To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/Skx7vjdsdo8
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry discuss the dynamics of home inspection attendance, exploring who should be present during inspections, the roles of buyers and agents, and the impact of these interactions on the inspection process. They share personal experiences and insights on how attendance can affect the quality of inspections and the overall experience for clients. The conversation also touches on the importance of education in the real estate industry and the various types of agents that may be present during inspections. They also discuss the dynamics of home inspections, focusing on the various roles of buyers, agents, and sellers. They explore the unique needs of first-time home buyers, the importance of agent presence during inspections, and the complications that arise when sellers are present. The discussion also highlights the significance of setting boundaries and the impact of unique situations that can occur during inspections. The episode concludes with a call for listeners to share their own experiences.
Here’s the link to check Inspector Empire Builder:
https://events.iebcoaching.com/events
Takeaways
The weather in Florida can be quite challenging due to humidity.
Health issues can impact professional life significantly.
Home inspection attendance has evolved, especially post-COVID.
Buyers should ideally attend inspections to understand their future home better.
Having agents present can help clarify communication and reduce misunderstandings.
Different types of agents can influence the inspection process positively or negatively.
Education is crucial for both home inspectors and real estate agents.
The presence of children during inspections can lead to distractions and potential issues.
Home inspectors appreciate agents who are supportive and engaged during inspections.
The inspection process is becoming more complex, requiring more time and attention. First-time home buyers often feel overwhelmed and need support.
Statistically, more single women are buying homes than single men.
Agents play a crucial role in providing moral support during inspections.
The presence of sellers during inspections can complicate the process.
It’s generally advised that sellers should not attend their home inspections.
Buyers should ideally be present for the last hour of the inspection.
Setting boundaries is essential for home inspectors.
Unique situations can arise with various attendees during inspections.
The role of the seller’s agent can vary depending on the situation.
Sharing stories from inspections can provide valuable insights.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Weather Check
02:58 Health Updates and Professional Endeavors
05:54 Home Inspection Attendance: Who Should Be There?
12:01 The Role of Buyers and Agents in Inspections
17:59 Types of Agents at Home Inspections
23:59 The Importance of Education in Home Inspections
24:19 Navigating First-Time Home Buyers’ Needs
29:45 The Role of Agents During Inspections
30:10 The Seller’s Presence at Inspections
37:51 The Impact of Seller’s Agents
40:32 Unique Situations with Attendees
48:32 Final Thoughts on Inspection Attendance
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors 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.
Reuben Saltzman (00:02.688)
Welcome back to the structure talk podcast tessa great to see you broadcasting from sunny florida. How’s everything down there?
Tessa Murry (00:12.433)
sunny, hot, humid, miserable Florida. Okay, it’s nice to escape to Florida when it’s you know, negative 20 and it’s icy back in Minnesota. But every day, the humidity just hits you as soon as you walk out the door. There’s no relief. Anyways, I don’t know how people live like this. Air conditioning, that’s how you live in this air conditioning.
Reuben Saltzman (00:16.578)
Hahaha!
Reuben Saltzman (00:24.45)
Yeah, so nice.
Reuben Saltzman (00:38.478)
You are now living like this. Yes.
Tessa Murry (00:43.623)
Yeah, and I’m enjoying staying inside. It’s reversed from Minnesota like everybody down here just for the entire month like for June, July, August, September, I think people just stay inside and they go from the air-conditioned house, the air-conditioned car, like you just stay inside. And in Minnesota, it’s like, it’s spring. Everybody’s out in their shorts when like there’s still snow on the ground because they’re just so happy. It’s above freezing, you know, and you’re outside.
Reuben Saltzman (01:08.666)
yeah, for sure.
Tessa Murry (01:09.991)
much as you can be outside because for six months out of the year it’s a frozen tundra no one wants to go out but winter time is when everyone does their stuff outside here you know because it’s still 70 80 degrees um so it’s just a mindset shift you know yeah yeah anyways yeah good question um my health has been
Reuben Saltzman (01:21.257)
sure, yeah that makes sense.
Reuben Saltzman (01:26.008)
Yep. Yep. Okay. All right. How’s everything going for you? What are you what are you keeping busy with these days Tess?
Tessa Murry (01:37.991)
I was just telling you before we started recording, I have been very sick and it’s one thing after another, but the latest thing has been the nastiest sinus infection of my life. And I will spare you the details, but it has been horrible. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:38.862)
Just a little.
Reuben Saltzman (01:55.566)
Yeah, I was just saying, I had that like two weeks ago. I think I had the same thing that you’ve got and it was miserable.
Tessa Murry (02:01.602)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s knocked me out. It’s knocked me out. But you know, other than that, it’s been good. still am, you know, scheduling house coach consultations for my visits when I’m up in the Twin Cities. So I, you know, I schedule those, you know, for the weeks that I’m up there. And then I’ve been working with some other organizations on creating curriculum for different, different
groups of people right now focusing on contractors and hers, raiders and and and builders. So teaching them about how the house is a system and building science. And so that’s been really fun. Doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s been good. It’s been good. Yeah. How about you? Anything new you want to share?
Reuben Saltzman (02:48.622)
Good for you. Good for you. Glad you’re staying busy. Yeah. Okay.
Nothing super new. No, I’m trying to play disc golf as much as possible and got out golfing a few times this year and that’s about it. know, business is kind of tugging along. We’re staying busy. It’s as busy as we can handle. So it’s a good year.
Tessa Murry (03:04.624)
Good.
Tessa Murry (03:11.92)
Good. Good.
Awesome with the two new inspectors you have added to the team. So that’s great
Reuben Saltzman (03:21.24)
Yep. Yep. Couple of awesome new guys, Martin and Edward. They’re rocking it. I mean, they just, they’re, crushing it with reviews. People love them. Good to have awesome people on the team. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:26.458)
Awesome.
Tessa Murry (03:30.406)
So good to hear. Good to hear. Good to hear. Well, so let’s dive into the podcast. What are we talking about today?
Reuben Saltzman (03:39.79)
Today we’re going to talk about home inspection attendance. Who should come to the inspection? Well, obviously we’ve got the home inspector there, but should the buyer be there? Should their agent come? Should the sellers be there? Should the seller’s agent come? And what about everybody else? Like family and extended family and in-laws and coworkers and friends and contractors and kids.
