Real(ty) Talk
Real(ty) Talk
From Blazing Fires to Home Inspections: Randy's Story
Randy Meadows, founder of Focus Home Inspection and a former Los Angeles County firefighter, shares his journey from battling blazes to ensuring homes are safe. With 25 years of firefighting experience, including a heart-stopping fall from a ladder, Randy now uses his safety expertise to detect hidden problems in homes.
Discover what it's like to go from battling backdrafts to detecting hidden plumbing problems. Randy explains the unique skills needed to be a top-notch home inspector and shares how his boutique inspection group offers a wide range of services, from regular inspections to specialized tasks like mold testing and sewer scopes.
Learn about the latest tech tools, like drones and infrared cameras, that inspectors use to provide detailed reports. We also discuss the future of inspector licensing and why it's important to choose a qualified inspector. This episode is packed with valuable information for anyone looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate.
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And then the eaves gave way, the ladder went down. I went down with it.
Speaker 2:Was the house still on fire or the building still on fire?
Speaker 1:And the building was on fire. My captain at that time thought I had fallen into the structure so he was getting a crew to go in. And then they found me outside and thank goodness nobody else got hurt.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome back Realty Talk podcast, episode number 14. It is your favorite podcast in the world. We have some exciting things to talk about today. We've got the queen of the closing table, suzanne Sini. Hello, ceo of Innovate Realty, the best brokerage in the US for sure. Definitely, definitely, california, and we have a great guest we're really excited to talk to today Randy, not Randall.
Speaker 1:Either one, I'm in trouble. My mother would call me Randall, so you can call me Randall. Okay, noted. No, you're not in trouble. What is your last name?
Speaker 2:Randall Meadows, randy Meadows okay, and he is you founded focus. Home inspection. I did.
Speaker 1:I did ten years ago. We started to focus brand and you know, you know before that I was involved with Los Angeles County Fire Department, with their inspection bureau and did a number of inspections commercial and residential with them as well.
Speaker 2:So what I mean? Let's just dive right in. We're jumping in. Yeah, what was that like? How long were you in the fire department?
Speaker 1:So 25 years and then I retired and that was a real interesting career. You know it was always something different. I started out as a fireman paramedic and then advanced and became an engineer and then went into the bureau for a bit and did a number of inspections, commercially, residentially, and then got my building, you know, inspector certifications through that and many times it was with the fire department more of a forensic approach. You know, after the house or the structure burned down we go and try to figure it out. What was the problem?
Speaker 1:yeah but then it spiked my interest in just the general safety of structures and homes, and that's where it took off my interest.
Speaker 2:So 25 years as a firefighter I got to know what is the craziest thing you saw in LA specifically. That's a big city.
Speaker 1:So I think some of the one of the craziest calls that I went on is where I broke my arm. I fell off a 24 foot ladder and it was because the roof had collapsed and I was on the ladder just streaming some water into the attic space and then the eaves gave way. The ladder went down.
Speaker 2:I went down with it was that still, or the building?
Speaker 1:still and the building was on fire. My captain at that time thought I had fallen into the structure, so he was getting a crew to go in. And then they found me outside and thank goodness nobody else got hurt. So that was the craziest experience I ever had.
Speaker 3:I'll never forget it it's like yesterday, yeah, although it happened 20 years ago wow, so how many cats have you saved from trees?
Speaker 1:you know that's a good story. I'll tell you a story about saving cats that's what you see in the movie yeah, so you know. The old saying is you never see cat skeletons right In trees. Yeah, that's because they never die in trees, they always get down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But we do go help on occasion. But you know that's pretty much a stretch of the service. Yeah, okay, because we tell people have you ever seen a skeleton in a tree of a cat?
Speaker 2:A skeleton, skeleton of a cat. No, that's because they always find their way down, yeah, and they get hungry, yeah, usually, yeah, good question though, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:So did you live in la when you were a firefighter there? Or I lived in glendora oh okay, which is out of the county but uh served in different places of the county and served in altadena, central Central LA. Then, finally, I was in Glendora and that's where I retired from out of the Glendora stations.
Speaker 2:So you're a firefighter and then you go the engineering route. What does that mean? Like a structural engineer, or it's something inside of the fire?
