Inspect it like a girl because we look better! w/Pam Pybas

Pam Pybas is the owner of Inspect It Like A Girl, a Certified Master Inspector, and a wealth of knowledge for homeowners and property investors. In this episode, Pam shares what she looks for during inspections, explains her rigorous process, and gives tons of tips and tricks for remote investors to keep their investments in top shape. Pam's links: Website: inspectitlikeagirl.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/InspectItLikeAGirlRidgeland Podcast: www.npr.org/podcasts/486075865/fix-it-101  --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.    Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Pam Pybas from inspected like a girl. And Pam is going to be talking to us today about all of the things that she looks for during her investor home inspections and some things and tips and tricks that you can do as an owner, both in your own home and your investment properties to help them last even longer. So let's get into it.   Pam, thank you so much for taking the time and joining me today. I really appreciate you coming on.   Pam: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.   Michael: Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled to have you here. You're a home inspector and your business is called Inspect it Like A Girl right?   Pam: That's right. Our tagline is inspected like a girl because we look better.   Michael: I love it. I love it. How long have you been? How long? Have you been inspecting homes?   Pam: I started in May of 2003. I'm in? Yeah, we're in Central Mississippi, Tri County area right around Jackson. Yes, Metro. Well, Mississippi didn't have a lot of Metropolitan. Yeah, we Yeah. Anyway, we're super smaller, tiny, teeny, tiny little state. But yeah, I'm in Central Mississippi. I'm from here. So my dad was a contractor. So that's how I got involved in it.   Michael: I was gonna ask okay, so you kind of grew up around construction and the home business.   Pam: I was cleaning job sites when I was in middle school. I was told my dad told me if I wanted dinner, I had to clean up the sawdust.   Michael: It sounds like he ran a tight ship.   Pam: He did. He did. My mom was a painter. And my brother was a finishing carpenter. So we the whole family was.   Michael: The whole family!   Pam: Mhm.   Michael: Oh, how great. Well, one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on today is just to give folks an idea about what to expect out of a home inspection. And I think a lot of things that come up in inspections really catch people off guard, and people make mountains out of molehills. So I would love if you could talk to us today about what are things that you're looking for when you go inspect a home? And what are maybe some things that sound like big things, but maybe really aren't such a big deal?   Pam: That's a great question. Um, you know, the, unfortunately, what's happened in the inspection industry is that the report sometimes is used to beat people up. And it turns into this big war over what we're going to fix and not fix. So I love that question. And especially from an investor perspective, you know, and I've been working with investors a little over 10 years now. And we actually do an investor inspection, which is, you know, my assumption is that investors know how to put the pretty on the pig. But they they're not real sure what, you know, from a general maintenance perspective, what are you going to be your big deals?   So when I'm working with investors, I'm looking at what's going to be your big ticket item. So your roof, what's your, what's the condition of that roof? How much? How much more time do you have with that roof? Now in Central Mississippi, we're going to be different than other parts of the country, because we have these things called hail storms. And   Michael: I've heard of it   Pam: Yeah, it's it's we had, we've had some catastrophic hail storms. And so you know, the condition of your roof, and you just have to remember from an investor perspective, what your insurance is going to cover and the age of that roof. So we just tried to give them, especially when we're dealing with remote folks, we take a ton of photographs, because we want to give you a really good idea of what that roof looks like. And we also we differ from some other inspectors, and that I'm trying to take as many photographs as I can because everything is digital now it's not like you're going to have a book or a thing of paper, it's going to be so we're going to take photographs of the roof all four sides, if we can get to it then we're going to give you a lot of photographs of the attic and what that looks like your access there. And so you know, because the roof could end up being a very expensive fix if you're gonna have to come in and put a new roof on you want your you know, deferred maintenance and all that.   So we're looking at the roof we're looking at you mechanicals, um, if you know how old is your heating air, we don't care much about heat here in Mississippi, we're a little bit   Michael: You’ve got plenty of it there.   