Did you ever consider becoming a home inspector?
The Home Inspectors Institute ® (Ontario) offers home inspection training and education classes for prospective home inspectors
10 Reasons
Why Home Inspection is an Ideal Business Opportunity,
Career Change or New Career Choice.
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No franchise fees*. Minimal startup costs.
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Relatively short term startup training (period may vary dependent on each individuals previous experience).
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A home-based business with limited overhead costs.
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Can be conducted on a full or part-time basis.
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Unlimited income and potential for expansion.
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Growing demand for home inspection services.
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Cash flow benefits of onsite payment for services provided.
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Transportable skills - if you move to another location.
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9.
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Flexibility - set your own hours.
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10.
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An important, exciting and lucrative career.
* there are no franchise fees associated with our courses.
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There has never been a stronger demand for home inspections and qualified home inspectors as there is today. This is due, in part, to deficient construction practices, materials and workmanship as well as awareness of environmental hazards and a need to protect today's consumer who is better informed and wants maximum value for what is often the largest financial investment of his/her life.
Becoming a Home Inspector
Firstly, one has to understand that the Home Inspection profession remains unregulated in most of Canada. In 2009, British Columbia established a licensing requirement and Alberta soon fallowed. It is obvious to many, that most provinces will eventually follow in the same vein. So, other than in BC & Alberta, anyone can literally hang out a shingle and proclaim themselves as home inspectors. This has led to a glut of unqualified individuals who have often given their profession a bad name. Home Inspection can also be a very litigious profession and when someone advises a client incorrectly on what is generally, their largest investment of a lifetime and the client suffers as a result of the misinformation, one can only expect to get sued.
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The best way for home inspectors to stay out of court, is to ensure that they are properly equipped to do the job correctly, which always equates to appropriate and effective training. One of the best ways to become a professional home inspector today in Canada, is to join one of the recognized professional associations and follow their recommended path to certification. All that said, there are lots of associations to choose from - which is the best?
This is a delicate question to answer as they all have merits - many however are much better and credible than others.
Anyone getting into the profession should clearly understand, that there is no way that 1 course in home inspection will make anyone a home inspector. You require several courses in ALL aspects of home construction including, but not limited to: structural, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, health & safety to name just a few!
Anyone thinking that this is a profession to take lightly and where one can easily make a good living without sufficient training, should think again!!!
In Canada all one has to do is visit the countries leading information source on housing matters - CMHC The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. On their web site there is an excellent publication on "How to Hire a Home Inspector" In this publication, CMHC recognizes that there are many sources of finding a home inspector for those in need, however, they strongly recommend that consumers consider hiring a professional Home Inspectors that is a National Certificate Holder with The new National Home Inspector Certification Council - NHICC
In Canada, The Canadian Association of Home Inspectors (CAHPI) is one association where almost every province has a provincial level association that is part of CAHPI National as indicated on their web site www.cahpi.ca .
Each CAHPI Provincial Association has been individually responsible for determining the educational requirements of it's membership. All members of the CAHPI Provincial Associations are members of CAHPI National by virtue of their provincial membership fees of which a portion goes to the operation of CAHPI National.
The National Home Inspector Certification Council - NHICC is the overseer of the new National Certification Program which available to ALL home inspectors across Canada, regardless of their professional affiliation. Where CAHPI provincial associations all have similar membership requirements and generally work under the Standards of Practice of the national entity, there ARE differences. Hence the push by The National Home Inspector Certification Council, governments, CHMC, real estate boards and other industry stake holders over the years, to establish National Standards and a National Designation that would ensure that inspectors all across the country, had the same qualifications and worked to the same standards.
NHICC has been asked by the many industry stake holders to be the overseer of the National Certification program for Home Inspector in Canada. This new group is proud to award the "National Certificate Holder" designation to those inspectors who have not only met the training and educational requirements, but have had to prove their home inspection abilities, in front of a peer review board during a full test inspection. This is a first in Canada and a very positive move for the profession as a whole.
While NHICC is an independent body and not an association, it is appropriately positioned to offer non-biased certification of Home Inspectors across Canada.
There is however a new National Association dedicated solely to supporting and promoting the National Certificate Holder designation offered by NHICC. This group is The Professional Home and Property Inspectors of Canada whose full members are all National Certificate Holders. This association attempts to remain nonpolitical in nature and simply offer guidance and support for all inspectors interested in achieving National Certification through the NHICC.
So if an inspector doesn't belong to a professional association (considered nonaligned), does that mean that they are unqualified? The simple answer is NO - not necessarily. Many inspectors get fed up of the politics often attached to many associations and eventually -opt out. However, for a consumer, determining if a nonaligned inspector is, or is not qualified, can be a difficult task.
There are also many individuals calling themselves home inspectors who are not qualified, often having failed in their attempts to do so. Often the only way for these individuals to gain any sort of recognition, is to join an association whose requirements are not as rigorous or demanding as PHPIC (The Professional Home and Property Inspectors of Canada) or CAHPI. There are many of these so called- associations out there. Many have originated from the USA and migrated north into Canada. Many of these groups were founded by people in real estate in the US and offered memberships available through a quick test over the internet. Over the years, news of these - easy to qualify groups got out and investigative reporters on television programs like W5 exposed them to consumers as often "unqualified" While their popularity has spread to Canada and they are able to sell some memberships, these groups lack any real recognition with Canada's industry stake holders like CMHC.
So what about the nonaligned inspector who is qualified., where does that leave them? National certification is available to all nonaligned home inspectors in Canada in an effort to provide them with professional credibility and yet, not insist on membership within an association (unless they want to).
THE HOME INSPECTORS INSTITUTE® - Where do we fit in?
