Robin Jade Conde

PODCAST: Deal Killers (with Anna Saltzman)

In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa welcome Anna Saltzman, who is part of the leadership team at StructureTech. They discuss the topic of deal killers and the reputation that home inspectors have for potentially killing real estate deals. Anna shares her experience in her role overseeing the growth department and how her perception of the job has evolved. They delve into the data on deals not going through and the factors that contribute to this. The conversation highlights the importance of communication, context, and providing the next step for clients. In this conversation, Anna expresses her disappointment in not having any exciting revelations to share. The hosts joke about breaking up with the podcast and discuss their anticipation for future episodes. They acknowledge the controversial nature of the topics discussed and the multitude of opinions that exist within the home inspection community. The conversation ends with closing remarks and a promise of a follow-up episode.

Takeaways

Home inspectors have a reputation as deal-killers, but data shows that StructureTech’s percentage of deals not going through is lower than the national average.
The size of the company and the volume of inspections can contribute to the perception of being deal killers.
Effective communication, providing context, and giving clients the next step is crucial in managing expectations and preventing deal breakers.
Continuous improvement and feedback are essential for home inspection companies to maintain a positive reputation and provide the best service to clients and real estate agents. Sometimes conversations may not yield the desired outcomes or revelations.
Controversial topics can generate diverse opinions and perspectives.
The home inspection community has a wide range of viewpoints on addressing various issues.
Future episodes may explore more exciting and engaging topics.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Welcoming Anna Saltzman
02:13 Anna’s Role in the Growth Department
03:04 Anna’s Experience and Perception of the Job
04:08 The Topic of Deal Killers
05:02 Researching the Data
06:09 Longstanding Reputation of Being Deal Killers
08:29 Balancing Integrity and Keeping Real Estate Agents Happy
09:20 The Importance of How Information is Presented
10:09 Educating Clients and Preparing Them for Inspection Results
11:16 The Role of Knowledgeable Agents in Preventing Deal Breakers
12:53 National Average of Homes Not Going to Closing
13:41 StructureTech’s Data on Deals Not Going Through
14:57 Addressing a Specific Client’s Multiple Inspections
18:30 Negative Feedback and Damage Control
19:00 The Size of the Company and Volume of Inspections
22:38 Dealing with Clients Who Won’t Be Satisfied
23:31 The Importance of Giving Clients the Next Step
25:08 The Takeaway: StructureTech’s Reputation and Continuous Improvement
26:41 Comparing StructureTech to Other Home Inspection Companies
28:23 The Challenges of the Home Buying Process
30:31 The Role of Communication and Context in Inspections
32:10 Providing the Next Step for Clients
34:35 Conclusion and Thank You
34:58 Disappointment and Anticipation
35:49 Controversial Topics and Diverse Opinions
36:41 Closing Remarks


TRANSCRIPTION

 

The following is a transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be slightly incomplete or contain minor inaccuracies due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

 

 

Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk Podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman, I’m your host, alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.

RS: Welcome to my house. Welcome to another episode of the Structure Talk Podcast. Tessa, as always, great to see you. How are you doing today? 

Tessa Murry: Good to see you too. I’m doing really well. How are you? 

RS: I’m doing fantastic. I think you heard my dog barking in the background there, and for the first time, I gotta tell you, we had two microphones picking up my dog barking in the background today…

[chuckle]

RS: I’ve got a special guest on the show, long time listener, first time guest, I get to welcome my wife, Anna Saltzman, to the show. Anna, say hi to all the listeners.

Anna Saltzman: Hey.

TM: Hi, Anna.

AS: Hi, everyone, excited to be here.

RS: Anna joined the team a long time ago, she’s been doing work on and off for Structure Tech since before we were even dating. [chuckle] I remember Anna coming into our office back when we had an office in Golden Valley, and we would put reports together, we would do these huge bound reports where we’d take all these different pamphlets from the state and we would bind them and put them in these huge containers, and then we would mail them off and we’d have them all ready to go. And I remember Anna coming in there helping me with this stuff way back in the day, we weren’t even dating then, she would come and help me with that stuff, so she’s been involved in Structure Tech forever, but she is officially part of the leadership team now, and that’s been going on for… How long has it been, Anna? 