Pam: We got plenty of the hot stuff, but your air conditioner because that's going to be a call of if a tenant gets moved in and they're not comfortable, then you're going to end up with a bunch of phone calls. So we're going to really look at that air conditioning system and how its installed. And I talk about this a lot on my own podcast is that even if you've got a newer system, if the whole system has not been maintained, you could really have some problems from putting a new system in.   So, we tried to, in our inspection, let the investor know, you know, you've got a new system in but your ductwork is old, and it looks like you're starting to get some condensation from that. So you may want to invest a little bit in sealing all that up, so that you don't end up, because I actually just did a, we do consulting work as well. And I had a client who had a tenant in a property, and you know, bless God bless them, just God bless them, all these tenants. But they're not paying attention. You know, and I tell people all the time, they're not, it's not a conspiracy against you. Because they didn't tell you something. The busy, they got kids, they got jobs they got, you know, there's a lot things there's a pandemic going on, and a lot of things going on, right.   So this tenant did not realize that there was mold in the closets, until it was catastrophic. And it was the result of an air conditioning job that got put in that wasn't done well. And so now we've got a problem that could have been fixed, you know, for a couple of $1,000 ended up costing over 80 grand to come in and do a roommate over media, I know drop jaw dropped the jaw,   Michael: Holy smokes, bringing the crane to pick up my job, the floor   Pam: Oh, it was a mess. And, you know, um, we were able to come in and work with this client and the insurance company actually paid. Guyana wrote her a check for 82 Five. Because, it wasn't the the system wasn't put in, right. And so if I could stress anything with your investors is I know property managers will do the spot checks, but what you really want to think about is getting an inspector in there on a yearly basis to make sure you don't end up with a situation where you're, you know, it's a couple $100 To get an inspector to go in there and check things like you know, water air conditioning, you know, water heaters, and, you know, so the other things we check, I don't know, somebody really needs to explain to me why we started putting our water heaters in the attic, helped me understand why somebody out that was a good idea.   Michael: I've never seen that before or heard of that happening. I don't think it's a good idea.   Pam: It's a horrible idea. And they do it a lot here in Mississippi. And one of the reasons that we get away with it in the south is because we don't have freezing temps see so we can throw the stuff or air conditioning systems in our wall. Well, what we found out was if you don't maintain that, and that water heater decides that it wants to go byebye, and then you know you got a rainstorm in your house. Right? Because I don't guarantee you that tenants not gonna go up there and check that pan to make sure there's no water in it.   Michael: No, no. And how are you supposed to exercise the pressure relief valve with it up there?   Pam: Well, then that's such Yes. How?   Michael: Interesting.   Pam: I know, I just it's just beyond me. We move in towards, you know these rental properties. Normally, you're not going to put a tankless water heater in there. That's huge here with our new construction. And Pammi even had one put in at my house built 58. About 15 years ago, I took all that crap out of my attic. And I stuck it I put my water heater tankless water heater on the outside of the house and put my air conditioning unit in a closet and we've lived happily ever after since then. But   Michael: Oh good.   Pam: Yeah, going back to the question. So we're looking at your big ticket items. So you know, your roofs, your mechanicals, your electrical. One of the things that we're seeing with our investors is that and I have a really good friend who owns a lot of investment properties in the Jackson area is she was she had to change insurance companies and she's got now she's got like four or 500 units, okay. And she for whatever reason, and we haven't dinner that the night she said yeah, we had to change insurance companies, and they made us do an inspection Have all the wiring and then they had to now something that she wasn't thinking about or anticipating as far as an expenditure, she's going to have to update all of her older panels. And drop. Yes, hello.   Now, if you've got 10 properties is a lot deeper than 400 properties, and she's not going to have to do them all. But you know, your electrical really needs to be maintained and checked, because the last thing you want is an electrical fire in a in a, you know, a rental house. So we check all that out. You don't have to bring it up to, you know, current building standards, that would be cost prohibitive. But we do need to look at some safety issues and make sure you know, things are safe, I guess. And some of these panels in these older houses have just moved beyond safe, they're just not safe anymore. So electrician needs to go in and check those breakers and make sure that they're popping off when they're supposed to, you know, when that wire overheats, we want that breaker to pop off. So we're looking at that I'm opening that panel up and checking all those wires.   