Starting a pre purchase inspection business

[rScotty]

It is also common for boats to have a very complete pre-purchase inspection. Every area has a marine surveyer or several. You might look at how they do the job.
If it were me starting the business I'd ease into it. Maybe only do owner-to-owner sales and avoid big auctions where the potentail buyer doesn't even know whether he will be the real buyer or not. You can bet that the auction shills will figure out who you are pretty quickly.

But good luck with it. No success without risk.
rScotty

 

[EddieWalker]

I think it's a great idea if you can market it to enough people to make it profitable. I personally don't see how it could be a full time job to live off of, but it should be a nice side job for a few extra bucks. My concern is more along the line of finding enough people who are willing to pay for the service.

A good friend of mine owns a crane company in 3 states and he's a dealer for a big manufacturer on the West Coast. As the owner of the company, he travels all over the world to inspect cranes for potential buyers. On a recent inspection, he had to quarantine for 2 weeks in Taiwan before he could look at the crane. These are 6 and 7 figure cranes that people are paying him to look at, so they are willing to spend a lot of money to make sure they are getting what they want. I don't know what his inspection fee is, but it's enough to make it worthwhile for him to do them himself.

 

[Handloader109]

Well, i see it as a potential, but I think unless you have thousands of sales in a close area a year, you'll have a hard time making a living at it. A hundred an inspection. Won't get you far, and I doubt you'll get more on the average

 

[rScotty]

Well, i see it as a potential, but I think unless you have thousands of sales in a close area a year, you'll have a hard time making a living at it. A hundred an inspection. Won't get you far, and I doubt you'll get more on the average

In Colorado, there are no requirements to be licensed to be an inspector for financing a house. And lenders always require an inspection So you could do that on the side. Inspections are expensive and always in demand. Branch out to inspecting all kinds of things. I know a guy who inspects irrigation ditches. Same deal....

"Do you need a license to be a home inspector in Colorado?
There is currently no state licensing required to become a home inspector in Colorado. However, home inspectors must follow laws related to the profession such as contracts and fair trade practices."

rScotty

 

[pattycake]

Drawing from personal experience, getting a good pre-purchase inspection has always been key to a profitable equipment investment.

 

[workinonit]

Good luck

 

[Torvy]

As a few others have said, this is a side-hustle, at least at first.

Better to be an independent mechanic doing repairs and maintenance with inspections as a service offered. Then you have a couple of options, they bring the equipment to you, or you go to it. That way you can clearly delineate the price for the travel versus the inspection.

As for home inspections, one of my former peers went into that. He is now the chief building inspector for one of the bigger suburbs of Dallas. Lots of bad inspectors, even if they are trained and licensed. There is a psychological tendency to feel that you must find at least 1 thing wrong. If someone pays you to inspect and you find nothing wrong...you must not have looked well enough...

Good luck, there is probably a market, but at the price point you will need to earn a living, it will be a small market.

 

[rScotty]

No, it is pretty simple. I paid you to give me advice on buying a machine that then fails. You don't think someone is going to come back to you???

No, they won't "come back to you" because pre-purchase inspections don't work that way. At least mechanical inspections don't. There are no promises made, so there is nothing to come back on.

Our pre-purchase simply listed things that needed attention along with an estimate for what that would cost. Sometimes we could piece together a history...sometimes not. Mechanical things break, that's understood. A pre-purchase inspection doesn't provide any guarantees or make promises. It just provides a list of things that an experienced mechanic observes or measures.

As a mechanic/small shop owner I was asked to do a few inspections but not many, & always wondered why so few people asked. It seemed money well spent. Most home loans require inspections, and so do the better extended warranties on used vehicles - especially RVs. So those are industries where an inspector can get started.

rScotty

 

[rScotty]

Curious how you price your services? As a percentage of the final sale price or a fixed fee?

At our shop we simply charged mechanics' time by the hour. Same as any other job.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

While I realize this is a 3 year old thread and you haven't been back since in those 3 years, I doubt we will ever know if it panned out for you or not, hopefully it did, what is the bigger mystery to me is that many wanted to know if said piece of equipment has an un-seen problem after they purchase it, what are you going to do about it? I would think an inspection is just that, not a guarantee or 2000 hour warranty, folks like that should probably buy new equipment.