Tessa Murry (03:43.878)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (03:59.855)
What about everybody else?
Reuben Saltzman (04:08.458)
All these who should be at the inspection and do we have an opinion on all this? I think we have opinions on all of it and we’re going to get to the bottom of
Tessa Murry (04:15.674)
think we do have opinions. Let’s do it. Let’s chat about it.
Reuben Saltzman (04:19.392)
Okay. All right. Before we dig in, let me give a quick shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder, helping home inspectors up their game. That’s what they do. They’re all about making home inspectors businesses better. This is not a technical teaching organization. It’s a business organization. They could probably be teaching in many different fields, but they happen to teach home inspectors.
how to have better businesses. And right now at the time we’re recording, got, we got the annual, the big annual conference called Unite going on. If you’re listening to this, you missed it. Think about next year. But there are two conferences that are open to everybody coming. There’s going to be another one in the fall. So we’ll surely be talking about that one in a few months. But we love IEB and I will have a link to them in the show notes.
Tessa Murry (04:59.942)
Hahaha
Reuben Saltzman (05:16.866)
Back to the topic at hand, home inspection attendance. So Tessa, why don’t you open it up? What do you think about home buyers attending the inspection?
Tessa Murry (05:21.862)
Certainly.
Tessa Murry (05:28.102)
Well, they’re the ones that are usually purchasing our services. They’re the ones buying the house. We’re doing the inspection for them. And, you know, I’ll say it’s interesting when I started working at StructureTech, you know, what was that? 2016? Gosh. Ish. Something like that. We were doing things differently. We were encouraging the buyers to show up.
Reuben Saltzman (05:44.354)
That sounds right, yeah.
Tessa Murry (05:54.191)
at beginning of our inspection. And that’s how I was trained to do things. were going through every inch of the house with the buyers there. And we were encouraging them to ask questions and we were using it as almost kind of just an educational period of time to teach them what we were seeing, what we were interpreting things and explaining to them what it was that they were buying.
That’s just kind of how was trained in. And then once COVID hit, everything changed and we weren’t, you know, we tried to restrict how many people were there. And, and, and then we shifted to having the buyer showing up at the end so that we could do focus on our inspection and then relay the most important things to them at the end and kind of a controlled, concise way. and I, you know, that shift, it was a big shift, but I, I, I appreciated,
Reuben Saltzman (06:27.073)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:53.734)
how it gave the inspector time to just focus on what they were doing in their job. And I think it’s as an inspector, there’s so many things to look at and it’s hard enough when you’re there by yourself trying to document everything, let alone having people there asking you questions, distracting you. So I think we were able to give better quality inspections. It was easier for the inspector. And I think it made it easier as well, at least for me, I’m speaking for myself.
Reuben Saltzman (06:57.432)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (07:20.932)
to kind of digest everything I was seeing and then be able to kind of give the client or the buyer a kind of bullet point of the most important things so that we weren’t overwhelming them with all of the details. We were able to kind of dig into it and say, what do really need to share with these people and what matters to them? Have a conversation with them and then share. so.
Reuben Saltzman (07:35.512)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (07:45.067)
that became kind of my preferred method. think everybody else on the team preferred that too. Once we got a taste of what it was like doing inspection alone, no one wanted to go back. It’s nice having the house yourself, I think as an inspector, we can all agree on that. So that’s just my, my perspective. I don’t know if you have a, have a different one, Ruben.
Reuben Saltzman (08:05.454)
Yes and amen to everything you just said, Tess. I mean, you put it together very clearly and I would say everything you just said. I agree with all of that. I think it’s…
Tessa Murry (08:08.925)
you
Tessa Murry (08:18.95)
And you couldn’t convince us to do it a different way before COVID. We were set on having the buyers showing up so that we could talk to them the whole time. right, right. Sometimes we’re forced to change. We don’t want to, but it can be a better way of doing things. And you don’t know until you try sometimes. Got to keep an open mind.
Reuben Saltzman (08:28.354)
That’s the way I always did home inspections.
Reuben Saltzman (08:38.584)
Yeah. Yeah, I think it did turn out better. mean, there’s so many times where it’s like you’re in the middle of one thing and then the client’s like, well, can you come take a look at this? They’re pulling you away. Did you forget to come back and finish what you were doing? Or, you know, you leave this on or you got people who, you know, they leave the gate open or you got people inside. You turned all the fans on and then the buyer turns the fan off. You’re on the roof and you’re like, there’s no air coming out here. What the heck?
Tessa Murry (08:50.874)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:00.134)
Tessa Murry (09:08.006)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (09:08.024)
You go back inside the fans off and it’s like, you guys, I told you don’t touch anything. You’re trying to say it as nicely as possible, but it’s like, you’re messing up my flow. Yeah, exactly. So many ways that having a buyer there does make things take longer. So I agree with everything you just said. I was in the middle of writing a blog post about this earlier today. And something that I thought about too, is that
Tessa Murry (09:15.79)
Yeah, yeah, you’re messing up my flow. Yeah
Reuben Saltzman (09:35.914)
We definitely experience scope creep in this business. You know what I’m talking about when I say scope creep?
Tessa Murry (09:41.67)
yeah, I’ve never never heard that phrase before applied to this, but that is so true.
Reuben Saltzman (09:49.292)
Yeah, our inspections take just a little bit longer every year because we keep adding on more stuff. like, we got this tool. We’re going to start using it here. we’re going to take our moisture meter and new policy. We’re going to scan around the floor of every toilet. new thing we’re doing. We’re going to run a towel through the washing machine. Like all these different things we keep changing and adding on.
Tessa Murry (09:54.021)
Thank
Tessa Murry (10:09.572)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (10:13.39)
It’s like, this only adds two minutes. This only adds three minutes, but you add all this stuff up and it’s like, inspections are taking longer and longer. And whereas we used to get home inspect, when I first started, you know, two to three hours, that’d be about right for a home inspection. But today we don’t schedule anything less than four hours. So I think part of it is just scope creep. We need more time and the buyers get bored when they’re there for four hours. That is a huge time commitment.