Speaker 1:department. No, it takes care of the hydraulics of the engine. So basically you're in charge of the engine, the running of the engine, the figuring out how much water needs to be on the structure, how to make sure that there's friction loss within the hoses. You're figuring all that out in your mind and then you know supplying whatever you know the crew needs. At that point it's kind of a you know an advance from being the firefighter that runs in, you know, with his BA at the first call, and then you just say, okay, I'm getting a little old for this, so I think I'll take the truck position. So basically that's what we did.
Speaker 2:What is the? There's a movie. Is it called Overdraft, or what is it?
Speaker 1:Overdraft.
Speaker 2:Is that what it is?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is that famous movie about Backdraft?
Speaker 2:Backdraft. Is that what it's?
Speaker 1:like that's pretty much Hollywood yeah.
Speaker 3:But there are backdraft situations, yeah, so the cats Hollywood backdraft Hollywood Universal.
Speaker 2:Studios used to have like a ride Did you remember that?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, at Universal Studios, yeah, yeah, and then all the fire would come out. There's some pretty good ones. You know when you're coming into a house that's burning and you can have a backdraft situation. So you're getting down low and then you're putting the water up high so that you can hopefully change the temperature of the structure so that doesn't backdraft on you. But there's certain indications for backdraft. What is?
Speaker 2:a backdraft.
Speaker 1:It's when the superheated air becomes so hot that it just basically ignites. And so even though you're in a structure and you feel that you're okay down low, but the air up high is getting superheated and then the fire just basically immediately explodes the air and you have a backdraft and the whole structure just catches on fire. Firemen have been killed by the backdraft scenario, so kind of look for the indications of it and try not to enter into the rooms that are ripe for back draft.
Speaker 3:Got it. We are learning a lot today, yeah.
Speaker 1:When you want to get on the fire department, let me know I got some good recommendations. No, I'm afraid I like to build fires camping, but that's the safe one. Yeah, you know you got to listen to Smokey the Bear too right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, make sure you put your fires out after you're done with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So well, I don't know if it's probably useful. We didn't even go into how we all met. So how did we meet?
Speaker 1:So this is kind of an interesting story. We kind of got connected through another partner of yours, which I think is a company that you also own, which I think is a company that you also own Smart Pest Control. Yeah, smart Pest Control. So I did an inspection for one of your managers in Smart Pest Control and he liked the inspection so much. He said you know, would you like to join B&I with me? And then I asked him what that was. And then I asked him what he did and he says I do termite inspections. I said that's a perfect pair for us. Yeah, so generally we offer termite inspections with our inspections and just act as a liaison to help connect our clients to a good termite company that will do the inspection for them. And that's where Forrest with Bye Bye came in, because he basically helps with that. And Raul Barsena, who basically is a manager for you in the smart pest control, yeah, and then we came to your big shindig yeah we had hundreds of agents there and it was awesome.
Speaker 1:We got to connect with a number of your agents and it was just really a delightful evening, yeah so focus the way it's structured today.
Speaker 2:give us a of, because we have a lot of agents and consumers that listen to the podcast, so you give us a breakdown of your business and how many people are inside of it and how many inspections you do and what your service territory is Okay, awesome, yeah.
Speaker 1:So first of all, we'd like to tell people and make them understand that we are a boutique certified master inspection group. So there's a difference between just certified professional inspectors and certified master inspectors. They are the top 10% of all inspection groups is master inspection, so basically only 10% of the inspectors that you find on average are going to have that rating. So we have that rating. With our group, we have five inspectors, so we maintain a boutique approach and it's basically helping us to maintain quality and consistency on a regular basis. In giving those inspections Versus the larger companies, you never know who you're going to get. You might get the 25-year-old guy that has done 10 inspections and
Speaker 1:now he's out there and his girlfriend's waiting in the car for him, you know. So, basically a different approach, a much more professional approach, and so focus inspections basically is a full service group and basically we provide all commercial and residential inspection from the pre listing. We even go back into pre-drywall inspections, new construction, 11th month warranty inspections and then pre-listing inspections and then resale inspections, demolition inspections basically people want to know what's in their structure before they demolish it. They have asbestos and things of that nature. And then we have a number of ancillary services that many times you folks also take advantage of, like the sewer lateral scope. Yeah, people want to know what the condition of the sewer line is, because that can be a huge expense if it's not, you know, patent. We do pool and spa inspections, the mold in and moisture intrusion inspections. We're looking for mold and yeah, uh, basically, you know, try to make it as well-rounded as possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the termite inspections.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there you go Full circle. And I would also say for our listeners, because I think you know the reason why we work together so often and why you know agents are very familiar with you. But it's also really important for a consumer to know you know when they're purchasing a home they need an inspection. So that's often why the agents are working with you. And then I would say, you know for buy my house. What I think is really interesting and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't. I mean, not everyone does a pre-inspection and post-construction inspection, which I think is really interesting. You know, before you put it on the market, you're having it inspected again to make sure that everything's looking good before the consumer is starting to look at your homes, which I think is you know. I think that's great. Not everyone does that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Suzanne, because you know people who are just getting ready to put their homes up for sale and if you've already had it renovated, you want to know if your contractors really did a good job. So our inspectors go in with a critical eye. Our background is with defect litigation inspections with major builders here in California, which was our job is to find out what contractors didn't do their job.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So we would report that to the builder.