AS: Since September.

RS: Okay, September. So…

TM: September of 2023.

RS: You got it.

AS: Yes.

TM: Okay. Yeah. Nice.

RS: Yep. And Anna’s role is overseeing the growth department, and really, when we think about growth at Structure Tech, we’re thinking about acquiring new business, it’s not necessarily expanding into new territories or anything like that, and I shouldn’t say necessarily. It’s not doing that. We only have one territory here at Structure Tech and it’s at the Twin Cities market, but we’re always trying to fill the calendars of our home inspectors. If I really had to break it down, what does our growth department do? Their number one job is to make sure that our inspectors have full calendars or at least do whatever we can for that. So that’s been Anna’s focus. Anna, how has it been for you so far? 

AS: Well, I guess I started out the job thinking it was gonna be one thing and then shortly realized it really morphed into something kind of different, but it’s been a learning experience, it certainly is outside of what I thought it would be, and I’ve just really enjoyed meeting all the people on the team and learning more about the company that I’ve been silently a part of for a very long time.

TM: How is it different than what you thought it was gonna be, Anna? 

AS: So yeah, I guess when I was gonna come in, I thought it really was gonna be… I’m just gonna go out and I’m gonna talk to realtors and get to know them and get them to use Structure Tech, and then just realizing that in order to really be successful at that, we need to have more interaction with the inspectors, I need to find out what they’re willing to do, what they want to do, what they’ve been doing that doesn’t work, and it turned out to be more of an effort, of a relationship between the inspectors and the real estate community.

TM: Yeah, that makes so much sense because yeah, you’re out there talking to real estate agents and you’re hearing what they’re hearing, but unless you’re really kind of talking with the home inspectors, there’s this disconnect between what we’re saying and what we’re actually doing, so you’re kind of completing that communication loop, I guess.

AS: Yes, and so that’s how this topic came about. Did we announce the topic yet? 

RS: No, no, we haven’t.

TM: Let’s do it. What are we talking about today, Anna? [laughter]

AS: Okay. Yay. So that’s how this topic came about when I started and we were communicating with other agents throughout the community and just wondering why have we seen you drop off, that kind of stuff, and then I just started hearing more and more, you guys are deal killers, whenever Structure Tech inspects the house, you guys make a big deal out of everything, and I have a fear that the house will not go through the sale, will fall apart because you guys are deal killers. And so it just kind of prompted us to really look into that, kind of pull some data, look at the houses that don’t close, is it a certain inspector, is it a certain location of houses, is at a certain price point? How can we dial in on this data and figure out how we can prevent this deal killer mentality from perpetuating? And here we are.

TM: Wow, that’s interesting, that’s something that Structure Tech has been aware of and trying to improve that reputation in the industry for years now, at least when I was working at Structure Tech, that was always something we were trying to kind of correct, but we never did any digging into the data or any research to kind of see if there was any patterns or anything, so I’m really kind of curious to hear what you found.

RS: Well, and before we get there though, Tess, I gotta share how not new of a thing this is, because I remember back when all I was doing was answering the phones and scheduling home inspections for Structure Tech starting back in ’97, I heard it back then too, people would say, Oh, I want your dad to do the inspection, I don’t want Dwayne, ’cause Dwayne is a deal killer. You should see some of the faces he makes or this, that and the other, and people would say that about my dad too.

TM: We love Dwayne.

RS: And I know people said that about me.

TM: Who was inspecting back in 1997, who was the structure Tech team back then? 

RS: It was just my dad and Dwayne, that was it. It was those two.

TM: And then we maintained that hardcore reputation all through the 2000s until today, it sounds like.

