We home inspectors, coddled and coaxed by our own industry, perpetuate many harmful fallacies. Here’s one:
A home inspection that yields a lot of information, beyond any prerequisite standards of practice, only scares buyers away from buying the home. Too much information. Like barnacles, we attach to this story alongside other industry professionals from whom we’re aiming to identify or garner favor.
When an inspector, real estate professional, or builder proclaim that a report “scares a home buyer,” what really is being said? Does too much information when you are shopping for a medical specialist scare you? Does too much information in public reviews for a restaurant turn you away from thinking about eating there? What about buying a car—does too much information turn you away from the car lot? Not impossible, but not likely.
It’s not our function to gatekeep information from consumers paying us to represent their interests (which, if you need it spelled out—it’s the spending of their money for a product they know very little about). You know how those of you who market to brokerages must find ways to get past the individual at the front? You know how you dislike having to do this? Well, if you are determining what consumers need/don’t need, fancy yourself in the same boat as that brokerage’s gatekeeper.
The underlying message in this all-too-often parroted fallacy really isn’t about the consumer, it’s about the real estate professional and/or inspector. What’s really being said is an associated understanding between professionals that a balance has to be achieved to inform the consumer, but only enough to meet required standards and keep the transaction moving toward closing. Yet, it is not our role to get the consumer to buy any home. We have no place in that determination.
Perhaps you as an inspecting professional disagree with me and really do think reports with a lot of information are bad for the consumer. My counter (and remember, I’m a gardening, granola-eating, mow-my-lawn-with-an-electric-mower-in-bare-feet hippie): Are you okay with being told whether or not you can keep a weapon in your home, whether you can homeschool your kids, or how to raise your kids? Most of us, as Americans, recoil at the notion of being told what to do or how to do it. Yet, somehow, we have thousands of industry professionals, as well as many more real estate professionals, who as Americans have determined they have a right to dictate what other American consumers need and don’t need. Seems a bit hypocritical, no?
Authoritarian regimes, and dictatorships, historically position similarly to how they view citizens and what citizens “need to know.” Tread carefully. We, as an industry, are the manifestation of consumer protection. We get paid to educate, inform, and elucidate for consumers. We get paid to do something sorely missing from our nation’s economy in recent decades—think about it: banks get massive bail outs, investors and politicians have all sorts of golden paths, corporations pay miniscule penalties compared to profits, and a legal system that continues to morph into a service available only to those with vast resources. Where are ‘We the people?’
We represent the people and this means not deciding what information they need, but giving them as much information as available so they can contextualize and make their own decisions. If all you know is deficiency, then it’s time to up your game and start educating yourself related to the trades and how structures are put together. A bit of building science wouldn’t hurt, either. The more you know, the more your reports will grow.
Just because we are specialized generalists doesn’t give any of us the right to withhold information. In our specialization, we have an obligation to also specialize in communicating as much information as possible to the consumer—deficiency or not, it’s their right and our responsibility.
cookeville.wini.com