Speaker 3:So you're like a detective. Many times that forensics in me Going like a detective. I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I think that's how I got that from the fire department, the forensic approach. But yeah, it can be very expensive to repair things that you just can't see, which is some of our horror stories that we find within the inspection industry.
Speaker 3:Wow, on the note of horror stories, I knew you were going to ask that. Maybe I set myself up, you ease me into it, so share some of these horror stories. What's the craziest thing you've seen?
Speaker 1:Let me share a win-win, one right when everybody wins. So we had an inspection for a client who was a buyer and we went in on this inspection. It was a home that belonged to an older couple and they're just a really sweet couple, but they didn't know what they actually lived in. So we found that. That. Number one they had a number of electrical issues as an older house. Number two, which was probably the biggest find that we could help them with, and that was we were doing a sewer lateral inspection on this home and they said oh well, we had a plumber that just installed an exterior ground-level 4-inch clean-out and I said great, where is that? She says it's right in the back on the side of the house. I said great. So we went out there, opened it up. There's the sewer lateral. We open up, put our camera down. It goes down four feet and hits ground, hits solid ground. So this plumber came out and put a pipe in the ground.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Literally, and we thought to ourselves you know, this plumber needs to be, you know, evaluated and inspected.
Speaker 2:That's a really polite way of saying it. Yeah, yeah, Evaluated and inspected. Yeah for fraud. That is yeah, that's right Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't like to use those words, but you know, because I'm a professional, I try not to get everybody excited, but you know. So we had told the people. You know we're so sorry to tell you. You know that you don't have a sewer lateral there and of course it upset them and they took care of it on that side. But it helped both the buyer because there was a negotiation point there and the seller. In fact the seller then hired us to do their inspection for their next house.
Speaker 1:Oh cool, and that was a kind of a horror story but a win-win because we went on that one. You wonder you can't make this stuff up right. So we go in and this was a flip, a flip home and the first thing we do is get up on the roof. Well, we find out that the composition roof is actually painted. It's not really a new roof. It looked new from the outside but it was painted. So you get up and you do an easy evaluation and you find out this is not a new roof. You're kidding, it's not a new roof.
Speaker 2:And then we go into the attic, so they disclosed that it was a new roof.
Speaker 1:That's right, new roof, yeah, new painted. I forgot that word, new painted.
Speaker 2:And then we go into the attic space you know, because now you got to find out know well, is it leaking inside?
Speaker 1:and we find that they had painted trusses inside the attic, so they're hiding water damage, they're hiding fire damage, oh so we basically get up and just just do a little scraping of the truss and you find the charred wood under the paint. So major fines for this older couple and fortunately we were able to call it out and I think they decided to go to a different route.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a different house. Yeah, a different house.
Speaker 3:Makes sense, Because you never know what else is there hiding. Exactly that's what they found.
Speaker 1:But, on the other hand, we were able to help them find a real decent house as well, and I think that's what the reporting is all about, you know, especially helps our agents, yeah, so the report is an awesome way to give agents the power, you know, number one to tell their clients hey, this is a great home or hey, there's some things that we need to negotiate. Right, the agent can ask for credit, right, you know. Or they can help their client decide is this the house for me? Right? Based on the report, it's a powerful tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like we're in a really unique market right now. Inventory has been very, very light. We talk a lot about it, but through COVID, I mean, inventory was essentially non-existent and so people were going very, very quickly paying way over market. They were taking concessions that they didn't want to take. So I guess I and you know that market still is kind of similar. It's not quite as bad as it was two years ago. But from your perspective, you know from a seller or a buyer, you know what is the most. Call it the top three or four critical components to hiring an inspector. And then you know, I guess maybe we should rewind a little bit. I mean, some of our listeners may have never bought a house before, so they may not even know what a home inspection is.