Tessa Murry (10:20.751)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (10:42.882)
So I think it’s a better experience for our clients to just be there for more kind of the executive summary and here’s how your house works. Here’s all the important stuff we found. Here’s what you need to know now that you own the house. Here’s what you need to maintain. And we can get all that done in an hour and it works really nicely. I think it’s a better experience.
Tessa Murry (10:43.845)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:03.398)
Yeah, and I agree 100%. Not only is it a better experience for the buyers, I think, but also it’s a reduction of potential liability issues for StructureTech as well, the home construction company not having the client there for four hours. Clients will get into things you wouldn’t think they would get into if they’re just standing around waiting for you and then spend three and a half, four hours. It’s like…
You know, what are you doing? Like stop messing with those blinds. just, you know, or, or, you know, shoot, I just let the cat out, you know, now we gotta go chase the cat down. It’s like, things that could potentially happen when they’re hanging around for that amount of time.
Reuben Saltzman (11:39.81)
Yes!
Reuben Saltzman (11:46.742)
Or, now we’re going out of order, but we’re talking about other people coming to the inspection, especially if they’re going to be there for four hours or three hours or whatever it is. And they bring other people along like kids. Have you have kids come to the inspection and cause problems tests?
Tessa Murry (11:52.131)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (12:01.638)
Please don’t. Just please don’t bring your kids. Or keep them on a leash.
Reuben Saltzman (12:05.292)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay. Yeah, keep on Alicia. All right, fine. You got like an infant, they’re gonna be sleeping. Okay, I’ll be quiet. You know, you got you got one kid, you’re gonna hold them the whole time. Fine. But you got a bunch of three to seven year olds running around. I mean, they like to get into stuff. They like to turn stuff. I’ve seen people like, bring food for their kids and
Tessa Murry (12:13.242)
That’s fine. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:18.382)
Yeah, it’s tough.
Tessa Murry (12:25.101)
Ugh.
they do.
Reuben Saltzman (12:33.344)
All right, you guys sit on the carpet and eat this here. What are you doing? This isn’t even your house. You can’t do it. I had one. These girls, were young girls, probably under 10 or whatever. And one of them, I don’t remember the exact details, but one of them had gone in the jewelry box and she tried to leave wearing the owner’s jewelry. And it’s like, what is going on?
Tessa Murry (12:33.829)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (12:40.302)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:55.43)
You’re dating did you catch that or was it the parents? That’s crazy. That’s that’s crazy. my gosh Talk about liabilities man
Reuben Saltzman (13:03.35)
I don’t even remember. I don’t even remember how this happened. was a long time ago, but it was just, I mean, it blew my mind. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, I’m there to do the home inspection. I’m not there to babysit. I can’t watch the kids. I can’t watch the buyers the whole time. I, I got to do my job. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:17.112)
No. No. No. No. You know, I would say it would frustrate me when I would show up and there’d be a loose pet in the house, but when you’ve got kids running around, it’s a whole other level.
Reuben Saltzman (13:29.902)
That’s the whole, yeah, yeah. That’s taken it to a new level for sure. Yep. All right. So that’s buyers. It’s very nice for the buyer to be there if at all possible. We like to them there for the first, for the last hour. Sometimes it doesn’t work. You got out of town clients. They can’t make it in town for the home inspection. We get it. We take tons of photos. We take videos. We do detailed stuff. We’ve had a number of situations where
Tessa Murry (13:35.993)
man.
Tessa Murry (13:44.666)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (14:00.118)
buyers absolutely couldn’t make it and they really wanted to see some stuff. So our inspector got them on FaceTime or whatever we’re using for a video chat and they spent like a half hour talking into the phone kind of pointing and showing them stuff around the house. I’m not saying that we do this with every inspection, but when it works and the technology is working, a number of our inspectors are happy to do that. So there’s there’s workarounds, but
If a buyer can be present, that’s always ideal. Yeah. All right. So that’s the buyer. How about the buyer’s agent? What do you think about that, Tessa?
Tessa Murry (14:33.424)
Yes, agreed, agreed.
Tessa Murry (14:41.514)
I always loved it when the buyer’s agent was there at the end to hear the summary and straight from the horse’s mouth because I’ve been in situations where, and I think if you’re an inspector listening to this, you know, you tell a client what you’ve seen, what it means, what to do about it. And, you know, this is not a world that they’re comfortable in typically. That’s why they’re paying for a home inspection. They don’t know. And, you know,
out of just ignorance, they misinterpret or say something a little bit differently than what you told them. And they tell that to their agent. And the next thing you know, the agent is like, why did you tell my clients that their house is going to burn down? And it’s like, well, I didn’t really say that. That’s not what I said. know, like read the report. If you would have been there, you would have heard, you know, what I told them. And it’s like, okay, they’ve got knob and two wiring. That’s a higher potential for a fire hazard if it’s been
Reuben Saltzman (15:16.704)
huh.
Reuben Saltzman (15:25.738)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:38.127)
Messed with or buried in insulation. I can see it’s buried in insulation And this is something that they should be aware of and there doesn’t mean that their house is to burn down tomorrow It’s like okay, you know, so I always appreciated it when there was a real estate agent who took the time out of their schedule to be there for their client to hear what it was that they were hearing From the home inspector because they’re there to help that client You know
make that decision and just and and kind of sort through what does that mean? Are we gonna are we you know and in this market okay good luck trying to negotiate price out of defects that you find but you know depending on the market if there’s something that’s really big and you need to go back to the sellers and you need to talk to them about it I think it’s great for the home inspector to be able to talk directly to to the the buyer’s agent in that scenario.
Reuben Saltzman (16:15.458)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (16:29.164)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It is helpful. And you know, you’re reminding me of a story I’ve told many times. I probably mentioned it on this podcast. I remember specifically one home inspection where I was saying, yeah, the furnace is 20 years old. It’s nearing the end of its life expectancy or at the end of its life, you know, who knows how long you’re going to have, but just budget for replacement sometime soon. And then as soon as the, yeah. And then as soon as the agent got there, they,
Tessa Murry (16:52.71)
Yeah, the same thing we always say.
Reuben Saltzman (16:57.806)
They’re like, so what do you think about the house? And you know, first thing the client says, well, the home inspector said we need to replace the furnace immediately. I said nothing of the sort.