And another thing, one thing that we do, and I remember the first time I saw somebody do this, it's scaring me to death. But we can take the back end of a screwdriver and pull it down, you know, and hit every one of those wires to make sure that they're in that breaker and that the breaker is on they're really, really tight. You'll be surprised how many of them are loose. But you don't need to Don't, don't go out there and do that that's willing that don't go do that, leave to the professional.   And then we're running. We're running water, you know, um, it's one of the things that we see here in Mississippi is we've got a lot of foundation issues on the slabs. And you certainly don't want to purchase a property where you've got a broken sewer line in the slab. And the way that there are some inspectors out there that do sewer scopes, I chose not to do that we work out of little mini coopers and I didn't want to put that equipment inside a car. I also don't want to pick up a toilet. You know, I'm an old lady. I don’t want to do that. So you can get…   Michael: Seems reasonable.   Pam: Yeah, I mean, you know, scoping is nasty. I mean, when you scope when you pull it out.   Michael: Yeah, absolutely. It's a bit in the sewer.   Pam: I know, I'd spend the whole day vomiting if I ended it. So we gotta let somebody you know, that's why I never skimp on a plumber, because you just need a good plumber.   Michael: They're in their money.   Pam: Yeah, tell you what, now, daddy always said, shit rolls downhill. So I mean, you just don't leave that to those guys. Or ladies, I actually know some female plumbers, but um, yeah, those are, those are the things that we're going to look like look for an investment property. And then you know, other things like, we want to make sure that we've got a windows that open in bedrooms, and you don't want to have bars on the windows, those type of things that can affect your insurance, whenever you're trying to insure some of these properties. I'm trying to think if there's, you know, foundation, roof, plumbing, electrical, those are really air conditioning, those are big deals, and then we'll get into general maintenance.   So if you've got a lot of rotten wood, you need to go in and take care of it. Because it's rotten wood is like spoiled milk, you can put it back in the refrigerator is still spoil. So that rotten was not going away. You might as well go ahead and invest and getting that fixed and putting some paint on it. And you know, because it'll water you know, water is our biggest enemy of any house. So and the investor could actually think water is my biggest enemy. What do I what do I need to do to make sure that you know the property is not damaged by water? Because once you start that, if it's not rectified, it's just gonna get worse and worse.   Michael: And, Pam, one of the reasons I love being one of the co-hosts of the show is that we always joke we get to ask self serving questions. So in the interest of self service here, I have a question for you about HVAC.   Pam: Okay.   Michael: And I want to know, what are your thoughts on mini splits?   Pam: Love em!   Michael: How come? Low ducting?   Pam: Yeah, there's no yeah, the fewer the parts, the better. They're good and specific applications. The thing you got to be careful with is that if you've got a multi room, your split may not work as well, because you don't have service into you know, specific areas. So, you know, I'm, I'm kind of a nerd I read manuals on stuff. So check your, the manufacturer's specifications on a particular unit on the amount of square footage that it can cover. And then what you can expect if you put in like I've got a real open floorplan here. So I can put I could do if I wanted to do that I worked with a client on doing that in an older property. She had a sunroom that she had added. And it was it never felt right. And so we work to get her the, you know, the mini splits? What are those? Can't think of the name of, Mitsubishi. Got her a couple of mini splits.   She's Yeah, yeah, to put in that. And it really helped. She's kind of had an interesting situation because it was an older house. It's like 100 year old house, and the unit that she had put in, you know, when you start adding air conditioning to these older properties, you better be careful. Because if they're not used to it, and you don't have enough insulation, now, you've created a whole lot of problems with that as well. But I personally love them. But it's just like anything else, you really have to be careful on your application and make sure that you're using it with what the unit was intended for. Like where do you want to put it? You want to put it in rentals? Are you looking at putting it in a bonus room in your house? Or?   Michael: Yeah, thinking about putting it in my in my new primary?   Pam: Okay, yes. And like in a bonus room or something that's kind of split off from everybody else, or you want to do the whole house.   Michael: I'm thinking about doing the whole house. It's an older style Three, two, it's got thin, it's got little insulation in the wall. So I was planning on doing some some spray and insulation in there as well. And then putting a couple multi zoned mini splits.   Pam: You know what's cool about those and I haven't seen there was a guy here in town that I spent some time with that was doing those. Have you seen the ones where you hang them on the wall and their picture? It's, it's it's, yeah, it's like you can have it. It's artwork. And so it's up high. Oh, no, that's awesome.   