Speaker 1:I mean, Okay, yeah, very good question. Well, first of all, we always tell people look, you know, never, never, skip your inspection. And it's true that during COVID there were a lot of people that were skipping their inspections and they were just buying as is Yep, and then they didn't know what as is was. And then they finally get into their house and they find out they have some major problems and have remorse over doing the purchase. But with regards to the inspection process, we always tell people look, you're looking for an inspector.
Speaker 1:Keep in mind that the market can really be saturated with inspectors. I mean, what kind of inspection company are you going to look for? And there's the big conglomerate inspection groups, you know, and they are huge on advertising. They're first on Google and things of that nature. But then just stop and think for yourself what are the qualifications number one of the inspector or the inspection company that you're hiring? Is the inspector able to show you certification that he has gone through schooling for the purpose of inspecting homes here in California? We have a unique thing here, because you don't have to have a license to do an inspection. In fact, you don't even need to be certified. You can just say I'm a Chuck, my is Chuck. I have a truck and I do inspections, chuck, with trucks, right so, and I'm not so bad with anybody with the name Chuck, but basically, literally in California, and they're trying to change that.
Speaker 1:Eventually InterNACHI is coming out with, hopefully, a test that will actually help with both licensure and certification. So number one I think the reason why I brought that out is the only recourse that you have here in California is to make sure that your inspector has the proper certification. So two main groups that certify InterNACHI is number one, InterNACHI InterNACHI International Association of Home Inspectors Okay. And then there's OSHI, American Society of Home Inspectors InterNACHI in my of Home Inspectors Okay. And then there's ASHA, American Society of Home Inspectors. Internachi, in my opinion, is better. You know that's what we have, yeah, but ASHA is right there as well and they're legitimate. And then make sure that they're insured and bonded. They should have an insurance. You can ask them what's your insurance, you know, and that way you can see that they're legit.
Speaker 1:And then ask them about their experience. What experience do you have, you know, in the inspection world? How long have you been doing inspections? And you know, just vet them a little bit and then you'll find that it's not about the price, because you can always find someone that will do it cheaper for you. Sure, and focus has never been of the mindset that we're a race to the bottom. Okay, what did you get? Okay, you're going to do it for $200? We'll do it for $199. We don't do that. Our service is worth what we charge. And even though we do give a discount to our agents because of their loyalty, we're not in the discounted inspection industry. We're a legitimate master certification group and that usually indicates that you're going to pay maybe just a little bit more for your inspection because of the background.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that buyer or seller can rest assured they're going to get the facts right, they're going to get the facts.
Speaker 1:So there's another thing. It's about how does your inspector actually present it and work with your agents, right? So you know we're a professional group. We don't take the alarmist approach. We're not out there to scare people. We just basically, after we do the inspection, we're just telling them. You know what we find. We leave our opinions at home. Like you know, I would never buy this house, or you know this house is not for me that's so important.
Speaker 3:By the way, I mean you're saying that and I don't even know. I mean from experience there have been a lot of times where an inspector has I don't- want to say ruined a deal.
Speaker 1:But killed a deal?
Speaker 3:Yeah, because of the delivery, you know.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily the fact, it's just the way it's delivered.
Speaker 3:Yes, the way it's delivered. And then the opinions. You do have an opinion, but there's a tactful way, I think, of delivering it, which is really important when you're working with Good point.
Speaker 1:We kind of leave our opinions at home and then just come to the scene as a professional. Look, we have these things. We're evaluating five major components of your house. We're evaluating the roof, the HVAC system, the plumbing, the electrical, the foundation, and then we go a little bit beyond our standards of practice and we present information that may be depending on the need of the client. I want to know what cosmetic issues you know that are here that are going to affect or other issues that are maintenance, deferred maintenance, issues that may affect your structure down the line. So we try to offer them not just the information but also ways to actually find corrections, and everything is fixable for the most part. It's just depending now. Is this within your budget? Is it a home that fits your needs and do you have vision?
Speaker 2:So we have a lot of obviously Buy, buy House. We buy, fix and sell a lot of property or hold onto it. We have a lot of other investors that listen to the podcast. So if you're an investor or a flipper, what are the? I mean, there's similar things that you need out of an inspection, but why focus right? Why, randy, if you're in Southern California and in that space, yeah so, yeah, we are real builder friendly type of people.