[laughter]

RS: We have not lost it.

AS: Still thriving today.

TM: Still thriving. [laughter]

AS: Yep, it sure is.

RS: Still known as the deal killers, but I hate that term, ’cause, and you know what, I gotta share this, I actually had one agent telling me… I was doing an inspection, and I remember him saying, well, yeah, you know, a lot of people say that you guys just tear the houses up and you say the worst stuff you can possibly to try to make the deal not go through so you can get more business, and then you can get a second, a third inspection out of the client, and it’s like… I tried my best to keep a poker face, I just raised my eyebrows a little… Oh, okay. But I’m just thinking to myself, that’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard, that would be such a horrible business practice, such a horrible business model. So unethical. I was so offended hearing it ’cause that would just be wrong.

TM: There’s this fine line, I think, it’s like, we want to have integrity, we want to offer a thorough good inspection, our client is the buyer typically, and so we want to provide them with accurate information, and that’s what we do, but at the same time… Also, the real estate agents are our clients, they’re the ones bringing us repeat business, and so we don’t wanna make them upset either, we wanna make them happy, But ethically, we can’t pander to them and hold information back to try and keep them happy, make them happy. So I think it’s that fine line of like we found out working with ethical real estate agents, they don’t have any problem with us talking to their clients about the issues we find. They encourage that actually. And then there’s always gonna be that handful of real estate agents that are, I don’t want all of the problems and issues revealed at the home inspection because they’re not comfortable with handling those things or explaining them to the client, and it makes it more… It makes their job more challenging, so I see both perspectives, but I think at Structure Tech we have always tried to walk that line. And like how do we work with the real estate agent, but also do our job and serve the home buyer well too? 

RS: Yes, yes, and I gotta say over the years, I know there’s gotta be some agents listening into this who are just dying to jump in with this comment, and I’ll say it, I’ll say it for them. I have heard this so many times. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. And huge Amen to that. We embrace that. The good agents, they want you to present all of the exact right information, it’s not like they’re asking you to withhold information, but what they want is, don’t scare the hell out of people. Don’t incite fear. And make sure when you’re doing your inspections, make sure you’re letting your clients know that whatever it is you find there is something that could fix this. Anything you find, it can always be fixed. So important, and when you look at the top agents, the people who refer us a lot, the people who have a lot of transactions every year, their deals never fall apart. I don’t mean 100% never.

TM: True.

RS: Every once in a while there is something found and then the agent will try to talk their client out of buying the house ’cause they feel like it’s not the right house for them, but… I use the term loosely, but those deals never fall apart, and it’s all about the agents prepping people and also about having a knowledgeable agent who can spot a lot of the low-hanging fruit that the home inspector would come up with just on a showing and saying, Oh, look, this house has a federal Pacific panel. I know those are bad panels, I’ve sat through their CE classes, we know that, and I looked at the chimney, it’s like the agents who take the time to look at the chimney, they see it’s gonna need to be rebuilt, it’s like they can prep their clients for all of this stuff.

AS: They do say that, like, you may end up seeing this in the report, and I mean, even when we were looking at houses too, our agent tongue-in-cheek was like, Oh yeah, no, that’s gonna end up on your report from Structure Tech.

[laughter]

AS: He even knew but he was not the inspector, but he would tell us like, hey, did you see that? Because some of the houses I did not have Reuben with me when we were looking at. It’s kinda nice that he had been… He knew enough, he had been in enough CEs. He kinda, this is what you might end up on the report.

RS: So one of the things I wanted to talk about today, we’ve been working on this a little bit, it’s just kind of dialing in some of these numbers, and Anna, I know you’ve been digging into this a lot trying to figure out which of these houses do end up going to close and which of them don’t? How many don’t. And before the show, we talked a little bit about national numbers, and I don’t have any fantastic sources for how many times a house doesn’t go through based on the home inspection, I’ve got a somewhat not credible source. There was newspaper article that I had shared on the website, on a blog post I wrote many years ago, and in that, they had said that the national average is approximately 1 out of 20 houses, 5%, the deal’s gonna fall apart for whatever reason, we don’t know why, we don’t know if it was a home inspection, maybe it was a lending issue, maybe the buyers got cold feet, we don’t know why the deal didn’t go through. But about 5% was quoted as the national average for homes not going to closing.