Michael: That's really cool. I've seen the TVs that are like our artwork, but never heard of mini splits, you know?   Pam: Yeah. Yeah. And I haven't seen this guy was real into the energy efficiency and all that, you know, everything that goes with that. So I thought that is awesome. And they're pretty, you know, the newer ones are quiet. You know, all this is is the updated stuff we would have in motels. Right. Yeah. So in your situation, are you talking to them about maybe one condenser and then the two mini splits inside?   Michael: Yeah, exactly.   Pam: Yeah. That's what we did at this client's house. And she was she's, she loves it. So and if she knew I was alright. She would call me. I wouldn't know if she wasn't happy.   Michael: Yeah. Very good. Okay. Cool. Thank you so much for sharing and thanks, everyone listening for letting me borrow Pam's time here for a minute. I'm also curious to get your thoughts on what are some things that homeowners can do, either in their own homes as owner occupants or in their investment properties, whether they have a management company do it or they do it themselves, that are easy things to fix that are often looked over? Like the one thing that I'm thinking about is exercising that pressure relief valve on the on the hot water heater, right, draining the tank down, filling it up, exercising the pressure relief valve, little stuff like that Tips and Tricks you've picked up over the years that folks can do that are easy, that help extend the life of their ex mechanicals and expensive pieces of equipment.   Pam: Oh, boy, what a great question. I'm checking those GFIs popping those on and off, manufacturer of your ground fault interrupters that are in your bathrooms and kitchen says that you should test those every month. Because what will happen they're made out of plastic and they will freeze. And so you can go around and you can buy the testers or you can just use your finger and pop it on and off. Maybe   Michael: Don’t you just use a fork you just stick the fork in there and then yeah, you will you know if it works.   Pam: Yeah, you could do that and curl your hair all at the same time.   Michael: Don’t stick forks and electrical outlets!   Pam: Oh, arc faults nail are big. But I don't know that you would have that in a rental. But if you've got them in your personal home, the arc faults in your panels popping those on and off. We do those whenever we do an inspection. Um, I just came in and now my house is older and I redid the weather stripping on my windows and very easy fix. It was a weekend project for me. Um, my windows are older windows. So I found that that and we've been getting some colder winters down here. So I wanted to do that.   Um, I think I have my heating air equipment on a yearly maintenance. So I have them calm and it's so funny because I watch everything they did. I think that's worse. Yeah. I'm like, Okay, tell me what you're doing now. Um, so yeah, I like to know exactly what's going on. And then I'll tell you something and you can go, we've got an Inspect it Like a Girl YouTube channel, I'm in the process of really, really working on that right now.   Michael: Cool.   Pam: Something that people do not think about when it comes to indoor air quality is on an air conditioning system. Now, if you do your mini splits, you're not going to have to deal with this. But in really, for investors, too, it'd be so nice if you would pay attention to this part of the scenario. Air-conditioning works by pulling air in and pushing air out the where the place where it comes in, normally is in the wall. And that's where you would put a filter on, you know, either a monthly or three monthly, you know, three, I've got mine on about two and a half months, and I use those paper filters. What people don't pay attention to is what's behind the filter. If what is behind the filter is disgusting. Why do you have a filter? Michael: Yeah, it filters in the wrong place.   Pam: Yeah, it's just gross. And I've been inspecting for a long time now 1718 years. And I am just amazed at how many times I will go in, pull off the register on the return pull the filter down. And that is disgusting back there. And then I'll go in because we were one of the in, you know, if you're an inspector, this is an awesome idea. You open every single cabinet, and every single built in drawer, because you want to know if those hinges are work, you want to know if there's holes back there, and you're taking pictures of all of that stuff, because you can't see behind stuff. So we open everything and take photographs.   Well, I open up medicine cabinets, and there's all kinds of antihistamines and allergy medication. And if there's a baby in the house, there's all these drops, and I just My heart just breaks for that child, because the occupants have no idea that the house is making them sick. So if you could take that filter down, and look up in there, and if it's gross, get a shop vac or a vacuum cleaner, vacuum it out, now get in there with a rag and some soap. Don't use Clorox people.   