Home Inspectors ® has established a comprehensive introductory home inspection training course that is recognized by the National Home Inspector certification Council (NHICC) towards their National Home Inspector - NHI designation with 45 Hours of Technical and 25 Hours of Practicumm being awarded.
Our Introduction to Residential Home Inspection training course was specifically designed for qualified individuals interested in starting their own home-based business in one of the fastest growing sectors of the building/construction industry. Entrepreneur Magazine predicts that over 90% of all homes purchased over the next few years will require home inspections. Experts in real estate are now predicting that the home inspection industry will grow by 200% in Canada and the USA by 2014 with a forecast of 7 to 10 million inspections needed over the next five years.
The Home Inspectors Institute ® is a privately owned and operated home inspection school located in Ottawa Ontario which offers an insight into this profession for anyone seriously interested in becoming a home inspector. Our Introduction to Residential Home Inspection training course provides a winning combination of formal classroom sessions and onsite inspection experience, a great combination to get the new home inspectors training off to a good start. Our head trainer has been a professional home inspector since 1980 and has years of practical experience and tips and tricks of the trade to share with students.
is NOT in the business of selling franchises, nor do we recommend that our students consider buying into a franchise. We also do NOT offer any home inspection "Certification" to our students. Our successful graduates receive a certificate of completion for our "Introduction to Residential Home Inspection" but without additional training, our graduates are NOT ready to get into the profession, nor are we making any claims that they will be.
So What Makes our Course Different from Others?
Our course isn't the least expensive or the longest offered but it has often been called "The Best" by many of our graduates who have attended courses offered elsewhere. Be it Government sponsored, community college or professional association courses - there just is no comparison - period!
WHY? - Because our course is unique - we combine classroom training with actual practical inspection sessions. Students are tested daily on their work and are provided invaluable feedback on all aspects of their inspection presentation - from reports to commentary. They also gain wonderful insights from hands-on inspection experience in the field from someone who knows his stuff and is one of Canada's top home inspectors- something not offered by many other home inspection courses!
How can you be expected to conduct a successful home inspection if you have never witnessed one? A question we feel that is often overlooked by many educational institutions. To ask someone to go out and conduct a home inspection after formal classroom training is insane. How can you anyone utilize what they are learning if they don't know or understand what they are trying to achieve as a desired result - the inspection! This is like asking someone to complete a jigsaw puzzle without providing them with a picture of it.
We believe that our course offers the best curriculum possible for an introductory course. We go out on Day 1 and provide our students with a unique opportunity to witness an actual home inspection conducted by one of the industry's best inspectors. Students get to witness the inspection process, the rapport necessary between the inspector and their client and the type of questions that may be asked. Students are then asked to test their powers of observation by attempting their first inspection report as a benchmark and are generally surprised to find out just how much they missed as the inspection process. Inspection details and findings are reviewed in detail on Day 2. Over the course of 9 days, students get to witness their own improvement in defect recognition and report writing skills.
Many students come to us after having completed other home inspection training courses. Often, the reason is that they have no idea where to begin and are desperately in need of mentoring. Doesn't it make sense to witness the final product first and then strive to learn and work towards achieving that goal? Our graduates all feel that our course was well worth their financial investment and gave them the information they so desperately needed to set them on a career path.
Classes are always kept small to promote student interaction and provide an excellent student/teacher ratio. Students always have ample opportunity to ask the questions they want and receive the answers they need. Personal attention is provided to each student to assist in even class progression.
Our Introduction to Residential Home Inspection is not your typical introductory course - We don't dwell on the history of the profession - we deal with the real issues - the important ones that will have an impact on your business success.
- How to set up your business - What works and what doesn't
- Former Student Progression - Often past graduates now in the business, will be guest speakers and share their start up stories
- The Home Inspection Process - Our systematic approach
- Report writing - What you need to put in a report, accurately and effectively. Dealing with clients & agents- What to say and what not to say - staying out of trouble
- Defect recognition - Do you know what you are seeing?
- Technical issues
- Associations - Options available
- The Exam - Our exam results provides students with detailed information as to their strengths and weakness's
- One-on-one feedback - Each student is provided with candid individual feedback from our staff as to their progress during the course and suitability towards profession.
All these issues are presented to students by our instructor - Paul Wilson who is one of Ontario's most respected and reputable home inspectors. He has completed over 23,000professional home inspections since 1980 and is well qualified to impart his knowledge to students. Mr. Wilson was orginally an instructor at Algonquin College year prior and is a very effective teacher and speaker who has been featured on CBC Television on numerous occasions to comment on housing in Ontario. He hold 4 professional home inspection designations - NHI, PHPI, RHI and ACI with ASHI
Student response to our home inspector training program has been extremely positive and many of our graduates feel this is "must have" training for anyone considering becoming a home inspector in the future. "This is the first tool any prospective home inspector should purchase" and "The best technical training course I've ever taken. Lots of great information on report writing and business startup needs. Paul knows his stuff! Take this course before any others."(please refer to our "course feedback" link from the navigation bar on the left)
Home Inspectors ® is poised for expansion just when our services are needed the most! Through our Home Inspectors Institute ® we are offering a unique opportunity to establish businesses which will be among the fastest growing success stories of the millennium. Home inspection is often a natural and logical career progression for professionals or tradespeople in construction related occupations wishing to change career paths.
Home Inspectors ® says it all: our unique registered name and logo is synonymous with the industry we represent. Our reputation for service and integrity since 1980 and our immense experience gained by conducting over 23,000 home inspections without a single legal judgment against us, has earned the respect of the legal profession, real estate community, educational facilities and financial institutions.
Don't miss out on this exceptional opportunity enroll in our introductory home inspector
training to corner the market in YOUR AREA before someone else seizes it first!
Let us help you get your training started!
Check out our upcoming training schedule
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