TM: Yeah, that’s less than I thought it was gonna… I thought, that’s less than I thought it was gonna be. It seems pretty low.

RS: Yeah, so there’s the national average. Anna, what do you have to share? I can’t wait. Drum roll for this one.

AS: We are at around 2% deals not going through.

RS: Holy cow.

AS: And so then we went back, we looked at the houses. There was no pinpointing a specific inspector, there was no pinpointing a specific location, like there wasn’t the majority in St. Paul or the majority somewhere else, it was really all across the board, and it really was the houses that were less than $600,000. Unfortunately, there was one particular client that three of those were their house, and so that was an uncomfortable situation where we kinda had to talk a little bit more like, we don’t wanna keep taking your money, what are we missing? 

RS: Can you back up, tell the whole story Anna ’cause I think this is a great story, I don’t wanna gloss over this, because no, I wanna talk about this, ’cause I think this really raises some ethical issues over what a home inspection company should do about this, ’cause as a leadership team, we deliberated over this for like, I don’t know what, did we spend like a half hour, an hour talking about this one client and how to address this? I mean, share the story.

AS: Okay. This particular client had had multiple inspections even previous to when we started tracking, we had a discussion with her agent like, what are we missing? Can we prep you? And the agent said, she’s just really picky. I said okay, alright. We can work with that. We communicated with the inspectors before they would go out, this is what’s happening, this person has multiple inspections, so then we kind of put a little flag in her account, and I said the next time she goes to schedule an inspection, let me know. So I got the email, so I ended up calling the buyer to say, well, we’ve got this agent listed, she said, Oh yeah, she’s not my agent anymore. I’m like okay, I’m not gonna touch that. Who’s your agent? And then from there, I just said, you know, we’re gonna… Let’s have a conversation, let’s kinda talk about, what do we need to do to help you? So it was a really long, but very good discussion. I kind of said, this is gonna have to be the last inspection we do for you, we will do walkthroughs for you, if that’s what you want, because the previous agent said, you know, I’ve shown this client over 200 homes.

TM: Oh…

RS: It’s crazy.

AS: Right. But the agent was not upset with us, which is quite surprising, I’m sure the seller’s agents were. They were probably annoyed because when we went back and we looked at the reports, these houses were very livable.

RS: Well, and I gotta jump in, I heard that we got nasty feedback, like nasty phone calls from two of those seller’s agents from this client saying, what the hell are you guys doing? This is a very clean house, I know this house, it’s well maintained, and you scared the crap out of the buyer and you killed the deal. And I’m telling everybody in my office, don’t call Structure Tech, I’m gonna black-ball you from our listings, you can’t inspect anymore. This does our company a ton of damage when we inspect a good property, and then the buyers back out. I’m bringing this up ’cause it is the complete opposite of what I had said this agent accused us of trying to kill deals so that we get more business. No, quite the contrary. We don’t want to kill deals, that’s not what we’re after, but… Sorry, go on, Anna.

AS: No, and that actually brings up another point I had mentioned to the buyer for this particular one, would you mind, regardless of if you buy the house or not, would you mind if we give our report to the seller’s agent? Because the previous homes had been good. I mean, I would have bought them, they were very livable, and she wasn’t really on board with that, and I get it, I wasn’t… I mean, I get it, but at the same time I’m like, well, hey, you are perpetuating this for us, and I talked to the new agent that she was using, I’m like, I don’t know if you know this, but Structure Tech has a reputation of being deal killers and we have worked with your client previously, and she’s kind of passed on some of the houses, and when we looked at the reports, we didn’t really see anything wrong with the house, so I talked to her, I said this is gonna be kind of the last inspection we do for you, but we are willing to do walk-through inspections considering she looked at numerous properties, that’s gonna be the best option for you.