Please don't use people think Clorox or water no killing them old. Well, no, you've just made a lot worse. Um, but get you some soap and water, get in there, clean the walls up, then go buy you some great stuff foam and seal all the edges so that the only air that's being pulled into your air conditioning system is coming from the return. Because if the seams where the wall hits the floor, if that's not sealed, you're pulling what I call negative air out of the wall cavity. I've seen it where it's open all the way up to the attic. So now you're not only pulling in nasty air into your air conditioning system, you're pulling attic air into your air conditioning system. So you just set it up to fail for high energy bills.   So sealing up the return is something anybody can do in there. I didn't know it. You know, I mean, I was around construction my entire life had no idea. And then when I got into inspecting houses ran into a guy who was doing this kind of stuff. So we came into my personal home. And I did that and sealed everything up. And I haven't been sick in years.   And then think about this too. And I am a write this book, there was one that came out years ago, our houses are making us sick. And I think air conditioning systems are making us sick. And it is because we're pulling in bad nasty air and distributing it in the house. So if your house is dusty, probably your return is not sealed up well. Because the dust is being redistributed because you're pulling the nastiness from the wall cavity and putting it in the house.   So seal up your return and then another thing and you know if you've watched any of any of the stuff on this pandemic, and they talk about well, when we're all going to be inside is when it's going to get worse. And then in the summertime summer months when we're all outside the numbers kind of went down. Well, what happens is in the wintertime, the flu is a viral type thing. So it's not really we share it with each other, you know, so you really share the flu more whenever whenever it's cold. But there's a higher incidence of people thinking that got the flu in the winter, well, I have a theory that is not the flu. It's carbon monoxide poisoning. Because carbon monoxide poisoning has the very same symptoms as the flu, nausea, headache. It will, diarrhea. I mean is. And if you're if your furnace is back drafting in any way, you know, you go home and you feel like shit. And then you go to work and you feel better. And you're like, Oh, I'm feeling better. And then you go back home and you feel like shit.   Michael: Oh my gosh. So what if it's that is wild.   Pam: I know when that crazy. I'm just so and I, I'll never forget when I was new, you know, a million years ago. You see his hair is real gray. Very gray.   Michael: It's a great!   Pam: Yeah, well, thank you. It's very popular. I'm a kind of a trendsetter with this gray hair.   Michael: I was gonna say yeah, ahead of the times. I love it.   Michael: Yeah, we didn't make this up. We've had this for like, How old am I? I'm 59. And I started graying when I was 30. So it's been a minute. I've had it!   Michael: Love it. Yeah. Love it.   Michael: Um, so when I was a new inspector, what will happen?   Michael: Okay.   Pam: Let me take this to the next step. So furnaces, gas furnaces. If you got too many splits, you're not going to have to worry, you're solving a lot of problems by just using your mini split. But fantastic. Yes, gas furnaces, which are awesome. I mean, they're fine. But if they don't draft right, or if it's an older unit that has a crack in the heat exchanger, then you are literally pumping carbon monoxide into the house. So in the wintertime, and it's not enough to kill you, it just makes you feel like you want to be dead. I mean, it just makes you so sick. When that furnace comes on, and it puts, and I tell everybody carbon monoxide alarms and don't get the I don't like the combo units, you know, if you've got tenants,   Michael: Okay,   Pam: What I like are the ones for carbon monoxide because carbon monoxide is heavy and it will hover and go low. So I like to have them plugged in, in the sleeping areas. And that would be something that your property manager would check on, you know, regularly make sure that they're plugged in and if they've unplugged them, you know, why did you unplug it? Well, because it kept going off. Well. Perhaps that would be something you'd need to tell me.   Pam: Yeah, it's like people taping their breakers open or shut rather because they keep popping off. popping off.   Pam: I'll fix that. Oh,   Pam: I'll fix that. Yeah. That's that's a duct tape. I'm right. Everything.   Michael: Yep, fixes everything.   Pam: So yeah. Oh, God, especially on plumbing. That's my favorite. Um,   Michael: Yes.   Pam: I was in a so when I was new, I was in this house. And it was empty and I turned on the furnace. It was in the middle. It wasn't wintertime. And when the buyer showed up, I was in the front yard puking. I mean, just vomiting and vomiting and vomiting. And I went I went back and I said don't go in the house. And when in my head was killing me and I turn the unit off and aired everything out and I felt better. And so and then, uh, you know, I went into this house one time this Pam's horror stories, and it was a tenant situation. And there were some babies involved that living there and I opened up the mechanical closet in the furnace flue wasn't even connected. I was like, How can these people…?   