Speaker 1:In fact we've had the contractors of flippers just show up on the property as we're giving the inspection and many times you know you have a general contractor that's doing this flip but he doesn't know everything about all the different main components that we're inspecting. So sometimes we'll look at the electrical panel and say, hey, you know, we find this, this and that. And he says, really, I didn't even know that and he's on Google finding it, you know. And then he says, well, I'm gonna take care of that. So we develop a nice rapport with these guys that helps them to see that the inspection is really their friend.
Speaker 1:And that's what we say inspections are your friend, they're gonna save you money in the end yeah, yeah yeah, and obviously if you use the tool right, then the both the contractor and the agent everybody's going to be a win and the client can be a win-win if you just use the information that we give you correctly and we try to guide, you know, our clients through that. That's why our focus really is always on the satisfaction of our client, help them through the process, and it can be daunting for some, but you know we try to make it a little more simple and our reporting is basically of the nature it's the highest rated reporting system currently in the industry, so it's very, very helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I can attest to everything you're saying. I mean we do I don't know how many of you do a month, but some months it might be 10 or more and other months it's a little less, but pretty much exclusively if you're available. We use your shop when we buy stuff. Yeah, we appreciate that. Yeah, and I think for us, as an investor you bring up the word tool that's exactly the way we look at it. You know we're not emotional buyers. You know, if you're an investor out there, I would encourage you to do the same. You can't become emotional about the property. You just have to basically run your math, you know, understand what your purchase point is, understand what your after renovation value is and then build your scope of work to go and execute that.
Speaker 2:But the inspection for us is essentially a footprint, you know, or a timeline of how to go and do that properly, so that when you do finally go to market you don't run into challenges. So I mean I can probably think back over the last five years I've purchased maybe five or six houses without inspections, generally because we had to. It was either probate or, you know, they just didn't allow an inspection to take place. And every one of those went very badly. I would have not bought most of those. And then I can think back at I don't know 10 or 20 properties that you've inspected for us that we elected not to purchase after the inspection because our scope of work was just so much broader, you know, and we just would have never seen a return. So you've been a phenomenal, you know, resource and partner on that side for our business.
Speaker 1:I want to commend you on your brand because I've noticed that about you as well. In fact, I have gone to a couple of your you know inspections where I said I really hope they take this one on because it can really be a cool little property to sell after it's been renovated. But then you decided this isn't for us, based on the information that we provided you, and that's where I left my opinions at home.
Speaker 3:I said yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I could take this one on, but math is the big thing. Is it really mathematically feasible for you? So we want to commend you on that too.
Speaker 2:Oh, I appreciate it. So what is changing in the world of inspections? I mean one thing that you put out, which I had never heard before, of a virtual inspection. What is that?
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so we do very few of those right now, but that is something that is a topic in the inspection world and that is basically being able to do an inspection from afar. So you're using a camera and you're depending on the client to show you where you want to look. It's not really the preferred method, but sometimes it's an option that people want to use. Sometimes it's an option that people want to use. We've done a few of those where we're trying to get the client to show us what we really want to see, and sometimes it takes a little longer. Now focus in down there underneath, right over there, by that side of the corner and she goes right over here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little closer, and we're clicking pictures as we go.
Speaker 1:But I think the biggest change actually is in the technology of inspection using infrared, using drones on roofs, being able to enlarge those pictures and look very closely at very high roof structures where you don't want to send your inspector yeah, we don't use a pole anymore where we're trying to direct the camera on the pole to try to take pictures the drone you get really proficient at using the drones.
Speaker 1:You can zoom right in within a foot or two of a particular point and get a better view than you would actually with your eyes. The Crawlbot system is really awesome. We have some amazing Crawlbots. It's the next generation of technology, putting those under homes or in a place where a person cannot crawl. And another thing is infrared technology Basically using an infrared camera throughout the house, doing a walkthrough of the house after you're done with your inspection and finding additional areas that are going to be problematic, like, for example, with leaks, pipe leaks or places where there is electrical issues, overheating the air envelope that's right, or insulation in areas of the house that were not insulated correctly, and it's just fantastic to use the technology to really enhance our inspections.
Speaker 2:I think our first inspection where I met you at the property. That's one of the first things that I recognized. You guys had the FLIR camera out and you had everything going. And that one specifically, I remember we had a CVA or a combustible appliance that had a vent but it was venting into the attic. Major gas leaks, Major yeah. Yeah, find those things and people live through that and never know the difference.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and not every inspector does that right. That's it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, We've used chucks in a truck no offense in a truck where the inspector shows up with a ladder and a camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. Starts taking pictures.