Tessa Murry (17:04.728)
Yeah, that kind of thing. That’s what they heard though. And that’s, that’s the hard part. It’s like, you know, the miscommunication, I said this, but they heard this, and then they say this. And so it just becomes a big messy stew of emotions.
Reuben Saltzman (17:21.134)
Yeah. And I try so hard to make it clear that that’s not what I’m saying, but it doesn’t matter.
Tessa Murry (17:26.598)
I’m in a glass case of emotions. know, it’s like you got the buyers who are stressed out and they hear you say something like that and they freak out and then they take off and then it’s just a spiral, you know?
Reuben Saltzman (17:30.318)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (17:39.458)
Yeah, yeah, I for this blog post I Put together and I I’m kind of cheating off a post that I wrote many years ago It was probably 15 years ago, but I’d made a list of different agents and talking about whether this agent should come to the inspection or they should stay home So we’ll share a few of those just for fun Number one, we’ve got the annoyed agent now
Tessa Murry (17:50.618)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (17:59.047)
Okay, yeah
Reuben Saltzman (18:08.46)
This agent acts like they’re doing the biggest favor to the clients in the world for selling them a house and they don’t want to be at the inspection. Everything we talk about, they moan and they sigh and they roll their eyes and then they are ready to write up the purchase agreement addendum before everybody leaves the house. They haven’t even seen the report, but they want to write up an addendum right on site.
Tessa Murry (18:12.331)
I a favor.
Tessa Murry (18:18.15)
shouldn’t laugh, but yeah, it’s true.
Tessa Murry (18:38.576)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (18:38.738)
for, for that agent, say you should stay home. have, I have one Tessa. I’ll never forget this one. The agent was there. The buyer was, the buyer was blind and the agent was there helping them through it. But the agent, like he was running behind schedule. He was so hurried, so frazzled and he wanted to write up the purchase agreement to denim and have them sign it right on site because it was a hassle communicating with this client.
Tessa Murry (19:05.976)
and these… no… treasured… all the… yeah
Reuben Saltzman (19:08.55)
And, and he wanted, he, like he, he wanted the buyers to sign my inspection agreement on site, but they could, he had never read it to them. And then he wanted me to read the inspection agreement. And I just, I had no idea what to do. I mean, this was very early on in my career. We weren’t sending, we didn’t have electronic sign and we didn’t have things dialed in, but.
Tessa Murry (19:27.563)
my goodness.
Tessa Murry (19:33.094)
Wow.
Well, and it’s not like it’s one paragraph either.
Reuben Saltzman (19:39.51)
No, and I remember sitting down and reading the whole thing to the clients line by line. It well, I didn’t know what else to do. And I don’t know if that was the right thing to do or not. But I just remember thinking this agent is doing such a disservice to their clients. But okay, that’s the annoyed agent. Another one is the know it all. This is the agent who knows a little bit about houses. They want to make sure you know how much they know.
Tessa Murry (19:45.284)
you’re a man, Ruben. You’re a good man.
Tessa Murry (19:52.038)
It probably was. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:03.946)
hey.
Reuben Saltzman (20:09.431)
and they want to do more talking than you do. I think that agent probably should stay home. They’re probably not going to be helpful at the home inspection.
Tessa Murry (20:09.627)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:13.414)
Thank
Tessa Murry (20:19.832)
Or they could be a home inspector. We’ve got someone on your team now who came from that world. Maybe you should switch careers. Switch careers.
Reuben Saltzman (20:25.318)
we got, yeah, we got two of them. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there are a number of extremely knowledgeable agents. mean, I can think of a number of them who, whom we’ve had on our podcast. I’m not going to name them because I don’t want to forget some of them who are very important, but we’ve got a number of agents who I swear they could do 90 % of what we’re doing for the home inspection. Maybe not that much, but they could do a
Tessa Murry (20:36.922)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (20:41.456)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:51.269)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (20:52.716)
lot of it they know so much about so many things and you know what they do during the inspection they shut up and listen
Tessa Murry (20:53.999)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (21:01.766)
Yeah. Well, yeah. And, you know, they’re taking it in, they’re hearing what you’re saying, and then they’re also explaining things to their client as well, too. So they are definitely value added. Yeah, agreed. I appreciate real estate agents that care about their client enough to show up, sit there the whole time, and really listen to what you have to say as a home inspector.
Reuben Saltzman (21:10.274)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (21:20.898)
Yes. Yup. Another one on the negative side. We’re getting the negatives out of the way. This one is the critic. This is the one where they’ve never worked with us before. They’re normal home inspectors out of town or they’re sick or their client wanted to work with us, but they heard StructureTech is deal killers and you don’t want to work with them, but their client insisted. so…
Tessa Murry (21:27.536)
Okay. Go.
Tessa Murry (21:32.774)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (21:48.674)
They are there to nitpick and argue with everything they say. They want to roll their eyes. Well, my home inspection, in my 20 years of real estate, I’ve never heard of this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. I think they’re exposing themselves to a lot of liability and they should probably stay home from the home inspection too. Have you dealt with any of those?
Tessa Murry (22:06.032)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:11.17)
Yes, I have. And I think most of time it’s agents who kind of use the same, you know, let’s just say Bob for 20 years, you know, and Bob’s not available that day. And so they happen to go with you and they, yes, very, you know, there’s lack of trust there and also just a lack of experience and kind of a different way of doing things.
Reuben Saltzman (22:34.562)
Yeah, yeah. They can get themselves in trouble. Now, here on the other side, a few other kinds of agents, the other inspector, they truly wanna help out. They have their client’s best interests in mind. They wanna help you. They’re like, you want me to go turn on the thermostat? You want me to turn this up for you? maybe I can help you move this stuff out of the closet. They stacked all this stuff locking your access. You want some help moving it all?
Tessa Murry (22:49.243)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:02.598)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (23:04.888)
Come to every inspection every time. We love having you. They’re just there to help.
Tessa Murry (23:08.742)
I love those. Love those agents. Yes, you can move all the contents of the closet out of the way for me. Thank you so much.
