If you’ve ever bought or sold a home, you know just how time-consuming the process can be. From looking at properties, to choosing the space that best fits your needs, to scheduling a home inspection, coordinating all the moving pieces can often be a race against the clock.
But for real estate professionals and consumers who have HomeTeam Inspection Service on their side, one never has to worry about finding extra time to dedicate to the home inspection process.
Founded on the premise of being fast, trusted and accurate, HomeTeam continues to raise the bar, approaching home inspections with a team mentality, ensuring the process is both efficient and accurate.
With the company’s 25th anniversary approaching in 2018—and having recently performed its one-millionth inspection—HomeTeam takes pride in the experience they bring to the table.
“It all started with the concept of our founder Paul Spires, who, like many home inspectors, started out in the building industry,” says HomeTeam President Adam Long, who goes on to explain that in the early days, only a small percentage of homes were inspected. “To speed up the process for both real estate professionals and their clients, rather than using a single inspector, Paul introduced the team concept.”
To say that the concept has stuck is an understatement.
In fact, according to Brian O’Rear—owner of HomeTeam Inspection Service Louisville—the team concept is the most unique selling point of the company’s value proposition. “The team concept allows us to perform more inspections per day, which is helpful during the height of the summer season when it’s extremely busy, in addition to offering a lot of flexibility due to the efficiencies built into the team.”
The time savings afforded by the team concept can’t be overlooked either. “With the team concept, since we have multiple inspectors at the inspection, they’re inspecting the home just as efficiently and thoroughly as any other company, but the inspection is completed quicker,” says Long.
Another important area of focus for HomeTeam centers around the use of technology. “HomeTeam is easily one of the first inspection companies to implement technology out in the field,” says Long.
From the handheld Pocket PC back in 2004 to the cloud-based technology employed today, collecting data while out in the field is not only simple, but also necessary when it comes to keeping up with today’s tech-savvy real estate professionals and consumers.
“Technology has affected the home inspection industry significantly over the last 20 years,” says Long, “and report-writing is where it truly stands out.”
“We get comments all the time from agents who appreciate the thoroughness of our reports,” says O’Rear of the company’s narrative-style reports that include photos with arrows and captions fully describing exactly what’s going on—delivered within 24-hours of the inspection. “We act as an intermediary between the buyer and seller by presenting a good, solid, detailed report.”
In addition to keeping the playing field level between buyers and sellers, the cloud-based reports also add a level of environmental friendliness to the process.
But the benefits afforded by the technology don’t end there.
They also play a large role in the process of scheduling an inspection. “This is another area we do quite well in,” says O’Rear, who notes there are several ways to get an inspection on the calendar, a critical piece of the puzzle given many contracts have a tight inspection window.
Whether calling your local office and scheduling an inspection over the phone or scheduling in real-time via the website, HomeTeam takes the stress out of the process. Taking this one step further, real estate professionals have the option to use an app on their smartphone to guide them through the process. Not only does the app allow them to schedule an inspection with the click of a button, it also provides access to any and all reports created in the past.
“We’re there to make sure the process—from offer to inspection to closing—goes as smoothly as possible by making sure the client and their agent have all the information they need about the house in a timely manner,” says Long, who is looking to do more of the same in the future.
“If we can further streamline the process by offering services the client needs—or helping them schedule services as our support to the client—we envision doing more of this in the future,” concludes Long.
By Paige Tepping, Real Estate Magazine