Michael: Oh my gosh, so is the best way to check for that kind of stuff, just simply having carbon monoxide detection? Or could there be an instance where it could be making you sick, but that's not enough to have the alarm go off?   Pam: It's Yeah, very true. That could definitely happen. So but so here's what   Michael: So what's the best way to check?   Pam: Um, well, having a having it in your bedroom would be a good idea. You can also maybe put one and I've seen this in newer construction will they'll have them next to the unit up in the attic, or they'll have one mounted in the closet. And so now with these smart houses, you can have these detectors that will tell you you know, it just shows up on your phone. Yeah, and let you know, it would probably even monitor your levels to let you know. I'm not as familiar with some of those but I always advocate I've got em in my house. Man even though my water Now is on the outside I put in a tankless gas tankless water heater, it's on the outside wall, so I don't have to worry about that. And my furnace is close to my bedroom but not in my bedroom. So which you can't do, by the way, don't put a furnace. And so that's a big no no for no water heater, it's a big gas water heater in a bedroom either. And people will remodel and they'll do that, or you can't have a bedroom next to a home. Don't have a bedroom next to a garage. You lost your mind.   Michael: Yeah.   Pam: People do it all the time.   Michael: People don't think about that kind of stuff.   Pam: They don't I mean, they don't think about it. And unfortunately, human nature is you don't think about it, too, you have a bad experience   Michael: Until it's too late.   Pam: Yep. Yeah, until it's too late. And so you know, what my job is, as an inspector is to try to give you as much information about the house so that you can maintain that house because it's an investment, it's biggest investment most of us will make. So why not? Why not maintain that. So that that your the return on your investment will be good, because, you know, you'll eventually sell that. And you would like to not have to, you know, give away the farm just because you've got so much deferred maintenance that in order to get the buyer to buy it, you've got to, you know, say well, I'll give you this much. Well, now your profits gone, because you didn't take care of it on a regular basis.   And I say this is just my motto. Now I talk about this on my podcast all the time, the best house is a frequently inspected house. So I personally have I have inspectors working for me, and I have my house inspected every four years. So I know, in my personal home, I mean, I don't just preach that I live that because I want to take care of my investments. Because eventually, you know, Pammi is gonna sell this and go to the country and throw a lawn in the pond and not worry about anything.   Michael: Yeah. That's such a good idea. And I don't know why it never occurred to me to do that before it makes so much sense.   Pam: It does. I mean, it's the worst phone call idea is the client who says, oh, yeah, it's a great house, one owner, they've been there 40 years, and I'm like oh shit, I'll be there for forever.   Michael: Never had an inspection.   Pam: Never had an inspection, Papa’s come over, Hey, honey, I'll fix that for you. He was just like, man. Yeah, yeah, there's gonna be a lot going on there. So, you know, I talk, we do a general maintenance inspection. And we've actually started doing quite a few of those, you know, so people can protect that investment and take care of things. And sometimes it's because they've had a bad experience a water heater that blew up or, you know, a storm or.   And another thing I tell people to is a remodel inspection. You hire that contractor and you trust them. But human nature is you're only as good as your worst employee. So if you've got, you know, if you've got somebody that you're trying, and it's not their fault, they didn't really know. But if nobody's watching, you know, you write your last check, and they're gone. And then you get a home inspection in a couple of years, and you've got to pay to fix all the things they didn't do right.   Michael: That is such a good idea. That is such a good idea.   Pam: I’m just full of them Michael, just follow them.   Michael: I can see that. Which, which actually leads me to my next question. I mean, you're only in Central Mississippi, which is a real shame. I wish we could make carbon copies of you and have you everywhere.   Pam: Me too! I’ve been thinking about that for years!   Michael: Yeah, that's, that's the next great business idea. That way you can go get your line in the water tomorrow.   Pam: That's right.   Michael: And not feel guilty about it.   Pam: That's right.   Michael: How do how do people vet their home inspectors? I mean, are they all created equal? Is there a national standard? What What should people be looking out for?   Pam: No they're not created equal? Just like anybody else, you know, daddy used to always say, You know what they call the guy with the lowest grade passing grade and medical school?   Michael: What's that?   Pam: Doctor.   Michael: Yeah. That's so true. That's so true. Isn't that a scary thought?   