Reuben Saltzman (23:14.766)
Yes, yes exactly or they’re on the phone with the listing agent like you know I’ll try to find out where they hid the remote for the garage and blah blah blah yeah, please please and thank you Another one would be the rookie. This is someone who is new to real estate They’ve only sold a few homes. Maybe they haven’t sold any and they want to learn more about houses By all means your your
Tessa Murry (23:21.177)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (23:24.886)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:40.035)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (23:42.956)
This is what structure tech is all about. We’re about education. We love it when they come to the inspections, because they’re making themselves into better agents.
Tessa Murry (23:46.075)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:51.856)
Yeah, agreed.
Reuben Saltzman (23:54.318)
All right, another one would be the hand holder. This gets into just a lot of emotional support. You got a first time home buyer, a lot of the time it’s gonna be a woman who is recently divorced. She has never owned a home on her own. And it doesn’t have to be women, but it just ends up being this a little bit more often where…
Tessa Murry (23:59.292)
Bye.
Reuben Saltzman (24:19.852)
their, you know, maybe their husband took care of everything. Now they’re going to be going on their own or, or very young buyers, whether it’s a couple or it’s a female. I don’t, I don’t know why I don’t do a lot of home inspections for single men buying homes. It’s usually either single women or couples, but whatever it is, someone who just needs a professional to be there to hold their hand throughout this home buying process. It’s it’s first time home buyers.
and the agent is there to give a lot of moral support, listen in, not at the right times, by all means, your clients need you there. Come along to the inspection. What’s been your experience for first time home buyers?
Tessa Murry (25:04.038)
Well, know, I was just kind of listening to what you’re saying and it reminded me of an article I read a little while ago that was showing statistically there are more single women buying homes than single men buying homes these days. And then I think we can all agree that, I mean, obviously, you know, millennials, even younger generations that are buying homes now, we didn’t, a lot of us didn’t grow up knowing or having parents teach us how to take care of our house.
Reuben Saltzman (25:16.204)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:32.623)
And so I think I agree with you in the fact that there’s a lot of younger couples out there that just feel completely overwhelmed. First time home buyers or whoever it is, men or women, majority women, seems like statistically that are buying homes now that just they don’t, you know, they don’t know what they don’t know. And there’s fear that goes along with that. So if you’re an agent working with someone like that, who’s never taken care of a home, never owned a home.
then I think it’s a good thing for you to be there to just offer them additional support.
Reuben Saltzman (26:06.094)
Yep, okay. And then I got one more type listed here and this is the professional. This is the one who’s coming, a lot of the time they’ve got experienced home buyers, they’ve already been through it, they don’t need their agent to hold their hand, but they do want the agent to be there to kind of hear the executive summary, be there for the last 15 minute wrap up. What’s the big stuff? What do I need to know? What are we gonna be addressing?
Tessa Murry (26:31.899)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:34.88)
I want to hear it right from the home inspector’s mouth. By all means, please come to the inspection. And that’s a lot of the agents that we work with. I mean, that makes up a ton of them. and these agents will flip-flop, you sometimes that agent is going to be the one who’s going to be there to hold the buyer’s hand the whole time. Other times, maybe they’re not going to show up at all. And I’d say, what percentage of the inspections would you say agents would actually show up?
Tessa Murry (26:43.62)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:54.63)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (27:04.198)
I was just gonna ask you the same question, Ruben, and then I was thinking about it. I think the longer I did inspections, the percentages of types of real estate agents would change. So when I first started, I didn’t know anybody. I’d say the majority of home inspections where there was an agent showed up was maybe one out of three. And usually it was an agent I didn’t know, and so it would be one of those earlier categories, I felt like.
the longer I did inspecting, the more requests I got and the more agents I got to know and got to know me and we built up some trust. And so, then it shifted to maybe like half of the inspections I was doing were like requests. I’d have to look back at the numbers, but, maybe it was less than that.
Reuben Saltzman (27:52.6)
Sure. No, you’re right on. I know what your numbers were. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (27:56.655)
Okay, I don’t remember at all. But yeah, it seems like probably half the inspections I’d show up, it was an agent I knew. like, great, this is wonderful. They’re gonna be here for the last hour. They know my process, we’ll be able to talk about the big stuff and they’ll be there for their client. it’s just, it’s new sailing. So I think it just depends on how long you’ve been inspecting and your service area and all of that for what you’re dealing with.
Reuben Saltzman (28:24.536)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. I agree. For me, I think it was about half, about half the time the agents would show up to the inspection. And, you know, if I were a real estate agent, I feel like I’d probably be showing up to half of my inspections, maybe three quarters of them. It depends. I think it would really depend on my clients and the house. I mean, you’re buying a typical
Tessa Murry (28:27.118)
I don’t know what you think. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (28:52.238)
19 whatever’s house 2000 square feet. There’s probably nothing too crazy All right, maybe it’s not so important that I be there. You’re working with more experienced homebuyers This is their fourth house. They’ve had a number of home inspections Maybe I don’t need to show up at all. Maybe I’d ask them. Hey, you want me to come listen in? They’re like, no, you don’t need to okay I won’t but if I got if I got people who need their hand held they’re scared as all heck yeah, I’m going every one of those or
Tessa Murry (29:03.312)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (29:21.248)
Even if I’ve got experienced buyers and they’re buying a 10,000 square foot house and the home inspector is going to be there all day. You can bet I’m going to show up at some point during the inspection. Maybe I’ll show up at the beginning. Maybe I’ll stop by with some coffee in the afternoon. Like maybe I’ll be at make a couple of trips because this is a big deal. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:37.19)
Coffee and snacks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed.
Reuben Saltzman (29:45.496)
Well, so we can’t say always, we can’t say never. We’ll have to say your favorite phrase.
Tessa Murry (29:54.072)
It depends.
Reuben Saltzman (29:54.998)
It depends. Yeah. Okay. Yep. All right. Next one. The seller should the seller attend the home inspection.
Tessa Murry (29:58.147)
It does. That applies here. Yes.
Tessa Murry (30:09.83)
that’s pretty black and white for me. I would say no. What do you think? Well, that’s happened a couple times when I was inspecting and it’s always a train wreck. Man, trying to handle that experience with the buyers and the sellers in the same room at the same time. Usually it’s because the seller is anxious about something or they don’t want you touching something or they want to explain something to you.
