Sherlock "Homes" Solve the case of "The Mystery House" for buyers.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Imagine the shock of purchasing a home and, one month later,learning the roof is about to collapse. This happened to one of myassociate's clients. The home was a foreclosure, and theclient, eager to "steal" the property on what appeared tobe favorable terms, signed a series of releases and closed withoutinspecting the attic. Had he done so, he would have noticed thatalmost all the timbers in the roof were rotten after years of slowleaks. Now our client has a home of lesser value and perhaps anunpromising legal action. If only he had been more careful.
Pillar toPost Inc., a franchisor of professional home-inspectionservices, targets home buyers who want to avoid just suchsituations. Franchisees, armed with a proprietary computer program,review a home and give the home buyer the information he or sheneeds to make an informed decision.
With about 186 locations in the United States and 89 in Canada,this system has blossomed since its inception in 1994, when Pillarto Post was started by chairperson Michael Brewer and presidentWilliam Norris. The pair created a unique business model thatemphasizes marketing to real estate and banking professionalsrather than consumer-driven marketing. Using a contact-managerprogram, the franchisees develop rapports that lead toreferrals.
Pillar to Post doesn't want absentee owners and finds themore successful franchisees have middle-management (rather thanhome-construction) backgrounds. A new franchisee's initialinvestment is anestimated $24,950 to $41,750-lower than some otherhome-inspection franchises, because you can run your office fromhome and don't have to use a vehicle with the company logo. Theinitial franchise fee varies with territory size; territories of100,000 or more in population cost $23,900, while the smaller onescost $13,900.
Operating a business like this has certain limitations. Forinstance, if you can't imagine yourself pawing about like areptile through a crawl space, perhaps this isn't the franchisefor you. And during the winter, lack of daylight and reduced realestate sales will probably cap the number of inspections you canperform.
According to Russell Abram, a franchisee in Pueblo, Colorado,inspection charges vary with the size of the home and itsgeographic location, but you could plan on an average cost of $200to $250. So, hypothetically, a one-person operation could grosssales of $450 per day during the winter; in the summer, threeinspections per day would be manageable. About 75 percent of salestake place between March and September, so forget about long summervacations once you ink this deal. When your business matures, youmight hire an employee to increase efficiency.
Finally, expect your franchise to be only as strong as yoursales skills and customer-service attitude. If you have thoseattributes, you may just find yourself in the right place at theright time (unlike my associate's client), because the youth ofthis chain means national name recognition is stillforthcoming.
Todd D. Maddocks is a franchise attorney and small-businessconsultant who is presently the CEO of The Worldlink Group LLC. Hecan be reached at TMaddocks@aol.com.
