At what point does a reinspection stop being a favor and start being a real line item in your business?
In The Ride Along episode 75, Brad Lowery and Matt Brading talk with Brad Zirlott of Due South Home Inspection about a topic he calls the elephant in the room for growing inspection companies: reinspection pricing.
Brad started out doing reinspections for free — “how naive I was,” he quips — until he was fielding endless callbacks and had to reclaim his time. He moved to a flat $250 fee that covers up to 25 items, with $8 per item after that, so a big new-construction punch list doesn’t turn into an afternoon he can’t afford.
Matt takes a different approach that growing companies will recognize: a flat 50% of the original inspection fee, no matter whether the list is five items or twenty-five. Both approaches solve the same underlying problem, one Brad Zirlott says almost every inspector eventually runs into — you can’t stay the cheap guy forever without paying for it later.
The episode also digs into a boundary-setting tactic worth stealing as your company scales: instead of reinspecting every deficiency in a lengthy report, Matt’s team now requires buyers to submit the actual negotiated repair list before scheduling a reinspection.
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