Home Inspection Photography

I notice that there was a website that sent me an email detailing

how I could make a good income shooting photos of residential

properties for home inspections etc. Is there any legitimacy to this?

Has anyone ever heard of such a job? Before I give this guy my money,

I wanted to check it out with the smart people of photo.net.

 

Joske

I personally have never paid more than about US$250 for a home inspection. Even a full

appraisal ususally tops out at US$400. Given that the home inspector or appraiser takes the

bulk of the money, there isn't much left over for a photographer. The requirements for a

normal home inspection or appraisal are quite minimal from a photographic standpoint.

Anyone, including the inspector or appraiser, can easily meet them with a cheap digicam.

They have to be there anyway so I can't believe there's much money in it.

This is just another of those "Turn your camera into a cash register" scams. It may seem plausible to an eager beaver novice wannabee, but it's not unlike those late night infomercials that purport to tell you how to buy real estate with no money down. Today, most real estate agents and appraisers can take more than adequate shots with cheap digital cameras, and largely do so. Why give this guy money?If you want to do this kind of work, go out and get it for yourself. What do you need a middleeman for?

Every home inspector I've ever seen carries a digi cam with them these days. The photos

they're taking aren't being used to sell anything, they're for documentation. There's really

no common sense reason to hire a professional photographer. You'd just have another

body in the way. When I sold a house a few years ago, the inspector had brought his

camera in to places that were hard to reach, in order to point things out that might want

to be addressed. I don't see any reason an inspector would hire someone to do that with

the cost of quality cameras these days.

 

I also agree that with the cost of the entire home inspection, you couldn't possibly get

much money out of it. I paid $250 or so when I bought my new house for a very thorough

inspection. What percentage of that would you want for it to be worth it? Now is that

realistic to give the inspector a fair share? It doesn't really add up.

 

You could try it, but it doesn't seem very lucrative, unless you were shooting them

constantly. I could think of things I'd rather be doing than taking snapshots of termite

evidence.

I have bought two houses. In neither instance did I receive any photos from the home inspection. It was a written report. I don't believe that photos would have added any value. The last one was 3 years ago, and it was around $250, like the others said. I just don't see any margin in there to make it worth somebody's time to show up just to take photos.

If I was making a fortune doing home inspection photography, would I waste my time setting up a netsite telling others how to steal my income? Think...its not logical. It falls in the same scam category as those who advertise how to make fortunes in real estate..or Peter Popoff selling bottled "healing water"

Most building inspection and building appraisal folks use digital cameras. They did this when high end digital was just VGA; and the cameras cost 600 bucks. Since these folks know what they are looking for; and gather info for their reports; hiring a professional photographer would be a major waste of money. The inspectors and appraisers have a decade plus experience many times with shooting digital images; for their pro work. Maybe there is money to be made where inspectors and appraisers are behind the times. Regions vary in what folks do; find where to make a buck.