TM: Did that agent then run [chuckle] from that client? 

AS: No, I don’t think so. But she was like, Oh, I’ve not heard that about Structure Tech, and there’s a part of me that wanted to say, oh, are you new? ‘Cause I’ve been hearing about it for a long time. The previous agent was super gracious and was like, well, I hope she finds a house that she likes, I hope she finds one that works and I’ll continue to use you and so it ended up being okay, but yeah, the seller’s agents, I mean… What can we say? I wanted to say we didn’t find really anything wrong.

TM: You know what’s so interesting, Anna? I think like when I was working at structure Tech, we had that reputation and we didn’t have any data to back up a rebuttal [chuckle] to that, and now that you’ve done the research, it’s interesting to know that like, Okay, there is no pattern about the deals that fall through. There’s only 2%, apparently, which is lower than the national average. Okay, so we know that it’s not a big issue here at the company, and it’s not corresponding to one particular home inspector, and we know it’s not a certain location, there’s all these different variables, it’s maybe a price point that’s a lower price point where houses do have bigger issues, and it’s not really tied to any specific real estate agent that you’ve seen, but now it’s interesting to see that, okay, well, sometimes it’s the buyer, [chuckle] the buyer themselves that they just… They won’t be happy no matter what house they are looking at. ‘Cause I’ve run into that in the past too, of doing inspections for someone who has looked at hundreds of houses and done several inspections and it seems like… Yeah, it doesn’t matter what they’re looking at. They just won’t be happy.

AS: Yeah, and you know what, actually, there’s a couple of inspections too that we’ve heard about that have gone through, and one of them, I actually talked to the agent about, and he said that his clients were gonna get a divorce and that’s why they backed out. And I said, “Why did you even get a home inspection?” Or, “Why did you use us when you could have found someone for a fraction of the price to just whip together a report so you could get out of your purchase agreement?” And he’s like, “Well, just in case they didn’t get divorced.” [chuckle] But he, like… He knew they were getting a divorce and they had put this purchase agreement… I would bet that they were getting a divorce because of the home buying process.

[laughter]

AS: But… I don’t know. But it was a little bit like, “Oh, come on, man.” Like, “Don’t use us.”

RS: And I can say it, I have personally had that myself too, where I’ve started going through the inspection with the buyers, and they said, “Well, I’m just gonna be in the living room. I really don’t care that much what you find ’cause I’ve kind of changed my mind. I don’t really want the house anymore, so this is just a formality.” And I just…

TM: Wow.

RS: It’s like, okay, jaw on the the floor. Alright, no matter what I find, you’re not gonna buy the house. And the listing agent is going to be super pissed.

TM: Mad at you. Yep.

RS: Yeah, we’re gonna be the bad days. So we gotta take the fall for this. And we can’t tell them anything.

TM: Is there any more data that you wanna talk about, Anna? Is that… That’s a lot of data, I think, and it’s kind of… It’s really telling, actually. It paints a pretty interesting picture, I think, that there’s no correspondence between the inspector or the location or… I thought it was gonna be tied to, honestly, real estate agents, certain real estate agents. Like, the inexperienced ones have people that get surprised at the inspection and back out, but it’s not showing that either.

AS: Yeah, and you know what, when we looked at the difference between the buyer’s agent and the listing agent, some of the listing agents for these houses do like to use us, there really wasn’t a distinction. There was that distinction of the price point of the house being less than $600,000. We didn’t know if we should try to look into how long the house has been on the market, like, how many other offers had been on this particular property. That was just kind of a rabbit hole that we didn’t wanna go down, but I think it’s worth looking at too. But then when you have in all of these like, “Well, they weren’t gonna buy the house anyway,” those kinds of things, it’s like, Oh, how do we get around that? We are kind of working as a company, like I said, to bring people in to talk about communication, to have us seem more personable and not just kind of stuffy inspectors.

