Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Hi there. This is Ben with Ben’s pest control. And I’m here today with my friend Jerry Cook from a protected Home Inspection say good morning, Jerry. Good morning. So, Jerry and I, we have done, I want to say, a few thousand inspections, what do you think?
At least a few thousand.
And Jerry came today to discuss with us the importance of the termite inspection when you’re buying a house and, and making sure that you’re not buying a house that hopefully is infested with termites. Any thoughts on that Jerry
termite inspections are very important, you got a lot of inspectors out there that will try to sell you their product without adding the termite inspection because they don’t want to be out priced by somebody else. I always push the termite inspection because of the importance of it. Termites can tear a house up besides water, it’s probably the most damaging thing on a house. As far as wood damage.
Oh, yeah, we’ve seen some pretty what I would call catastrophic houses. I don’t know if you remember though, the house in Palm city that the whole the whole doorframes were just falling off the wood itself? Do you remember that house?
Yes, I do. That was
a that was absolutely crazy. So we’ve gone into houses and we’ve seen extensive extensive damage and know the importance. One of the things I like to tell my customers and I’m hoping Jerry can confer on this is I always say, if you think about the inspection process as a whole, it’s very important to have your house inspected, it’s very important to know what you’re buying. But from a perspective of looking at it from an outsider, the bank only requires one inspection I know of I could be wrong. Jerry, do you know, the only one I know of is the termite inspection. Does a bank require any other inspection?
On a conventional loan, I don’t think they require a termite inspection. That’s only FHA and VA. Well, so that’s up to the customer, to make sure that there are there really, it’s up to the home inspectors to educate the customer and make sure that they are getting a termite inspection to protect themselves.
Well, and I guess where
I think is my thought process was that if they aren’t putting enough down, they usually require them to have the termite inspection. So that way, the bank knows that they’re protected. But I know what FHA and VA you’re correct, it is absolutely requirement. Va as my
fight they require it even if you’re just refinancing. Yes.
So Jerry, and I have gone into these houses, we’ve seen the damage, we know the importance of people hiring a quality company. What is your What is your experience been? You’ve done this for a long time. And I’m not the only inspector you’ve done work for? I don’t want to put anybody else down. But you know, have you seen other people that just are out there? As I call it? One of the famous things we refer to as ghosting, have you seen those people who are out there just kind of floating through them?
Yes. The one thing I’ve always base my business off of is having professionals there with me, I’m not a termite Inspector, I have not went to school for termites, I have not had the education that you need to find termites. And I have passed them up and been and other guys that I’ve worked with has found them after I’ve passed them. So there is guys out there home inspectors that do their own termite inspection, but uses us as a termite companies license in order to get it passed user license number on the actual report. And to me, that’s just not it’s not beneficial to the customers, because they’re not getting that educated person to find the termites damage and the termites that they need to find to make sure they’re protecting that customer.
Yeah, I mean, we we know, for instance, in our own industry here that there are guys who are not Pest Control guys doing termite inspections, and there’s nothing that I can do about that. It’s just what it is. And, you know, we always try to recommend to people that hiring somebody who’s been around and in the industry is your best way to go about it. And that that for me is us Ben’s Pest Control 25 years of experience being put to work for you when you buy your house. And I guess one last things last Jerry is you know, Jerry, you’ve seen some of the houses where some of the things we have found a look like absolutely minor little specks and we have found Terp termite damage that that most people would consider hidden.
You can attest for hopefully how thorough we are.
Yes, numerous times finding little small lines that just look like little stripes inside to the baseboard or something and when we start really digging, and then finding major damage that should be dealt with. ASAP so that they can have a home that’s not gonna fall apart on them in the near future.
Okay, well, I thank Jerry for coming in today and for talking to us I thank him for helping us with our podcast today. If you need an inspection please give myself or Jerry Cook with a protected to Home Inspections a call and we would love the opportunity to earn your business. Thank you
