’t know Preston Kincaid. Do you know? Are you familiar? I know you know Brad. Ken Humphreys, not very, you don’t have any time in your life to take a social media. How do you know who he is if you ain’t got five minutes to get on social media? I guess maybe.
Ken Humphreys
You’re going to miss it. I know who is. So for this right, I did 611 inspections last year. I played 54 rounds of golf and I took one and a half months off.
Matt Brading
And you didn’t sleep so I was talking to Dude I’ll sleep when I’m dead, but I like to do other things too, but But yeah, I was talking to Preston and we were because he’s very much it He wanted to get on here today and I told him absolutely not I’m not getting that’s not happening He’s very much in the same boat with you guys, right? I am Between the four of us. I am on an island. Okay
Ken Humphreys
I have three kids so I don’t sleep anyway.
Brad Lowery
He messaged me about it after he messaged you about
Matt Brading
And, um, and he’s like, very like, we look, impression get along very well. Okay. And, uh, and we disagree very well. Like we don’t get mad at the disagreement. Right. Um, but, uh, and so I liked that we, can do that, but yeah, I mean, he had me amped up, uh, going into this. Cause I, as mistakenly mentioned that I was getting ambushed about this topic, which he is very passionate about. Um, but, and I mean, I tell him like, there’s no way to know, but like,
Brad Lowery
You don’t tell Preston that’s
Matt Brading
How do you know you didn’t miss something?
Ken Humphreys
I see, I
see, I get it, okay? They’re bringing an English guy on and you’re an American, so you feel like you’re be ambushed. I get it. I’ve read your 10 page history book, so I understand the history of America, okay? I got that bit.
Brad Lowery
He’s a Texan.
Matt Brading
No, no, no. That was not it. No. No, no. That’s it. No, that’s it. That’s it.
Brad Lowery
You don’t
Matt Brading
I’m out. I’m out.
Brad Lowery
you don’t understand that Texas is basically its own country. Yeah. But no, look, guys, this is this is why I wanted to get Ken on. right. You notice we’re at 27 minutes now. And this is Yeah, no, not even that. But it’s I mean, Ken Humphreys, I’ve told you for ages that if you weren’t too busy working, you could be teaching this stuff, but you make too much money working. But honestly, it’s this is Ken Humphreys good.
Matt Brading
And we’re already about to box.
Ken Humphreys
What’s the saying go, those who can, can, those who can’t, podcast? No, teach, sorry, teach. I am very equal opportunity.
Brad Lowery
Man. Those who, those who called me about wanting to, you know, start something.
Matt Brading
He used to take a blow at you. mean, I was in this with my senior over here.
Brad Lowery
I don’t, I don’t want to get you in trouble with BPG. So I won’t tell you what we talked about over the, over the holidays, but no, truly like this is stuff that honestly inspectors need to be hearing just so they get multiple perspectives on stuff. We haven’t even done the drink of the day yet, which we need to talk about because it’s sponsored once again by inspection fuel registration is live. Go sign up guys, early bird. Fees are available to you. So go to inspection fuel calm It’s gonna be in Louisville, Kentucky September 28 to the 30th Ken Humphreys if you’re free you need to come and you need to teach people some stuff because you got a wealth of knowledge So but for the drink of the day Matt, what are you sipping on?
Matt Brading
I’ll be there. I’ll be there if you want to meet up. We’ll see if we can get a box. What am I sipping on? Sorry. I got a completely off track. Well, I was trying to drink coffee out of a Michael Myers mug because I was ready to slay all day. Okay. But I knew I knew going in that this was going to be an issue. And so I busted out the four gate bourbon. So I’m double fisting bourbon and coffee because I’m ready. No, dude.
Ken Humphreys
Ha
Brad Lowery
This is why you’re amped up. It’s not because you talk to Preston. It’s because you’re on two kinds of
Ken Humphreys
Thank
Brad Lowery
uppers,
Matt Brading
I was about in between. Okay. First of all, I had to drink the coffee because somebody made me wait an hour. But for whatever reason, the link wasn’t working. I asked you to send it to me again. But I have been sitting here for a long time trying to get on this. Well, you know what, if you drink, if you start drinking in the morning, what is it? What’s the you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning. I didn’t start early, but I’m doing some catch up here. Look, I did what I had to do. OK, did what I had. Here.
Brad Lowery
You can’t daydream if you don’t start early. That’s it. Yeah. That’s it. All right. And I am sipping on a tequila old fashioned because I just needed to have something to keep up with Matt, dad gum. But anyway, Ken, you are healthy.
Ken Humphreys
I feel left out now because I’m British and I’m not drinking tea. I’ve just got some creatine and some BCAAs. So I feel a little left out.
Matt Brading
Of you do. Of course you do.
Brad Lowery
Well, you’ve got three kids that you have to stay young to keep up with. So on that question, dude, how do you actually find a way? Because again, Matt’s got a family, you got a family. I’m the one that’s freewheeling out here. How do you find a way to balance a wife, three boys and vacation, taking them to do.