RS: Yeah. And something else, I’ve got this theory, and I think that the size of the company may have something to do with it, because if you take a one-man shop and then you ask a room full of 100 agents and you say, “Alright, how many of you have used… Have had Kevin’s Home Inspection Company kill one of your deals in the last year?” You’re not gonna have one hand go up. But then you say…

TM: Small percentage.

RS: Yeah, it’s small numbers. But then you say, “Alright, how many of you had Structure Tech kill a deal?” And you may have five hands go up, just because of the sheer numbers.

AS: Yes.

TM: The math. Yeah.

RS: Yeah.

AS: Well, and if you back up just a little bit, let’s talk about all that it takes to get to the point of the home inspection. You talk about all of the emails that you got, all of… That you have to address with your agent when you’re looking at houses, all of the emails that you have to address with the lender, all of the paperwork, all of the time. You have so much weighing on this one inspection, and it’s like the home inspector seems to be the goalie, and you forget that it went through the forward, it went through the defense, it went through all these, and all of a sudden the goalie misses the shot and they’re to blame. I kind of went back and looked at some of the communications that I had when we were selling our first house in 2010. We had, not including the emails for showing, just the emails that I needed to be addressed by our agent, there was 82.

[chuckle]

TM: Oh my gosh.

AS: It only ended up being more with each additional house.

TM: I’m just gonna say, the takeaway for me is that it’s not necessarily that we are deal killers, because there’s a higher volume… I shouldn’t say we. I don’t work at Structure Tech technically anymore. It’s just a habit.

[chuckle]

AS: You’re still we, Tessa.

TM: Yeah, I gotta switch my brain. But…

AS: Even though I’m wearing your old shirt.

[laughter]

TM: It went to good use. [laughter] I guess the takeaway is, Structure Tech is no bigger deal killer than any other home inspection company. Well, we haven’t done data on other people, but from the national average, there’s not anything that’s very telling. It’s like, okay, there are some deals that fall through, but they’re not necessarily because of a certain inspector or how they’re communicating or because of a certain agent or how they’re communicating or a location in the city that has tough houses. It’s more than that. And so that’s… I think that’s reaffirming to the company, and also it’s like, “Okay, yeah, what can we do then? How can we still improve?”

AS: I was in a room with, I think probably 14 or 15 at a conference, with about 14 or 15 other big home inspection companies throughout the United States, and they at least had 15 employees each. And I had said… We were talking about business, and I said, “Gosh, one of the things that we can’t seem to shake is this deal killer mentality.” All of them said the same thing. “Oh yeah, that’s… We’re called that too. Yeah, we’re called that too. And it’s just ’cause of the volume.” And I was like, “Well, okay, maybe.” And then when I looked into it, I was like, “Yes, they’ve already done the research and really is just ’cause of the volume.” And you know what, it’s… To be fair, it’s not gonna stop us from trying to do better. We are still getting feedback on things that we can work to improve on, and that’s great. We love the feedback, because it is typically something we can work with. Sometimes people say things and that’s just because they’re upset the house didn’t go through, and I totally get that, but…

TM: Most of them are reasonable. Yeah.

AS: Sometimes we can’t change. Yeah, but smile when you talk to my client. Okay, yep, I’ll pass that along. We can do that. That’s something that we can work on.

[laughter]

RS: And something I’ve heard over and over through the years is, give people the next step. If you say that you’ve got potential water intrusion in the wall, don’t just leave it at that and say you might have a big problem. Tell people what to do next. Give them the next step and say, “Have the wall covering removed in this area, or have intrusive moisture testing done to determine if this is a problem, and then have it further adjusted at that point.” Give people what the next step is. Don’t just say, “Hey, I think it might be a problem,” and then leave it up to the agent to figure out. Give them names of people who can help them. Give everybody involved the next step. That’s really what they want. Just don’t be dropping a bomb in somebody’s lap and let them figure out how to pick up the pieces. That’s really what it comes down to.