Reuben Saltzman (30:14.838)
Okay, all right, why not?
Reuben Saltzman (30:25.068)
Yep.
Tessa Murry (30:38.028)
And it just makes for a really messy situation, complicated usually. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (30:40.76)
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Some of the most contentious, ugly situations I have ever had to deal with were when a seller was present during the inspection and they wanted to listen in. I remember there was one I was doing. I agreed to do it on a Saturday morning. It was special circumstances. Buyers were only in town for a short period of time. Seller was there and he was trying to argue with everything I was saying. And I remember there was a…
Tessa Murry (30:52.774)
Yes. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (31:10.222)
there was a test hole in the furnace flue and you know, the previous contractor had covered it over with metal tape. And I went in and I stuck my CO meter in the furnace flue to test it. And he didn’t see me do it. Like he had been looking the other way, but then he looked over, he sees I’m testing. He’s like, who’s, he’s like, man, he’s like, who said you could put a hole in there? And I was like, there was already a hole here. Your previous contractor drilled the hole. It’s just a test hole.
and it gets covered with tape, he’s like, well, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have let you do it. And it’s like, you’re really showing your colors here. This was already here, but now you’re trying to yell at me for doing it. Like.
Tessa Murry (31:40.87)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:46.106)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it’s so stressful as a home inspector. You’re trying to do your job. You got someone yelling at you and getting in the way of you doing your job. How do you handle that? And I remember when I was a fairly new inspector, I showed up, met the buyers out in the driveway, gave them my spiel. We go to go into the house and the front door opens for me. And I was like, it was the buyer, the seller. They were still there. It was an older man and I was not expecting anybody to be there.
You know because we send out all the email communications beforehand to all the parties letting him know what we prefer how did how things work clearly he hadn’t gotten the email or the you know, his agent hadn’t told him to leave and so he was there and You know, there’s a little moment of confusion and talking to him about how we’re gonna be here for the next You know three or four hours doing an inspection blah blah blah. Clearly the buyers were uncomfortable with him being there
He didn’t get the memo and he did not want to leave. And I’m like, I don’t know what to do. And so I couldn’t do my normal kind of talking out loud because he was following around. So I told the buyers, like, okay. I can’t remember if I, I think I let the buyer’s agent know too. I was like, know, sending him a text or something like that, that the seller was still there and didn’t want to leave. But what was crazy about the situation is I found out why he didn’t want to leave shortly thereafter.
The house had had a fire and the whole electrical panel had caught on fire, but they had not replaced it. So he was there and he wanted to take the cover off the panel. Like he didn’t want me inspecting it. And then he was the one that took the panel cover off and there was nothing I do about it. anyways, I look back at this now and I’m like, I can’t believe, I would handle this differently now, but.
Reuben Saltzman (33:24.077)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (33:38.232)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:47.719)
He took the panel cover off and I looked at it and the whole thing was blacked and scorched and like melted. I was like, okay, all right. Thank you. I didn’t say anything else. It’s a big shirt, you know? And then that was obviously a topic of conversation with the buyers. It’s like, yeah, clearly this guy is covering up the fact that, or trying to, you know, minimize the fact that this has been a really dangerous situation going on and still is.
Reuben Saltzman (33:58.082)
Yes, yes.
Tessa Murry (34:18.018)
Anyways, it’s just, yes, if it’s a seller that doesn’t leave or if it’s an agent that didn’t do their part in communicating, it makes our lives a lot harder if they are there for the inspection.
Reuben Saltzman (34:28.672)
Yes, yes. what I found, mean, I, over the years, I figured out the best approach if they are going to be there, there’s nothing you can do is just don’t talk. And I’ll take the buyers out in the driveway. say that, so I was going to be here. They’re going to be eavesdropping. So
Tessa Murry (34:40.432)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:45.285)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (34:51.842)
we’re not gonna do any talking inside the house. I mean, you can follow me around, you can watch what I’m doing, but I’m not gonna explain stuff. I may just kind of make eye contact here and there and nod towards something and it means I’m gonna come back and I’m gonna talk to you about it later. And so as we’re walking around the outside, maybe I’ll catch you up on a few things and we’ll go through it at the end, but we’re not having discussions here in front of the seller. And that worked okay when I would do it that way.
Tessa Murry (35:07.194)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (35:19.574)
Yeah. Well, it is weird. You know what? And usually that means that the buyers are frustrated and they understand it’s not your fault as the home inspector that we do all these communications beforehand. In fact, think it makes their agent look bad usually because it’s like, went on here? Why didn’t you make sure that the house is available for us? We only need it for a few hours. Why can’t we have that? They’re entitled to that. And so usually it ends up
Reuben Saltzman (35:20.696)
But it’s just weird.
Reuben Saltzman (35:41.379)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (35:49.03)
creating some friction, I think, with the buyers and their agent.
Reuben Saltzman (35:52.856)
Yeah, yeah. And I’ll tell you, if I were a home seller, I would not want to be there. mean, and this is advice to home sellers. You probably don’t want to be there during the inspection because I remember there was a number of cases where I’d be at the home and the buyers wouldn’t be there. And it was known that the buyers either weren’t coming at all or they’re going to come at the end.
So someone said, do you mind if the sellers are going to be there? They’ll be out of your way since there’s no nobody to talk to you. In that case, it’s like, yeah, sure. I don’t care. I mean, as long as they’re not getting in my way and turning stuff off, I don’t care if they’re going about their business, but if they’re there, I would ask them questions. I would love asking them questions like, yeah, hey, hope when you can help me with something, just there’s a, there’s a stain on your kitchen ceiling. Do you know when that showed up? What did you do to fix it?
Tessa Murry (36:28.228)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:36.676)
Yeah. Yes.
Tessa Murry (36:43.578)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:47.018)
And like, I would ask them all this stuff that as a home seller, I wouldn’t want someone asking me this. Like, I would rather just play dumb. So I’d ask them all kinds of questions. And I can’t get this light to turn on. Can you help me find the switch? And it’s broken. okay. Per the seller, this has always been broken. I would put stuff that the seller told me. I’d put that in my inspection report. So yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:54.434)
Exactly. Yes.