Pam: Yeah. Um, I would and I tell I actually talked about this, you want to get online see the best your best friend is Google, or Yelp, or Angie's List? Look at those reviews. And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say something here that makes me not real popular with the real estate community, but I really don't care. Um, I'm not going to use the inspector, my realtor recommends until I vetted that inspector So, you know, because it's the fox watching the henhouse sometimes.   Michael: Yeah, yeah.   Pam: So that your inspector by looking at their credentials, you can go either to well, you just Google it, put that company in there, or just Google home inspectors in your area, and then go through and look and see what do other people who've worked with them have to say about that inspector? Or that company? Let me get rid of this. So that really is the biggest thing to me. And then you may want to look at how long have they been doing it? And what other credentials do they have? Like, right now? Well, I've got a contractor's license, I'm ICC cert International Code Conference certified is to be residential builder license. I've got I'm a member of all kinds of associations, continuing education is kind of a passion from I just love it. I love going to the you know, yeah, we're finally going to have an in person conference. But I love going to these things and sitting down and asking a lot of questions. So see if your inspector is involved in their inspector community. And also, if they're involved in a continuing education, what are they doing to and when was the last ask him, What was the last class you took?   You know, and even I do on our podcast, Fix it 101, Jeff is the contractor on there, he's, and he's Past President of Mississippi Association, or Home Builders Association. And he will say, when you get ready to hire a contractor, ask Him for who they're working with now and get their phone number. And give him a call? How was it? What was your experience? Like? How was your experience? So with the online stuff, now, you can go to Facebook, you can go to all these different things and just ask next door. I love that app. You know, when you put home inspector, you know, who would recommend a home inspector just see what they say, if people have had a good experience, then they'll let you know.   Michael: Oh, yeah.   Pam: And then I want to know how long they're going to be there. That's a really important question. And I tell people all the time, if you want a cheap inspector, we don't sell those here, we don't sell cheap inspection at Inspect it Like a Girl. You know, that's if that's what your budget calls for. And that's what you want to do, you can find somebody out there that will do do a cheap inspection. But a cheap inspection could end up costing you 1000s of dollars. So you want I want to know how long you're going to be there. On average, we are on site twice the amount of time that our competition is.   So we're spending, it takes time to run, for instance, one of the things that we do in a full home inspection on a second floor is I'll go up to the second floor, and I'm running bathtubs up to the overflow. Because guess what? A lot of times they're not connected on your own…   Michael: Right, right.   Pam: All right. So but I don't want to create a rainstorm on the first floor, that makes the sellers kind of mad whenever that happens. So   Michael: I can imagine.   Pam: Yeah, so I have to kind of watch that. And make sure I get it to overflow, and then let it run, you know, maybe two or three minutes more than I'm going to take my thermal camera, go back downstairs and shoot that gun up to where that tub is. And if I have a black spot starting to show up before it comes through the shape rock, then I know that there's a problem there that that takes time. You know, if you're going to be there 30 minutes, what are you doing?   Michael: Yeah, what could you possibly be getting done?   Pam: What could you possibly be getting done, even in a Cabbage Patch house, and that we call cabbage patch patch anywhere from you know, 900 to 1100 1300 square feet, two hours minimum, to, you know, to get all that done? And then we like to ask your inspector, what's their review process. And what I do with my out of town investors is that we do a zoom call, and I take them through the entire report. And I break my reports into repair and general maintenance. So these are some things, these could be some deferred maintenance things. These are things you probably want to take care of right now. And then do they offer what we call a repair check inspection.   So and I do that a lot with my out of town investors because if something's fix, how are you going to know? And so we'll go back and you know, and make sure that everything's done right and regenerate that report with the repairs in there with the photographs. And this is what was done. Oh, So those are a few things that you want to do when you're when you're vetting an inspector, and then just what is there? If do they offer any type of volume discount, and we do that my folks are buying a bunch of properties here, we'll help you out. I'm not gonna, you know, I still have to make a living, I still have to, you know, pay my bills, you know, but if you're going to give me a volume, like we just finished 49 houses for some out of state investors, and we gave them, you know, some discounts on that, to get all those properties done. So I'm trying to think that would be, you know, is that helpful?   