Ken Humphreys
This American word that you just use, balance. What does that mean again? So I don’t work Sundays anymore. I try not to do more than three inspections a day. And I just get booked up several days out and my calendar tends to be steady all year round. And it’s come from my days at US Inspect from I’d take any work that was available because I was hungry to grow, hungry to learn, and I like money. So I did that.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ken Humphreys
And then I started getting more of a reputation. So now I don’t really touch our commercial work. We’re doing phase ones, another commercial work. I don’t do any of that. That goes to my team. I probably have about a 30 to 40 % overspill of work that goes to my team because I’m just not available in the timeframe. Cause our market is anywhere from three to five day contingency at max if they can get an inspection and we’re not even I say about third of our work this year is going to be pre-offer evaluations. Matt, for you, that’s our version of a walk and talk because I won’t let any of my guys do a walk and talk. So we do a pre-offer evaluation. So it’s about 70, 75 % of a normal inspection. You get a report, but it’s one hour long. So we cover what we can cover in that one hour. We don’t worry about kitchen appliances. Don’t worry about windows or doors. We get the odd outlet, but we check your mechanical, your roof, your attic, your foundation.
Matt Brading
Yeah, we don’t do that.
Ken Humphreys
The bigger tickets are kind of, but again, it’s what the market’s calling for at the moment while agents are saying they aren’t accepting offers with inspection contingencies.
Matt Brading
or fear porn or something.
Brad Lowery
You’re waving inspections in DC and Virginia again? Wild.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah, probably a good 30 % of our work this year is going to come from pre-offers again. balance.
Matt Brading
Guys do 600 inspections in three months whenever in an area where the inspections are getting waived. You are an anomaly.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah. I’m different. No, it’s no, it’s like I’ve always had a good way with people. My dad was a mason. I’ve come from an instruction background. I’m a cabinet maker and CNC programmer by trade. I was a roofer at a high school at 16. I know the industry. Houses aren’t that hard. They haven’t really changed that much in the last 50 years and the 50 years before that they were built well.
Brad Lowery
This is on it.
Ken Humphreys
So it’s like, we know what we’re looking at. You know that as well as anybody, you walk into a neighborhood or you see a certain name on a panel for an electrician that works in that area and you know it’s either gonna be a good one or a bad one. You know within five minutes of being in a house what you’ve got to pay extra attention to. my God, I’ve turned everything on. I’ve got to pay attention to Harry, homeowner. He has been living here for way too long. It’s just, I don’t understand. And it’s not, don’t understand because again, I’m a firm believer of it’s the personality style is got to fit your market and you like you don’t want to do inspections like me because your personality, you want to make a personal connection. You cause our days are long and boring. They are like it’s the same houses are houses for the better part. You don’t want to see new stuff. You haven’t seen before. Cause if you do, it’s usually something you wish you’d never seen before. Like frozen cats dated in a freezer with no one living in the house or a panel blowing up in your hand when you’re touching the screw. Not fun stuff.
Matt Brading
I’m still in the frozen cats Did that happen to you?
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah, two frozen cats dated about eight months apart from three years ago and four years ago. No one living in the house. Yeah, I don’t ask why, I just note it and move on.
Matt Brading
Cheers. Would you have said something if there were separate heads? Don’t answer that. There’s just so many things swimming in my mind. And so I hadn’t really gotten a chance to ask all the questions. I want to paint a scenario, OK? Because I’m trying to do the math, OK? And I’m going to use.
Ken Humphreys
Yes. Okay.
Matt Brading
A couple of things that I do in like one example of a problem. Okay. And maybe you’re going to be like, Oh, you’re doing it wrong. And then maybe I’ll be enlightened. I don’t know. But, uh, I mean, that is how Brad opened the show. He’s to tell me that everybody’s way, everybody’s way is wrong, but the kids here. So anyway, well, that being said, um, you know, when I show up to a house, I open up the door, I go inside, I start turning on all the lights, get electricity going, right? Tell a dishwasher, start taking hot water temperatures.
Brad Lowery
I mean, it’s flexible, you know?
Ken Humphreys
Thank you.
Matt Brading
Prior to turning on hot water and taking temperatures, I adjust the HVAC. Usually, I’m going to say a vast majority of houses, not all of them, but a lot of them are two story with one AC system. Okay. This is a very, very common thing. One AC system, two thermostats, one up, one down. And this is a very common style of construction. Clab on grade, yeah. And so, I mean,
Ken Humphreys
Slab on grade. Easy.