Speaker 2:Clipboard, writing it out with a pencil. I mean I can personally attest. Obviously we do hundreds of inspections with you guys. I mean it's like top-notch. The detail is phenomenal, thank you. The reporting is actually very simple to read, but it's very clear what the recommendations are, or the challenges are.
Speaker 1:So we really appreciate that Very good. I might just give a shout out to our reporting system. It's Spectora. Spectora reporting system is basically top notch in the industry. It's very visual oriented, so you get a picture with an explanation of exactly what the deficiency is and then, of course, our description of how you can correct that or what our recommendation is for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when we buy real estate, I mean, one of the challenges that I always have is that inspection reports can be a hundred pages long.
Speaker 1:So what.
Speaker 2:I really value about your report is that the deficiencies are just all the way at the very top. So even if it's like an HVAC issue which is on page 79, it's taken all of the deficiencies to the top and put them in red and then it's color-coded so you can kind of skip through some of the areas that are fine. There you go, yeah, so it's been really good.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it helps expedite your analyzation of the property. Yeah, makes it a little bit more user-friendly. Yeah, and just to let you know those who are listening, our reports are issued usually within the same day of the inspection, if not within 24 hours latest if we have to do some special research on a particular deficiency. But they come out. The deficiencies are in three different colors the red, the orange and the green. So the red are obviously the most important, or safety issue or important you need to fix this pretty quick or the orange is fix it sooner than later it's going to cause you problems. And then the blue are the more maintenance issues. Fyi, we found this for you and you can do with it what you want.
Speaker 2:Anything else technologically that's going to change the industry Just here in California.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a big adjustment, I think, when we finally have California actually insist that the inspectors get licensed, not just certified.
Speaker 3:When will that happen? Yeah, that was news to me. I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not sure there is some talk about it happening within the next couple of years. Internachi is working towards a testing procedure that will actually help the industry develop better inspectors and we were privileged to be a part of that board that we met just two weeks ago in San Diego. Over that there were 20 inspectors that were invited to it. We just happened to be one invited by InterNACHI, so we feel really especially privileged to do that. But they're going to keep us in touch on what's happening with that and I'm hoping for that because I think we need it in one way just to help clarify the qualifications of inspectors. Almost every other state has it. We want to give the best service and build up the confidence of our clients as well.
Speaker 3:I think I mean. That's what I say all the time about real estate too, and making sure that all agents are educated. And you know so? It's because one bad inspector gives you all a bad name, right? So, we're, yeah, we all feel the same way about, I'd say, all of our industries.
Speaker 1:I think the more certifications you have is beneficial as well. So all of our inspectors have numerous certifications in different disciplines. And then there's the California Association of Realtors that have evaluated our company and put their approval upon us. The Better Business Bureau has put their A-plus signature on us. So all of these will build up confidence and hope that it will, you know, bring in more business as well. But we don't want to get over boutique, we don't. We want to stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm like I'm. I find myself fairly conflicted right now because I'm like hey, everyone use randy, but I'm like actually don't, because then I'm not gonna get you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll make sure you get yours though yeah, perfect, thank you, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Anything else you want to share with?
Speaker 1:us. I just want to say that it's been a privilege, you know, to work with Innovate Realty and Buy Buy. It's a perfect match for our company. And just one other thing for those that are having problems you know the market is going to be going in different directions. You're aware of the 203k process of financing purchases, so we are also FHA approved by the federal government to do 203k consulting inspections. So that's another service that we just added this last year.
Speaker 2:Good for you. What's the best way to reach you Website?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can go right on the website and get an inspection. If you mention Buy, Buy or Innovate, just let us know and we'll add you. Especially if you have a realtor with you, we automatically note them as one of our preferred realtors and you get a discount, Great. And if you're a new agent listening out there and you want to join with us, we give you the 11th inspection free.
Speaker 2:All right, there you go.
Speaker 1:So yeah, after 10 inspections, you can use it for yourself or your clients or give it a gift. As a gift to someone or your clients, or give it a gift as a gift to someone Very cool, so we'll give them that too, as well, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for your time, randy. We appreciate it. Pleasure. Can't wait to do our next inspection, probably in the next day or two, probably so. Thank you so much. That's a wrap today. We will see you back in the next episode.