Tessa Murry (37:05.478)
Yes. Yes. Document it. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (37:14.798)
So I mean, as a seller, why would you want to be there? The one exception though, I’d say would be, let’s say you got someone who works from home. They’re like, yeah, I gotta be in my office. I’m just gonna keep the doors closed. You can come in whenever you want, check it out and then close the doors and I’ll stay out of your hair. In that case, I really don’t have a problem with.
Tessa Murry (37:26.384)
Sure. Yeah. Yep.
Tessa Murry (37:34.414)
That’s fine. Agreed. Agreed. had that a few times and it’s just, you you work around that. Not a problem.
Reuben Saltzman (37:41.314)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s okay. Okay, so that’s the seller. How about the seller’s agent?
Tessa Murry (37:51.045)
The seller’s agent. Well, you know, I’m thinking back. I don’t know if I ran into that too often. And if I did it, I think it would probably be a situation where maybe there was something unique with the house that they had to show you. And in that case, I was appreciative that they were there to do that.
Reuben Saltzman (38:04.93)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (38:08.91)
Yeah, yeah. I remember one and I’m sure I told the story on this podcast before. I’ve told it many times where the sellers were really uncomfortable with anybody being in their house. They were very distrusting and they wanted their agent there and the agent said, I’m just going to be on my laptop in the kitchen. I’ll be a professional. I’m not going to get in your way. You know where I’m going with this. And then I’m in the kitchen and you know, this is like 20 years ago.
Tessa Murry (38:25.85)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (38:33.55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (38:38.614)
I’m new to inspections and I went to turn on the dishwasher and he’s like, wait, hold on. And he took the seller’s laptops out of the dishwasher because that’s where they hid them during showings. It’s like, okay, note to self, never turn on a dishwasher or an oven without looking inside there first. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (38:42.925)
yeah.
my gosh.
Tessa Murry (38:54.566)
Thank
without checking. my gosh, laptops. who would have guessed? Crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (39:01.868)
Yeah. Yeah. So I was really glad he was there for that. And it was a, it was a free lesson for me that I passed down to all the inspectors on our team. You know what? Yeah. Yeah. So that was a good free lesson. And then the other exception would be when he got crazy houses, like, you know, you got a 10,000 square foot house and maybe the listing agent is going to be there to introduce themselves, let you in, unlock the doors. You know, we don’t have a lock box. We’ll let you in and here’s the caretaker.
Tessa Murry (39:06.434)
And yes, it’s a lesson. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:20.375)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:28.09)
Yeah. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (39:31.906)
The caretaker lives in the carriage house out here. His name is Greg. If you need anything, Greg has done everything at this house and he can answer any questions. And it’s like, is so helpful. I will take that every time. Yes. Yes. And it’s like, you know, the caretaker can be like, yeah. To get at that section of the attic, need to, we’ve got a hidden panel here and
Tessa Murry (39:38.83)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:42.576)
That’s amazing.
Tessa Murry (39:46.342)
I wish every house had a Greg.
Reuben Saltzman (39:59.494)
we replaced all of this and here’s how this works. Here’s the switches for that. It’s like, please, you can you can be there every time I love it when caretakers are there because they don’t have any any emotional interest in the house. And they can tell you so much about what has happened. So yeah, I love that. And they probably want to get hired by the next home buyers too. So yeah, they can be there every time.
Tessa Murry (40:04.378)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, true, Yeah.
Tessa Murry (40:23.45)
Good point. Good point.
Reuben Saltzman (40:27.948)
And then, okay. Last one, I guess, was everybody else. The, the family, the friends, the coworkers Tessa tell me some stories.
Tessa Murry (40:32.198)
everybody else as category.
I was gonna say if you’re an inspector, I’m sure you have your own stories and we would love to hear them So please email us or share. Yeah, please share and and there are some very rich stories Maybe you want to highlight some Rubin from the inspectors on our team You should I think you should because I’ve shared a few on the podcast I know in the past some of the ones that just come come to mind are cats
Reuben Saltzman (40:46.284)
Yes, please do.
Reuben Saltzman (40:54.51)
I should. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:05.734)
cats that have escaped, cats that have crawled into attic spaces that I didn’t know were in there and gotten to knee walls. And then the next hour, you’re trying to get the cat out of the attic so you can seal it up. And even having contractors or dads, of course, we…
Home inspectors, we complain about this all the time. When dad shows up and dad knows more than the home inspector, and then you gotta go through that whole process of earning trust and proving that you know what you’re talking about. So there’s that kind of game that goes on. And the more people you have, the crazier usually it gets. you know, I don’t know. Share some of your stories, Ruben, or stories from the StructureTech team that stand out to you.
Reuben Saltzman (41:32.972)
BOOOOM
Reuben Saltzman (41:45.988)
Yes. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (41:52.366)
Well, I’ll save some of the team stories. Maybe we’ll get some people from our team on to tell some of them. I mean, I can tell you one, there was a contractor who came, he was like a friend of the buyer and he wanted to be there the whole time during the inspection. And the guy was just a complete jerk. It was like, he was mad that he didn’t get hired to do the home inspection. So the entire time…
Tessa Murry (41:58.69)
Yeah, okay.
Tessa Murry (42:12.038)
another
Reuben Saltzman (42:20.974)
He had these snide comments and he was trying to prove that he knew more than me about houses. it was just, and at the end, my client like apologized to me in private. She’s like, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why he’s being this way. And I, know, he’s a good friend and I just, she just apologized up and down. And I thought, I didn’t, yeah. And I didn’t realize.
Tessa Murry (42:29.539)
my god.
Reuben Saltzman (42:49.88)
how much it was bugging me until the end. And I realized if I’m ever in that situation again, I’m gonna nicely ask them like, either I need to go or you need to go, but we can’t be here at the same time. Like that would have been a smart thing for me to say. But I didn’t realize how much I was stressed out until I just had to go home and have a drink or something. Not literally, but.
