About Upland's Inland Empire

I'm sure every inspector has had that desperate call from a potential client something to the effect of "I hired this contractor to do an addition on my house, now the roof leaks, it's been patched...". Sound familiar, I get this all the time. Just the other day I received such a call, during the inspection it was clear to me that the client had experienced a series of frustrating engagements as follows:

1. The General Contractor that was hired for the project rarely supervised the job. He reportedly sent unqualified, unlicensed workers with illegal citizenship status. This condition led to multiple code violations and poor craftsmanship.
2. The city Building Inspector had never performed a visual inspection of above the roof line. All of us contractors are guilty of this scenario; The city inspector shows up, he knows you from 20 plus years of working on the same type of projects, in mutually varied capacities. Consequently the Building inspection has now just turned into a coffee break and social hour catching up on the latest family status, how is business going, etc... At the end of this interaction the City inspector signs your card and off he goes, having never physically inspected the subject item.
3. The lender hired a "Low Ball" inspector to perform progress inspections for the phased loan draws. In fact the inspector had absolutely no hands on experience in the trades. He had an ICC certification that he obtained from taking a class and passing a test. From a book smart perspective the inspector was qualified. From a practical stand point the inspector was very much unqualified.

Basically this roof was installed by an unqualified contractor. The client is left out in the cold unless a "Qualified Inspector" performs a proper inspection and presents a valid report, giving the client a professional opinion and legal document to argue his case. At the very least the client now has a defined course of action to correct the project shortcomings.

As professional Inspectors, Real Estate Agents, Brokers and lenders - we have a duty to educate our clients. Through education our future clients will make educated decisions while selecting a fully qualified team to PROTECT their interest. I believe that if we focus on EDUCATION, that if we ADVOCATE as opposed to PERSUADE and COLLECT MONEY, our industry will thrive in the long run!

I thought I might try the direct approach. I am new to this AR thing and have a huge learning curve to go through. So instead of trying to feign some superior intelligence or "slick" blog. I will just come out and say it - I operate a well established, reputable Inspection and Consulting company. If you are a Real Estate agent and in need of an Inspector that is reliable and professional, give us a shot at your business. If you are an inspector and need coverage while on vacation, during an emergency, or just can't handle your volume - consider API for coverage.

Well we have finally come into the current century and joined the blogging community. At API we have relied on word of mouth and cold call marketing in the past. With todays economy and fly by night, underbidding inspectors - relationship building with reputable Realtors is more important than ever. After all the old saying, "you get what you pay for" still prevails. It has been my experience that poor Agents, attract poor Inspectors!

After many years of trial and error, I am pleased to find a community of highly responsible professionals that value good moral fiber. We are looking forward to developing many sound business relationships on Activerain in the years to come.

I'm here - now what? Actually, I've been wanting to get more involved online for most of this year. So here goes!

As July approaches, I will be celebrating 13 years as a Realtor. I love my real estate job (I eat, sleep and dream it) but I've not seen a market like this.

My observations lately are that right now everybody, meaning Buyers, Sellers and Agents are acting like the proverbial "chicken with their head cut-off".

Now I need to explain. In Southern California's Inland Empire Sellers are still wanting to sell at January 2008 prices, Buyers want to buy at December 2009 prices. And Agents are pulling out their hair playing tug-of-war trying to bring those two ends together and make the sales happen. This wide gap is there because the Buyers don't want to get stuck with an overpriced house and Sellers don't want to believe that what they hear on the nightly news about rising un-employment, short sales and foreclosures really does apply to them.

"Yes, Mr. Seller, your house is the best home I've seen in the neighborhood but no we can not price it $50,000 over the last sold model match!" "Yes, Mr/Mrs Buyer, your offer is very good. 20% down, good FICO scores and great income however there are 3 other offers on the table and they are all over the asking price, I know this has happened to you before but it really is a "Buyer's" market!"

So what is the right price?? Who knows anymore. The banks are listing their inventory at around 5% under the comps and selling for more. The short sale "experts" are listing at 2001 prices and causing a flurry of activity which is resulting in the accepted offer being much higher than the list price. The "real" Sellers want to list at last year's prices and Buyers just don't know what to do or who to believe!

Never a dull moment, that's for sure. All in all, sales are up because prices are down, interest rates are down, inventory is down - the Perfect Storm! And the best part - the public really needs Real Estate Agents right now!