Matt Brading
I would say yes because of the peer and beam stuff that I have done. Yeah, probably. But let’s just compare Slab on Grade to Slab on Grade, OK, for ease of inspection, I guess, and time. So I show up. I usually adjust the HVAC because I’m going to run one system first and then the other system. Usually out here, it’s the heat first, and then I pull the heat out later. OK, so anyway, I’ve walked in the house. I turn on all the lights, raise blinds, unlock windows, and I start taking hot water temperatures and adjust the HVAC system temperature. That 10 minutes. That’s take 10 minutes. And I’m being generous, but let’s just say 10 minutes. Generous like it probably takes a little more than that. I’ve opened everything up at this point. Now, when I have a house such as the one I’m talking about, where I’ve got one system, two thermostats, I run each thermostat individually. First, I run the upstairs. And let’s say on heat. And I make sure that it only heats the upstairs because the problem that I’ve found is that oftentimes they get this wrong. Either one thermostat works the wrong floor or one thermostat works both floors while one of them only works one floor. Okay. And so I’ll run the thermostat upstairs by itself and then I get outside and start doing my inspection. And so I get to the back of the house. I come back in and I make sure, okay, we’ve got heat upstairs. We don’t have heat downstairs. Cool. I turn the downstairs thermostat on to make sure it operates like it’s supposed to. And then I go back outside, finish a little more inspections. I’ll come back in take my heat temperatures. Still outside of this point, I haven’t even gotten on the roof. And then once I take my heat temperatures and everything’s working, I then turn the system off, let it sit for five minutes and just completely shut down before I turn the air on. When I do that, I reverse the process. I turn the thermostat downstairs on by itself to make sure that it only works to downstairs. And then when I find out that it does, I turn the AC upstairs on. By this point, it’s about time to get on the roof. Now, at this point, we’re looking at how much time? You know, 10 minutes before I ever did any of that stuff, depending on the exterior perimeter, we’re looking at 30 to 40 minutes on the exterior of the house before I’ve even gotten on the roof. And I had, and then I have the sprinkler system, the, the, the garage is included in this. And that’s usually the breaker box, usually a water heater, things like that. And so I’m, you know, by the time I get off the roof and by the time I get the sprinkler system done, load all my stuff back in and go back inside. I mean, I’m an hour and a half in.
Brad Lowery
And you’re not actually factoring in the time where you are telling people it’s not supposed to do that. OK. Got it.
Matt Brading
Okay, I’m trying to factor that out, right? Because no doubt my situation with me trying to film things does hold me back. That’s not on every house. It just depends, right? But then I gotta go in, I still gotta get in the attic. I’ve still got to inspect everything up there. I’ve gotta get down, I’ve gotta go through every room. gotta, I don’t know, I fill up all tubs and sinks all the way up to their overflow. This sometimes takes a while you know, to get to get done and then I drain everything, get back down. I mean.
Ken Humphreys
Well, not to get you off, so, well, I got a couple of things in mind while you’re saying that. So what I’m hearing here is you are walking over your own footsteps several times at beginning of the process, which is wasted time. Why not? If you’ve got to wait for tubs to fill, you’ve got time while you’re on the inside. So why not turn the heating on, do the outside, come in, switch them over, do the roof?
Matt Brading
You can do it. Yeah, totally. I am and I feel like it’s necessary. I mean, perhaps.
Ken Humphreys
Come back in, turn them off.
Matt Brading
Back up, back up, what?
Ken Humphreys
Come in, turn everything on. Start your one heating system if you’ve got two, right? You go outside, do the whole outside. Come in, switch them over. Turn one off, turn the other one back on, do the roof. Right? You’ve already cut out at least two trips from what you’re telling me. We don’t inspect sprinkler systems. I’ve never, I’m not so sure. I’ve had a couple of times where the thermostats were the wrong way around, but it’s…
Matt Brading
Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna do that to some degree, that’s what I
Ken Humphreys
I don’t know why you couldn’t pick that up running them both at the same time with an infrared camera and setting them at different temperatures.
Matt Brading
It’s not, that’s not going to do it because the temperature coming out still the same.
Brad Lowery
If you have a unit.
Ken Humphreys
Wl, no it will equalize one of them will turn off when it hits temperature
Matt Brading
Yeah, but I mean, like, I mean, what first of all, I mean, we turn the heat on. We’re talking we’re in Texas, dude. Like it’s going to get 80 degrees in five minutes. The reason why I developed the system is because of how I found it. I found it by accident. The thing is, is I’m going tell you it’s probably one in every six houses that I find it messed up.
Ken Humphreys
So this is and I understand that and this is why you tested because you found it not reading it in a book not being taught by anybody because you found it and you found that people do it because How many people are really gonna notice that much when they’re in a house when they don’t really? Understand the system and how it works which brings me full circle back to why I think it’s important the customers there with you like I explained to the customer while I’m running the heat in all that
Matt Brading
Right. Right.