Michael: That's extremely helpful. That's extremely helpful. Yeah. Because I think that's one of the issues people run into is there's so many choices, how do you know, analysis paralysis, how do you choose? So this is some really great actionable takeaways that folks can use in the field, when we're looking for folks to inspect the properties.   Pam: And 2 when your remote. Okay, so when I'm dealing with folks, they want to know, they want to make sure that that report is easy to read, they don't want to get lost in the weeds, you know, and that's been something I've worked very well. And maybe it's because I'm female, but my presentation, I want it to be easy. I want a seventh grader to be able to go through that now I can tell you exactly what's going on. So I won't, I want you to be able to read that report and have an idea. And then the repair person, I ain't got time to answer questions from a repair guy that's walking recalls, and he's on the roof. And he wants to know where the nail pop is. Probably I just don't have time to stop what I'm doing. And plus, I don't remember where the nail pop is.   Michael: Go look at the report. Yeah, picture in there.   Pam: There's a photograph with a circle around it. This, you know, so everybody's on the same page about, you know, where everything is. So when you're talking to these inspectors, you know, find out get a sample report. You know, what, what kind of reporting software are you using? And if you get one of those, and it's hard for you to read it. You know, I'm not trying to impress you with my report writing skills and make you think I'm really smart. Because I'm, I'm really not, most of this is common sense. And so I just want to put it in a way that where you can understand it, I'm not going to get real technical, and because I'm just not that smart anyway. But you want to look at the report, you know, so you can read it, and you know what's going on, especially if you're long distance.   Michael: And it's useful.   Pam: Yeah, yeah, you want it to be useful. And then you've got a point of reference. So I know, okay, I've purchased this property, then I've got this report. And then, you know, we really recommend I've been, I've been pitching this idea for a while, is annual inspections. So if we do your inspections, let's say that the 49 that we just did, and they want us to do annuals for them? Well, they've got a baseline on every single house. So let's say they get a tenant in there, that's cooking meth in the back. Well, you know, we're going to go in, and we're going to take a bunch of photographs of all this stuff. And now you can see, well, that wasn’t there whenever I bought this.   Michael: Yeah.   Pam: Or the you know, the telltale signs, the you know, all the chlorine under the sink and the hole up at the top. And anyway, that type of stuff. So you just have a baseline for every property, and then you can maintain it and maintain your investment for as long as you want to have it.   Michael: So good. Pam, this has been absolutely fantastic. I want to be very respectful of your time and let you get out of here. But for for those of us for those listening, what is your podcast called? And how can folks get a hold of you if they want to utilize Inspect it Like a Girl services or have more questions about Central Mississippi?   Pam: um, the podcast is Fix it 101. And it's you can download on, you know, Spotify, Apple, whatever, any of those things. And it's run through our local Mississippi Public Broadcasting. So NPR and so you can find it that way as well. We do have a live show on Wednesdays and we've got folks listening from all over. I mean, we get we had an email from Korea. Like really?   Michael: Oh, how cool.   Pam: It was awesome. But you can listen to that. And we're talking about general maintenance stuff. It's not an inspector podcast. It's a you know, how do you maintain and we've got a contractor on there and it's DIY projects and you know, and it's actually quite funny. We have a really good time so Fix it 101.   And then you can if you've got any questions about the central area, you can reach us through our website, inspectitlikeagirl.com. We've got an Inspect it Like a Girl YouTube channel, you can email us the web, if you go to our website, it's got a, all our email information in there. And we can help you. We also have an on on a website where you can go on if you're looking at properties and put all that information in and then my office will give you a call and kind of give you an idea of scheduling and pricing. And then if you are going to buy bulk in our area, that would be something that they would then give to me and I would take a look at that. And we'd work out some pricing and scheduling all that kind of stuff.   Michael: Fantastic. Well, Pam, thank you again for taking the time. This was so wonderful, and I'm sure we'll be chatting soon.   Pam: All right, thanks, Michael.   Michael: Alright, everybody that was our episode a big big big thanks to Pam I know I had a blast. Definitely check out her website and YouTube channel Inspect it Like a Girl, or her podcast. And if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you listen your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you on the next one. And as always, Happy investing