Tessa Murry (43:06.31)
Well said. Well said. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:12.445)
Well, that puts… God, yeah, that puts the buyer in a tough situation too, because then they’re like, oh shoot, you know, they wanted that person to be there, but they’re behaving that way. You’re telling them to leave, but they want the inspection done by you. They’ve hired you already. It’s like, really they should say something, but they didn’t. So then it’s like, how are you going to handle this as a home inspector? You have to set, I think you…
Reuben Saltzman (43:35.288)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (43:37.721)
One thing that I think I got more comfortable with, the more inspections I did, was just setting better boundaries as a home inspector. I mean, when you’re new, you don’t know what’s normal, what’s not normal, like how you should handle all these unique situations. And we tried to incorporate some of that stuff into our training program that we had. Like, what do you do if you show up and there’s kids at the house, like waiting for the school bus and no parent? Like, do not go in the house, that sort of training.
Reuben Saltzman (43:43.148)
Yes, yes.
Reuben Saltzman (43:55.981)
Yeah, we do.
Reuben Saltzman (44:03.394)
Do not go in the house. Yeah, that’s a rule.
Tessa Murry (44:04.964)
Right? Do not go in the house. You cannot start the inspection. But situations like what you’re talking about, you know, I think it falls on each inspector to determine what they are willing to handle and what they’re not. And to take ownership of that and you, you know…
As the owner of StructureTech, you were always very supportive, I remember, to me and to everybody else in the team. It’s like, okay, if you’re not comfortable, then get out of the situation and do what you have to do and I’ll have your back. And so I always appreciated that, knowing that if I wasn’t comfortable doing it, that that would be okay with you and you’d support that. So I think every situation you just have to kind go into and weigh.
weigh the pros and the cons and what you’re willing to deal with and what you’re comfortable with and liability and go from there.
Reuben Saltzman (44:55.106)
Yeah, yeah. There was another one where I remember the cellars were there the whole time and it was a really uncomfortable situation. was a bad neighborhood and the cellars, there was like four people, four adults who seemed to all be unemployed. They were chain smoking inside the house. There was, you know,
Tessa Murry (45:21.314)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (45:22.602)
empty alcohol bottles everywhere. There’s ashtrays, there’s, you know, there’s smoking weed and there were guns laying around and our inspector was really uncomfortable. He called me at the beginning and it’s like, he didn’t want to be there. And I said, I’ll just come, I’ll just come. And I came and I just hung out and let him do his job. And I just kind of…
Tessa Murry (45:30.384)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:33.83)
my goodness.
Tessa Murry (45:40.09)
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (45:49.868)
chatted with the other people just to have a second person there. And it’s not like we can always do that. But sometimes it’s just what, what? Yeah. I mean, it’s like, what can you do to go out of your way to make this home inspection happen? Cause the last thing you want to do is get back to your clients and be like, sorry, I can’t do the inspection. It’s like, well, now what do they do? I mean, you’re buying a house, you’re under contract.
Tessa Murry (45:50.159)
moral support.
Yeah. No, that’s a luxury of a multi-inspector company. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (46:12.678)
Well, I could say professionally, I could look back and then say that was the listing agent or the buyer’s agent should have been responsible for making sure that the house was in a good space to be inspected and it wasn’t. But you handled that like a pro, like you always do, and sacrificed yourself for an inspection. So thank you. Sure, that’s
Reuben Saltzman (46:23.683)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (46:40.614)
You wonder why halfway through you’re sitting on the couch laughing with everybody. You’re a good mood. Secondhand high.
Reuben Saltzman (46:44.654)
Right, Exactly. Yeah. Gross. Just gross.
Tessa Murry (46:53.19)
Oh man. Well, I know we’ve got some good stories from other inspectors on the team. I won’t spoil it, but pet situations, toilet situations.
Reuben Saltzman (46:58.008)
We do.
Pet situations, my gosh. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of stories we can tell. We’ll save those for another time. So we’ve covered attendance at the inspection. I think to summarize, the buyers, it’s always great if the buyers can be there, at least for the end if they can make it, depending on what your home inspector prefers. That’s our preference is for the last hour. For the buyer’s agent, it depends.
Tessa Murry (47:06.63)
Poopy situations.
Tessa Murry (47:21.85)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (47:28.94)
You know, there can be a lot of value in a buyer’s agent showing up. The sellers ought to get out of the house. And for the seller’s agent, they really should not be there unless you have some extenuating circumstances. And even then, just be there to make an appearance, do whatever you got to do, say whatever you got to do, and then get out. You’re not there to tag along.
Tessa Murry (47:48.313)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (47:54.215)
Right, and if the seller has pets, take them with you. Please, please take them with you. I feel so bad for the… I know, I feel so bad for the dogs that are in kennels and they’re just barking the entire time, so stressed out that there’s intruders in their house, and then you have to hear the barking the entire time, or cats that are wandering around that house and are out to get you. I swear to God, every single cat that’s been loose in a house that I’ve inspected, I feel like is hunting me. So…
Reuben Saltzman (47:58.028)
Yeah, take them with you, lock them up.
Reuben Saltzman (48:21.294)
You
Tessa Murry (48:21.73)
I don’t know if it’s me or cats, it just, adds a layer of stress we don’t need. So, kennel your cats or take them with you and take your dogs with you.
Reuben Saltzman (48:27.894)
It does. It does.
Reuben Saltzman (48:32.76)
Solid advice. Thank you, Tessa. Well, Tessa, like you offered earlier, if there’s any home inspectors or real estate agents or buyers or sellers, anybody who’s had experiences, some crazy experiences with attendance at inspections, people being there who shouldn’t be there, bad behavior, whatever, I’d love to hear your stories. What’s your worst story? If I get enough emails, we might just make an episode out of it.
Tessa Murry (48:35.172)
Sorry.
Tessa Murry (48:44.1)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (49:00.548)
Yes. That’d be fun.
Reuben Saltzman (49:01.942)
And we’ll definitely follow up by getting a few people on our team to chat about some of their experiences.
Tessa Murry (49:07.27)
Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds fun. All right. Well, thanks Ruben. This was fun and I’m glad you resurrected this blog from 15 years ago. Give a little update. 15 years.
Reuben Saltzman (49:17.326)
Yeah, yeah, it’s time. It’s time. Oh, and I know where does it go? Well, and I forgot to throw out our email. say it every time. Podcast. It’s podcast at structuretech.com. We read all the emails, podcast at structuretech.com. Please email us and we will catch you next week. Thanks for tuning in. All right. Take care.
Tessa Murry (49:41.03)
Thanks for listening.
Bye.