Ken Humphreys
How a furnace works, how it moves there, where the filter’s there, why I prefer what type of filter I prefer, and what should be checked on it. So to me, it’s a visual learn, and I talk as I’m checking these things, and that’s how I save my time. I’m not arguing with you how you do your job. It works for you. You’re successful, and you’re very knowledgeable, right? Like I’m not trying to pick a fight with you on this. It’s like, I’m just, it blows my mind when I talk to inspectors about this and we all get, and I’m not saying you’ll get and saying, we get set in our ways. We all do the same thing, same things. When any guy comes onto my team, experienced or not experienced, I ask them to ride with everybody on my team at least once. And I will tell them there’s not one of these guys, myself included, that does this job perfect. You take.
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
Which part of each person you think is going to make you a better inspector and you become you as an inspector. As long as you are covering our company’s SOPs, our state requirement SOPs, if you want to go above and beyond them, as long as there’s not a liability reason for you going above it, because you put holes in walls. As long as you’re not going to that extent, you do what you want because different agents like different type of inspectors. I talk a lot on site, as you can probably tell, but I do it in a constructive way where I am moving and covering as much detail as I can through the house as I go. And I love the fact that you do the thing with the thermostat because you found it and you didn’t find it in a book. You didn’t find it in a classroom. You found it by accident. And you know what? You’re like, shit, I need to check this one. When you do volume, you find this after a while, you’re like.
Matt Brading
Right.
Ken Humphreys
Have I been missing this because I’ve seen three of them this week and I haven’t seen this in six months. Have I just been missing? If you’re honest, you will tell anybody that asks you, you’ve missed stuff in inspections because you know what? We’re human. It might be it wasn’t showing itself while you were there where you could see it. It might be that you just didn’t look hard enough in that one area. We’re human.
Matt Brading
Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
Our job is to educate the customer about their purchase to the best of our abilities in the timeframe we’re there. And our timeframe there is a snapshot of that house at that moment in time, not before and not after we’re there. And for me, going back to the whole reason we’re having this conversation, that snapshot is better done with the customer by your side so you can explain stuff and they can ask questions that are relevant to them so they can understand.
Matt Brading
disagree with that. I can disagree with is the amount of time and that it takes to do that and also what it would take me to do that. And also I know how physically exhausting it is having these conversations with these people after physically doing my physical job. It’s actually very draining. I’ve gone home many times and just felt like I just gave it all to them. And I was just like,
Ken Humphreys
Okay, so let me give you this scenario, right? I left one of the biggest multi-inspection companies in the country to join the other big multi-inspection company in the country, because they had hunted me and it was the right time for me to make the move. I know everybody at the other company, they know I was the number one producer there and I’m the number one producer of a volume at the new company, right? I didn’t go after any of them. Several of them have come over to join me because they know how I run stuff. I don’t get in the way. I just give them the tools they need to be as successful as they need to be. And as long as they’re doing this stuff per their contract, I am fine with that. Right? There’s one guy I will not hire from the old company. The reason being, he will talk to the customer and then leave them there. They will go away. They will come back with a bunch of problems. Then he will go away. They will come back with a bunch of problems. They will go away, do a bit more, come back with a bunch of problems. So all that customers hear and anytime they have an interaction with that inspector is, money, money, money, you got this wrong, you got this wrong, you got this wrong. There’s no education. Like the education is in the report. It explains to them how often they should change the filter, a diagram of how the furnace you see how that would come across to an already nervous buyer that if the inspector is only speaking to them about the stuff they find. It’s no different when an inspector and I’ve caught you guys doing this. They take the flashlight and I teach them to go up one side of the panel, come down the other, then go back looking for problems. So quite often they’ll go, okay, so I’m looking for burn marks, scorching, any signs of fire and I go. Yeah, you are, but you really don’t want to voice that in front of someone because if it’s there, you talk about it. If it’s not there, you don’t talk about all the different scenarios that could happen. All you need to do, you’re right. Dragging a client with you takes longer, not arguing that. The lack of phone calls afterwards is going to be less. It’s going to be less. Well, that’s because you don’t answer.
Matt Brading
Not for you apparently. I don’t get that many, man.
Ken Humphreys
You were late to the podcast. get why you don’t answer.
Matt Brading
That’s not what happened. You were late. By the way, we won’t go down the road. We won’t go down the road because I’m going to point fingers at somebody else and not me and ain’t you. I’m not going mention who it is.
Brad Lowery
That was a technical thing.
Ken Humphreys
Haha. I’m joking.
Brad Lowery
Let’s put it this way. This is.
Ken Humphreys
But you understand what I’m coming for on that. how many of your customers read your report, opposed to how many read the summary?
Matt Brading
Not really.
Brad Lowery
Summary.
Matt Brading
Wait, wait, I don’t give myself.
Ken Humphreys
You don’t give them a summary? How many people do you try to keep track of how many people open your report after you’ve sent it?
Matt Brading
Don’t keep track of it, no, but I can just open up the computer and look. It’s funny, it’s a cool feature in the ISN software that I use that you can open it up and you can look and see if they’ve opened your report. Little plug for IAP.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah, have a look. Okay, I’m gonna try and come to, I’m gonna try and come to Fuel this year on Brad’s time, okay? But have a look in your thing. Give me a percentage of what you think percentage wise people open your report after you’ve sent it.