TM: Yeah. It’s like, don’t tell them that, “Hey, this panel is one that’s… Could start on fire and it could just bring your house down and then walk out.” It’s like, no. [laughter] Tell them, “We need to hire electrician, have the panel replaced, and you’re done. Thumbs up.”

RS: And it’s not gonna be that big of a deal. It’s gonna take them a day to swap it out. It’ll cost 2000 bucks, and it’s not the end of the world.

TM: I think when I was involved with the training process, that was a big part of the training, was just helping… I mean, learning the technical side of inspecting, yes, that is extremely important, and you need that to build a strong foundation as a good inspector. But I think the biggest, most challenging part of being a home inspector is learning how to do exactly what you said, Reuben, it’s being able to give clients context, being able to read your client and know how much context they need [chuckle] and then adjusting for that. Yeah, and just… You can put some people at ease with giving them more information, and you can also make some people more stressed if you give them more information. [chuckle] So you have to figure out what your client is looking for, what they need, and how much to share. And that’s a tough job, but I think the inspectors at Structure Tech do a really good job with that.

AS: And one of the things that we’ve added on to try to help that is we do some pre-inspection communication. And even sometimes just talking to people, you can get a good idea, you know, “Oh, you’re an engineer. You don’t say.”

[laughter]

AS: Like, you can tell when you talk to some of them, like you get that right away. And then at that point, you know they’re gonna be at the entire inspection. So that is another way where we do try to…

TM: Cater to the client.

AS: Get to know our clients a little bit better and make sure that we are providing the best service possible.

RS: Excellent. Well, I think we hit on all the high points that we were trying to cover today. Anna, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to jump on the podcast. Great to have you on the show for the first time. We’ll have to do this again. And Tessa…

AS: Thank you.

TM: This was fun. Thanks for coming on, Anna. And thanks for doing all the research too. That is fascinating information, I think.

AS: You know, I got to admit, I was a little disappointed.

[chuckle]

AS: ‘Cause it’s just… There’s nothing really juicy here. Like, if I really wanted to get on the podcast and be like, “I’ve got it. Nail on the head. This is exactly what it is, then we’re gonna change it.” And it was kinda like… We went through a couple of months, and I’m like, “Let’s do a couple more. This is not enough.” So hopefully the next time I’m on, I will have something…

TM: So we can just say, basically, it’s not me, it’s you? 

[laughter]

AS: Well, Jeez.

RS: We’re not gonna do any better than that.

[laughter]

AS: Yeah.

TM: Sorry we’re breaking up with you. It’s not us, it’s you. [laughter]

RS: Yeah.

AS: It’s you. It’s always been you…

[laughter]

TM: We’re done.

AS: And whoever trained you in.

[laughter.

RS: Well, I know we brought up some controversial topics, I know that if I were listening, I’d probably be dying to chime in with a handful of other things. ‘Cause there’s so much involved in this. We could talk about this for hours. And you get a room full of home inspectors, you’re gonna get as many opinions as you have heads.

[laughter]

RS: So many different opinions on how to address all this.

AS: Yeah. For sure.

RS: So if you have any thoughts, feel free to email us. Send us your blasts. We appreciate it. Or any advice, whatever it is. Our email is podcast@structuretech.com.

[music]

TM: And then we’ll have a round two.

[laughter]

RS: We’ll have a… Yeah, maybe so.

TM: Yeah. Thank you.

AS: We’ll have a follow-up where we can read all of our lover emails and hater emails.

[laughter]

RS: Yeah.

[laughter]

TM: Yes. Yeah. Well, thanks.

RS: Alright. Well, thanks again. Good to see you, Tess. Anna…

TM: Good to see you too.

RS: I’ll see you soon.

TM: Thanks for having me.

[laughter]

RS: Alright. Later.

TM: Bye.

[music]