RIA New Construction Phase Inspection creates a win for Customer, Builder, and Agent!

Absolutely the Easiest Way to Get Your New Construction Home-Buyers to Contract Quicker, Feel Comfortable During Construction and Eliminate the Need For Crazy Call-Back Complaints after Closing!

It’s amazing to ponder the wonders of modern manufacturing.  An automated assembly line can spit out dozens of luxury cars an hour with hardly a human hand. Micro-chips are being built and surgeries on humans are now being performed by robots.  Yet, we still build homes on-site, of wood, and by hand! No matter the eye of the architect, the will of the contractor or the skill of the carpenter – as long as home building is being done by human hands, there will be errors. Discovering those errors as soon as they occur so they can be easily corrected is the role of the home inspector in new construction.

RIA’s New Construction Phase Inspection Program

• The primary goal of the RIA New Construction Phase Inspection Program is to have a very happy home-buyer who is in love with their home, their builder and their agent.  Happy customers are your best referral source!
• The second goal of the RIA New Construction Phase Inspection Program is to have ZERO homeowner complaints or builder call-backs! That is a win for the customer, builder and the agent!

Political Ties

It’s interesting to compare the responsibilities of the City Building Department with that of the independent home inspector. According to Florida Statutes paragraph 468.604, it is the responsibility of the Building Department to ensure Florida Building Code compliance of the plans for the home and to inspect to ensure that the home is being built in accordance with the Florida Building Code. As stated in Florida Statutes paragraph 553.72, the purpose of the Florida Building Code is to “establish minimum standards primarily for public health and life safety, and secondarily for the protection of property as appropriate.” To paraphrase the legislator, “Don’t let houses kill voters!” You can’t get a referral from a customer if the house you sold them kills them.  In that respect, you and the legislator have a common interest.  But, for your customer to be a future referral source to you, they must do more than just be breathing; they must be smiling and in love with their home AND the home building experience.

Guided by the NAHB Performance Manual

Simply being code-complaint rarely results in a happy home-buyer.  This fact was recognized by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) when they published the “Residential Construction Performance Guidelines for Professional Builders & Remodelers.”  These performance guidelines were created and reviewed by more than 300 builders! The NAHB performance manual is carried and referenced by every RIA inspector when performing New Construction phase inspections. It is the key to your buyer loving their new home, even with its imperfections. Imperfections in a brand new home? Of course there are imperfections!  Some common examples include:  cracks in the slab, bowed walls, and gaps at trim joints.  You would agree that these are imperfections, but when are imperfections worthy of a correction?  That’s the purpose of the NAHB performance manual – to establish standards for how big a slab crack, how bowed a wall, or how large a trim gap can be before it requires a correction. The NAHB performance standard sets a precise target for the builder to deliver, and a clear expectation for the home-buyer to accept.  The home inspector is working for the home-buyer and with the home-builder to deliver a home that will result in a happy client, a builder without meritless call-backs, and an agent with an enhanced referral base.

So, What’s the Problem?

Here’s the present problem with this process… there are almost no builders, superintendents or site agents who have any idea that the NAHB performance standard even exits!  That’s where you and I come in to make the new home-buying experience great for the customer, builder and agent.

RIA Can Help

The Residential Inspector of America staff is full of Certified Master Inspectors who were formally contractors and building superintendents.  The RIA office staff has coordinated with every major builder in town to ensure that our inspectors have met and provided copies on file of every builder’s requirements for licensing, insurance, workers compensation certificates and criminal back-ground checks. When you or your new home-building customer calls RIA, you can be sure you are in good hands with our experience and professionalism to guide you through every step of the way! To make payment simpler RIA offers the Bill-Me-Later program featuring Zero Interest and No Payments for up to 6 months!  And it’s available on EVERY Residential Inspector of America service. To get your FREE copy of the NAHB “Residential Construction Performance Guidelines,” contact our team today. Working together, we can have happy customers who refer friends and love their home-builder.

This Spring, Wally Conway was invited to present to the City of Jacksonville Building Department on the collaborative roles of COJ Building Inspectors and independent home inspectors.  Wally would like to present this program to you, the agents in your office, and the builders that you work with. To get the program scheduled, call (904) 590-1306.