Brad Lowery
Perfectly.
Matt Brading
I’m not gonna take the time to give you that information. I’m just being honest, I’m not gonna, I mean, I got too much stuff to do to look up that for you. I really don’t care. I mean, look, I do think about what to do.
Ken Humphreys
I will tell you if it’s over, if it’s over, but you don’t care.
Brad Lowery
think this point.
Ken Humphreys
That’s a bit that confuses me, right? Because you do care. You care about your job. You care about doing a good job. That’s obvious, right? So I’m confused why you don’t want the customer with you, but you don’t care if they read the report.
Matt Brading
No, I want them to read the report, but I don’t have the time or the energy to verify it. I mean, that’s on them.
Ken Humphreys
No, but what I’m saying, my point here is it’s less than 25 % of your customers actually look at the report after you’ve sent it.
Matt Brading
I mean, highly doubt that’s the case.
Brad Lowery
They remember the experience on site more.
Ken Humphreys
That’s a stat from hundreds of thousands of reports sent from a certain large company after looking them because we can see who opens them and we monitor it. Same as we open marketing emails, how many people receive it, how many people open it. Anybody.
Matt Brading
Are you talking about the client themselves or the realtor? Okay, then that my stats are not going to measure up.
Ken Humphreys
Okay, that’s what I’m saying. You’re set of sheer interest now. Take your time and just pick a couple and just see how many, but you’ll find it’s not as many as you think that open it after the fact or open it multiple times.
Matt Brading
Like I’m tempted to go that gate’s right there. Like I told you to go turn that computer right there on and just do it right now.
Ken Humphreys
Don’t.
Brad Lowery
would the point I think just coming down to it the point that Ken Humphreys’s trying to make guys is simply that the encounter that the buyer has with you they’re going to remember what they took away and how they felt working with you more than they are from the document itself.
Matt Brading
Yeah, totally right. And look, that is important to me and look at my reviews because they were reflect it. The thing is, they do look at the report, at least them or their agent because they have to because they have to use it for negotiation purposes. Okay, it’s I know it’s happening because it has to happen. I mean, there’s times that it doesn’t sure. But I mean, I think that that might be a market thing. I think that might be different.
Ken Humphreys
No, I’m talking nationwide.
Matt Brading
No.
Brad Lowery
Going by BPG stats? Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
I’m not saying it’s that.
Matt Brading
I mean, but that’s an average.
Ken Humphreys
But what I’m saying there is, again, like the reason you get into your debates, into your conversations and why you have a strong opinion is because you care. You really do care. That’s blatantly obvious, right? So I don’t argue with anything you’re doing. I will question stuff and say, hey, this
Matt Brading
That’s an average. Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
This argument for this doesn’t make sense to me because I’m English. We’re very good at debating stuff. We should all be lawyers.
Matt Brading
Sometimes we have these like for debate reasons, like, you know, we as in the collective have these type of arguments. And I have an issue that I’ve dealt with all my life where like in that moment and possibly especially something I’m very passionate about, I can’t put all the pieces together right away to tell you why, because it’s from experience. It’s from things that I’ve done that I’ve created the method that I’m using. and so, I mean, you sometimes when I’m here passionately, like battling it out with you or whoever’s on, you know, sitting in that chair. It’s not, I can’t, sometimes I get off this thing and wish I would have found the words that I’m going to find later on to tell you exactly what I’m thinking. It’s just what it is. I just get, I just, I’m like a bulldog, man.
Brad Lowery
This is what they have social media posts for.
Ken Humphreys
That sounds like more attitude. No. Do you know what the world is missing at the moment? The world right now is missing the ability to have a conversation and agree to disagree. That’s what the world’s missing more than anything. And the fact that we can have this conversation, it hey, I knew I’d get one of them. No, I wasn’t, I was never here to ambush you. I wasn’t even going to mention my numbers. My numbers are irrelevant. It’s horses for courses, as I said, if you want.
Brad Lowery
That’s good.
Matt Brading
Yeah. I agree.
Ken Humphreys
I don’t think most inspectors should do over 400 a year. I really don’t because there isn’t much of a work-life balance. I’ll be the first to tell you that. You can get burnt out in this job. If I take a vacation, I can actually trip over the curb getting out of my car for the very first job after a vacation because I forget how to carry my toolbelt and walk. It’s terrible. If I don’t stay in my regular pattern, doing my system the same way I do it, the same photos, the same style, I would not be able to do what I do. I know that for a fact, because I’ve had spells where I’ve had to take a month off because of injury. And then I come back and I’m like, yeah, I think this is the right house
Matt Brading
I had a week off recently and getting back was like, I couldn’t hardly figure out what I was doing like for a couple of minutes.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, my busiest month as an inspector was when Ken Humphreys got hurt and I had to take all of his overflow and I you know, people would come back with why don’t you sound as cool and how come you don’t inspect as fast and Ken Humphreys says, well, he’s not British and he wears skinny jeans. And, know, as a result, I’ve had to put on pants.
