Marketing Yourself to Realtors

Many established home inspectors receive a considerable amount of business through word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied past clients.

Some generate a few leads through their online presence each month as well.

As a home inspector, you understandably want to take every step possible to generate enough leads to keep you busy on a regular basis, and this means that you need to tap into as many methods for lead generation as possible.

After all, if you are not working on a new inspection, you are not making money.

The most successful home inspectors have developed a great referral network through real estate agents, and the majority of many inspectors’ business comes from this source.

With a closer look at real estate agent referrals, you will see why this is a critical marketing option that you need to develop in the coming months.

How Home Buyers Select a Home Inspector

In order to understand why real estate agent referrals are so important to home inspectors, you must first realize who your primary target audience.

While some homeowners will order a property inspection to learn more about the condition of their property or to get their home ready to list for sale, the majority of home inspection business is derived from home buyers.

This begs the question of how home buyers decide which inspector to call for assistance with their home buying needs.

Some buyers will ask friends or family members for referrals, and some will scour the Internet to find a home inspector who charges a great rate on services.

Most, however, will ask their trusted real estate agent for a referral. Some real estate agents may even offer a few names of home inspectors up-front without the home buyer asking for this information.

Why It Is Important to Market Yourself to Realtors

Real estate agents are viewed by many home buyers as being experts in their field. Regardless of how long they have actually been in the business, homebuyers may find that they have the experience and knowledge of the real estate market that can assist them with their home buying efforts.

When faced with any question or concern throughout the home buying process, they may turn to their real estate agent for guidance.

This includes when they need to hire a home inspector.

More than that, when a real estate agent recommends your services to them, you may instantly benefit from clout that comes from an inside referral. Someone in the business has referred you to them, so the homebuyer may immediately feel as though you can be trusted to do a great job.

This eliminates some of the need to sell your experience and qualifications. In fact, some home buyers may immediately call you to schedule an appointment without asking about your qualifications at all because of an agent referral.

How to Ensure You Get Realtor Referrals

As you can see, Realtor referrals are critical to the success of a home inspector. You understandably want to do everything you can to generate real estate referrals.

Generally, real estate agents have a list of their top few inspectors that they recommend to their clients.

Getting real estate agent referrals typically means that you need to be on this list, and you must devise a plan to meet more real estate agents and to do quality work for them.

You may consider focusing your interest on newer agents who do not yet have a list of inspectors to pass along to their clients.

You can market your services directly to new agents, and you can even call them directly to discuss the opportunity to develop a relationship with them. You can also work on referral business slowly over time.

By doing a great job on inspections and serving your clients well, you may automatically be placed on an agent’s referral list.

This slow and steady process is often more effective in a smaller market. In a larger market, you may not have the opportunity to do more than one report for an agent and to prove your skills and service-oriented attitude.

Beyond Quality of Work: What You Can Do to Satisfy Your Clients and Earn Repeat Business

As you can see your ability to make a great impression on real estate agents is critical to your ability to generate new business from referrals.

The buyer may be the one who contacts you for service, but the agent will typically make an appearance or will even stay on-site throughout the entire inspection.

You can use this time to position yourself as an expert to both the buyer and the agent by discussing your findings.

You also should offer timely appointment options and arrive on time as scheduled.

In addition, you should complete the report promptly and make recommendations or suggestions as needed. Your ability to fully satisfy all needs of the client or agent is critical to making a positive lasting impression.

How to Develop Effective, Ongoing Relationships with Real Estate Agents

It may seem awkward to do at first, but you should always ask real estate agents as well as their home buying clients for referrals. This is often done at the end of the inspection process when you are making final comments about the home or the billing process.

It may also be in an email when you provide the inspection report to them.

Home inspectors should also take the additional step of creating a database of all real estate agents they have worked with, and this includes both listing and buyer’s agents.

With this database, you can periodically send out a link to your blog posts or newsletter to further stay in touch and position yourself as an expert in your field.

With some real estate agents, you may have instant rapport and benefit from fast referrals.

With others, it may take months or years to cultivate a referral relationship.

Through your regular effort at building relationships and requesting referrals, you will see an increase in leads from agent referrals.