Matt Brading
Hehehehe. You’re not wrong.
Ken Humphreys
Was I wrong? Well, actually, not when Brad was here, but my team actually brought me a Christmas gift this year. They brought me four rounds of golf so I’d take more time off. I’m like, thank you, I think. One of them offered to pay for a vacation for me so I could go away for a week somewhere because of the workload. it’s never like you’ve managed to work in an industry and get to meet lots of different people and talk to different people that do it different ways. My advice is quite simple when you go into these conversations. I’ve told Brad this. You take whatever nuggets you can from a person. It doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong. If they’re doing it and you can figure out why that doesn’t work for you, you learned something. If you can figure out how to streamline your process a little bit more so it speeds you up by 10%, so be it. And if you don’t want to speed up by 10%, that’s perfectly fine as well. Well, I’ll tell you right now in over 9,000 inspections I’ve been to court once, I’ve returned a fee because of client disfaction with… Yeah, because I don’t hear it much. Not in my own house and not in customer’s houses. So basically…
Brad Lowery
of satisfaction.
Matt Brading
He didn’t even know how say the word. That’s how he did it.
Brad Lowery
That’s an American word to check. Hey, we’re gonna get Crista on the channel next to see about that one, but.
Ken Humphreys
No, we’re not. So no, I think I’ve returned the fee less than 20 times. And it’s just because of a top agent and the customers complained enough to where it just makes more sense to make everybody happy and we return the fee and we just take it as a loss and move on. Like I honestly believe if someone wants to treat me as a person and take me around with them and show them stuff and it takes them 10% longer, 15 % longer on site, I would be much happier as a customer if I was a customer buying a house over. And you know what, if you do a come join me at the end and I will go over my findings with you and then show you anything you want to see, I think that’s a nice compromise. I think not having the client show up on site at all, I just, I don’t agree with, I don’t think it’s the best way to do it. I think that’s like not meeting your doctor before a surgeon. I think that’s going to buy a car without test driving.
Matt Brading
I disagree with that. Like, look, here’s the thing. Like, no, no, no. Well, let me dissect it a little bit. Like, okay, so we’re having this conversation because we recently had Joey McPeek on the show, right? And Joey had, and you probably are too busy doing inspections to watch that, Joey McPeek is an inspector at Idaho and he instilled a policy that he doesn’t allow anybody at the inspection.
Ken Humphreys
But you don’t agree?
Brad Lowery
That sounds like an agreement.
Matt Brading
Not at all. And there’s a couple of things that I want to like hash out here. Number one, you can’t instill a policy like that. If you don’t have the business to back it up. Like we all have those clients we want to deal with and the ones we don’t want to deal with. And we instill policies and like price, right? Price gets more money in our pocket, but it’s like when we raise our prices, we also filter out some of those bottom feeders that we actually don’t want to work for, right? So there’s all these little things that we do that filter out the people we don’t want to work for. If you’ve got the volume to back it up and that’s how you want to work and how you feel like you work best, then like more power to you. You took control of that. And I guess I can respect that with Joey. don’t.
Brad Lowery
There was also some things that he put in there. There were also some things that he put in there where he uses the full extent of his report software to include videos that make them feel involved as if they were on site more. He bridges that gap.
Matt Brading
Yeah, he does a couple of things.
Ken Humphreys
But how much longer does that take as well?
Matt Brading
Yeah, no, it totally does. I think that at the end of the day, I think it was it was a time thing, but I think it was also it’s more he could it’s it was about liability for him about how he works. I no doubt doing stuff like that is a is a time suck as well. Is it decision he made? I don’t I think it’s interesting because here’s the thing with me, right? I encourage people to come at the end. And I it would be a lot easier if they didn’t come at all. Okay. I mean like you probably you encourage people to go right, but you don’t refuse the inspections. They don’t go you’ve probably done plenty of where nobody.
Ken Humphreys
We have several builders in this area. We will not allow anybody to be present during a phase three or phase two.
Matt Brading
And so that’s probably that’s probably like you get in and out of that house and you’re like, it’s a breeze, right? It was awesome.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah, but I don’t like it because another point here as well. How many eyes do you have? This is a rhetorical question, obviously. How many eyes do you have? More eyes walking around the house looking at us. More eyes. No, more eyes looking at a house as you’re going around are going to find more problems. Trained eyes or non-trained eyes?
Matt Brading
I don’t want to have to.
Brad Lowery
And that’s talking about the one I did.
Matt Brading
I think it’s a trick question. Dude, if I got a client that wants to inspect the house themselves, what the hell they need me for? I mean, seriously.
Ken Humphreys
Because they’re not qualified enough to inspect it themselves. But they’re qualified enough to ask questions. Are you married?
Brad Lowery
That same reason that somebody showed up for thermal imaging camera.
Matt Brading
Then let me do my job! Yeah, but not… Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
And have you ever had a rash or something and asked your wife to look at it before you go to the doctor?
Matt Brading
I mean, yeah, sure.
Ken Humphreys
She’s not qualified let the doctor do his job. I get her to look at it you know there’s a rash there you can see it.
Matt Brading
I don’t there’s some things that aren’t lining up with your analogy there and I am not figuring out what to But I’ll probably think about it when I’m laying down here tonight.
Ken Humphreys
I’m sorry. No.
Brad Lowery
I don’t want to think about Ken Humphreys with a rash, first of all, but also guys, you know, we’re, we’ve come to the agreement at the very least that there’s, there’s a way that we can manage clients on site, whether it be for the duration, whether it be at the end of the inspection and you can fill them in. again, Ken Humphreys, it comes back to what you’re saying horses for courses. This country is full of inspectors that do things very differently, but you hit on something, gosh, maybe 30 minutes ago that I think is critical, which is that inspectors, especially new inspectors need to follow a lot of different people around and see how different folks do it because there are so many that do so well and that they can do things so differently at the same time. So we’ve got two very different approaches here, but.
Ken Humphreys
But it’s, you get used to what your market has and it doesn’t make it right. You do what your market does because that’s what that market’s done for years. How many times have you and an agent say to you, I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I’ve never, time does not make you good at something. Okay. You can be good at something and serve in that industry for a long time, but it doesn’t make you good at it. If you want to be better, you’re going to try and better yourself every day. You’re going to listen to a podcast about your industry. You’re going to watch a video about your industry. You’re going to talk to a bigger group of people about stuff you see. I’ve been educating my guys on VRV systems recently because we’re seeing more of them in high rise condos. We’ve got the February this year. They announced that they’re going to ban R410A completely now. They’re not just going to phase it down. They’re going to phase it out completely. So guess what? R454B is the same price as R22 in my market to buy. It’s not cheap. So it’s like, how do know this? Because you talk to groups of people, you have these conversations because you know, if you stop, someone else isn’t going to, they’re going to surpass you and that’s going to become the new norm. So I don’t think one way is right. I think you ride with people, you learn from people and you find what works for your market. Cause I’ve had people in different markets we couldn’t catch traction in. We just couldn’t catch traction in it for whatever reason. But I know my methods work, but no dice. It just didn’t work that we got markets not far from two of my markets that do price to cure and everything. I think it’s stupid because if you asked me to do a price to cure on a house, I’m going to give you a range somewhere between 5,000 and 150,000 on average. How’s that helping anybody? It’s the price ranges of stuff is astronomical and changed so much since COVID. That stuff doesn’t make sense to me. Now, if that’s what your market does, and that’s what agents are used to seeing, that’s what they’re going to want. And I love the whole fact, Matt, that you explained
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
Why you test the firm is that the way you do and why you found that out? I think that’s important. I think that’s stuff that people need to hear because it’s not in a textbook. can tell inspectors that read a textbook and pass the national exam and then they post stuff online. You’re like, that’s not quite what you’re looking at right there. But I understand what you’re saying, but that’s not true. Like, polybutylene is really easy to identify when it’s in a textbook with polybutylene written on it. It’s a lot harder when you’re in a raccoon infested crawl space full of water. It’s like, yeah, I took the time on this because, well, I respect Bradley asked me about poplar. He’s been asking me for a while to come on and talk about some stuff. I don’t want to preach to anybody. I want to hear why you do what you do. And I want to question it because I want to know. Because if I don’t know, then I don’t know if I can do my job better. It’s as simple as that.
Matt Brading
Yeah, likewise. It’s, mean, as long as I can remember, like it doesn’t matter. Sometimes we go at, you know, our passions get in the way, right? And like somebody gives us, let’s just say, not that you are doing this and not that we’re doing this here, it’s not the goal, but when people give you constructive criticism, especially about something that you’re passionate about, or just criticism, whether it’s constructive or not. Like oftentimes when we are passionate about that thing, we, at least the way I’m wired is…
Brad Lowery
That’s good.
Ken Humphreys
I don’t have time for passion.
Matt Brading
For defense. mean, like you just kind of go to it, right? But there’s no doubt, like when you walk away from that, like some things usually get in there, you know, some of the things that were said and even he, yeah.
Ken Humphreys
No, you’ll be thinking of this for a week. We’ll all be thinking about this for weeks and what we said and what we wish I’d said this now because you know
Brad Lowery
Might learn something.
Ken Humphreys
What? That snapshot in time is just not big enough. The same as your time on site in a house really isn’t big enough. If you want the best inspection in the world, you’re going to bring an engineer in, a plumber in, you’re going to bring an electrician in, they’re going to do load line testing on all your lines. They’re going to like…
Matt Brading
You know this is a mess because none of those guys communicate well with one another.
Ken Humphreys
No, that’s a problem. You’d need someone to coordinate it all, but that’s not going to happen. And that’s not feasible for the purchase of a house. So all you have to do is explain your process, your SOPs to your client and how you do it and then do it. It’s as simple as that. If your process means they’re not there, they’re not there, but I wouldn’t, I couldn’t understand anybody successful or not successful mandating that. Having it as an option.
Matt Brading
Not time wise.
Ken Humphreys
Not encouraging people to attend is a different thing. But saying that you can’t, that I hate it when builders say they can’t attend, a buyer can’t attend a phase two. I’m like, that’s the best time for you to take a video and have an X-ray of your house and see what’s going on. And hey, this builder and this builder don’t put overflow pans in on the second level for the washing machines because they don’t have to. I’d ask them how much it is to do it at this point.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
It’s just simple stuff like that, which technically isn’t wrong, but doesn’t go in the report because it’s not wrong. Our reports should be right or wrong and informational. it’s, that’s my reasoning for why I do it the way I did. And plus I don’t want to talk to myself all day. Have you heard me?
Matt Brading
Right. I think we’re doing well. Yeah, maybe I do. And maybe there’s something that maybe I do want to talk to myself all day and maybe there’s something wrong there. Maybe I should get that checked out. I mean, honestly, the thing is, man, I think we can agree that. All right. Like you said, there’s not one way to do this. We all have our different ways. I think we actually do things a lot the same. I don’t know. You must be.
Brad Lowery
People turned this off an hour ago. No, I’m kidding.
Ken Humphreys
Yeah. There’s only one way to test it, fairness.
Matt Brading
like Speedy Gonzalez fast, like he was just like smoke, but whatever. think we’re getting to the same goal. Cause I know our client responses and everything seems to be very similar. I think your report in length and what you’re trying to portray seems very similar. We’re getting to the same place. We’re just going a little bit of a different route and that’s okay. I think that that’s going to vary. And I think that’s important for people to listen here and realize like,
Brad Lowery
That’s the beauty of it.
Matt Brading
Okay, I got my way, you got your way, Brad’s got his way, which is think developed from your way, but probably ultimately ended up being his way. And everyone’s going to have their way. And it doesn’t really matter which one you choose and yours could be different than mine or anyone on this show today. But the important thing is to find a process and stick with it. Find one that works and stick with it and find a way that your process can bring the most value to your clients and make the best out of your time.
Brad Lowery
That’s exactly it. And if you guys want to bring even more value to your clients, you should get even more of this wonderful information and amazing debates and after hours discourse at Inspection Fuel this September 28th to the 30th. Ken Humphreys, we hope to have you there. This has been really good guys.
Ken Humphreys
Leave that. I’d love to be there. It was a great conversation guys. And again, you’re absolutely right, Matt. Consistency is what you want. You want to have a pattern. You want to have a process. One, you just look more professional from day one. And two, you’re going to miss less stuff. And our job is to miss as least the amount of things as we possibly can in the time we’re there. Let’s be honest. Don’t explain it that way to a customer for God’s sake. But yeah, it is.
Matt Brading
That’s true.
Ken Humphreys
Like I tell all my guys you want to be in and out in a timely fashion but without making people feel rushed. That’s it.
Brad Lowery
That’s it.
Matt Brading
We talk about home inspection.
Brad Lowery
Good work. Well guys, thank you so much, Ken Humphreys. Thank you for joining. This has been wonderful. I awesome discourse guys. If you all enjoyed it, sound off in the comments. Seriously, I’m again, y’all are listening to this, you’re hearing two different ways to do it. And there’s 1000 others. So we want to hear your take on what we’ve been talking about on this show. Sound off in the comments, subscribe to the show. Ken Humphreys, I would say where they should follow you, but I don’t even know if you do social media. So
Ken Humphreys
Apparently I’m Speedy Gonzalez. Good luck following me. It’s English, not Spanish, but he’s from Texas, so I get it.
Brad Lowery
That’s it. That’s exactly it.
Matt Brading
Another British version of Speedy Gonzales.
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Ken Humphreys
I think it’s Robert Oberst, so check him out. Matt, hey, I love these conversations. If you can’t get passionate about this, you don’t love what you do. It’s as simple as that. So I don’t take any offense by any of this. I certainly didn’t mean any in any way, shape or form. I think these conversations is what this industry needs more than anything. It shouldn’t stay in the dark ages of people just doing one thing and then never learning what other people are doing.
Brad Lowery
So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Brading
Like words. That means.
Brad Lowery
That’s it. That’s it. We all agree on that. Well, thank you so much, guys. And thank you so much for watching. We’ll see you here, right? We’ll see you next time right here on
Matt Brading
I agree.
Ken Humphreys
Thank you.
Matt Brading
The Ride Along.
Brad Lowery
You’re not alone.