Discovering New Home Inspection Services with Kenji Vendetta

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE:
Welcome back, and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio, and if you have any questions, just give us a call at 7999596, or check us out online at Team lally.com

ATTILIO:
our guest today grew up in Waianae and attended Maili Bible high school. With a passion for self improvement and business know-how he spends his free time listening to podcast focus on financial advice and marketing strategies.

ADRIENNE:
As the lead home inspector at Pillar to Post, he first joined the company when the previous owner sought his expertise amid overwhelming demand. After a change in ownership in 2018 he was retained to manage daily operations and lead inspections. Please welcome back today’s guest, Kenji Vendetta.

ATTILIO:
Hey, Kenji,

KENJI:
hey there. How are you guys?

ATTILIO:
Good, good, good. So let’s talk about what the you guys have a new, I guess. Homepage, what’s new on you guys homepage, yeah, besides it being new, so

KENJI:
it’s a it’s a new thing. Before we used to do all the binder presentations, yeah. But we will kind of want to step away from that aspect and provide a different service, okay? And the service is your clients and agents to get their own dedicated home page or web page so that way they can view their inspection reports do any type of additional testing reports that is on there. Yes, if they want to share their inspection report by contractors, family manager, family members, they can send it off to them with a quick Share link that we have so it’s very easily accessible. If they, you know, go with a premium or prestige packages, they can jump into our 360 virtual tours, do the floor plans as all access everything that comes with the pulses, all on one. Page for your clients to have access to. All they have to do is just bookmark it, save it, save the web page, and they’re good to go.

ADRIENNE:
So Kenji with this, with the property this inspection having its own web page. How, like, how long does it stay up for? Is it like forever or like, a certain amount of years? How does that work?

KENJI:
Right now we have a 10 year hold on the web page.

ADRIENNE:
Okay,

KENJI:
so that’s the duration that we’re looking at. We could be extended, depending on the situation, but for right now, we’re, you know, we’re holding them for 10 years. Yeah,

ADRIENNE:
I think that makes sense, because most people tend to move after, like, here in Hawaii, it’s a little bit more frequently, but maybe, like, after seven years, on average, we see people moving along. Well,

ATTILIO:
seven years is the statute of limitations, and so you know probably that, yeah, it’s good. You probably have gone beyond that, because that’s like a minimum for us to keep data on a home that someone’s purchased, and if somebody was not happy with what they got, at least they got that data for the next seven years. And and you should be when you switching ownership, you should get a new home inspection. Oh, yeah, yeah, so, and even if you sold your home 20 years later, a home inspection from 10 years ago, from 20 years ago, is not going to make sense, because you’re buying the home today, right? So the condition and the state of the property today as we switch ownership is the most important. But I like that you guys are doing that because, instead of printing out a big manual, this is totally earth friendly. Get all shareable, easier way, easier to share with people. And then also, too, if you guys have to update something or change something, it’s done for everybody instantaneously. Because on the web page,

ADRIENNE:
you know, the other cool thing, because I watched a little, there’s a he sent us a commercial about it, and has like, all like the if there’s any kind of recalls on any appliances, and, you know, just information about all the appliances, it’s just all there. You don’t have to be like, Googling or searching. It’s just all right there on your web page. So yes,

KENJI:
everything, everything that they need, pertaining to the home, will be available in one spot when it comes to the agent. You know how you’re like, hey, I need this report for this or this home that we work on. Three months ago, you’re hunting through emails, yes, or the agent, they get a drop down, drop down list box on the left hand side that has all the property addresses that they’ve done with us. Nice. So now there’s no deviation. There’s no reason for them to go hunting. They have their own dedicated web page, and it’s every all the reports of home inspection reports are right there, and if they have a TC or transaction coordinator there, they can share the link with a TC, so that way the TC will be able to see the Same inspection reports for that respective agent. So share it. It’s all online. It’s all in the cloud. So it’s when I upload or if I make any changes to the report, instantaneously, everybody else will be able to get that updated, updated on file as well. So makes it super streamlined, super easy for people to navigate, and it comes with a tutorial, you know, if they forget how to use it on the top of it. So I have this little button where they can click on how to navigate, and it’s super user friendly, nice.

ATTILIO:
And now, is this part of the new program or that you’ve launched, or there’s something more? Or, wait, this is,

KENJI:
yeah, there’s, is part of it with our ultimate home inspection packages. This is what we’ve kind of like. We’ve launched, you know, that PTP home manual, the 360 tour, the floor plans, all of that came together with this home page into one unit before we would have when we send you an email, you have all these different links to click on to have access. Now, it’s accumulative and accumulated into one designated area for your clients to make it easy to use. It very user friendly.

ADRIENNE:
So one, one easy link, just so just see this one click and it’s all there.

ATTILIO:
Yeah, this is good news for everybody out there, because, you know, we know for a fact, not everybody’s gonna sell their home through team Lally, and that’s okay, but we want 100% all of you to use Kenji and Pillar to Post. Here’s an example. Every single one of our listings, we do a 360 degree virtual tour, so you already have that with all. Bars, because we’re using it for the upfront marketing and the floor plans and the floor plans and everything else our Matterport tours. So if you’re using some other agent, you can still have this opportunity to get this done through Kenji, the Pillar to Post, or wait, maybe just use Team Lally,

ADRIENNE:
but, but this is, this is great, having it all on one link, and then it’s will last for at least 10 years. Could be longer, if you know, if request upon request, um,

ATTILIO:
you know what talk about. Talk about the other like you have your basic home inspection. And then there are other things, like mold pools, photovoltaic systems,

ADRIENNE:
all those add ons. How does that work? All right?

KENJI:
So right now we have we do mold, asbestos and lead testing, okay, so that we take a sample of the respective areas and we’ll send that off to the mainland lab for results. For the results for that as far as third party vendors, what we can do is we’ll coordinate it to have it done during the inspection. So everything is taking place at the time of the inspection. If you want to source scope, you know, all these other source scope, you don’t have a license contract to come out look at flooring, measurements, whatnot. We’ll try to coordinate it during the inspection, so that way, when we do the presentation, we can answer all those questions at the designated walk through time. Nice. So all all of that can be coordinated and taken care of within our home inspection process.

ATTILIO:
And I like, yeah, yeah, trying to, well, I think for the homeowners, the sellers, that’s convenient, as opposed to having all these separate inspections. But you were saying,

KENJI:
yeah, yeah, PV, we don’t, we don’t test the system. We make sure that there’s nothing funny with it, but we’ll always be, hey, let’s get a vendor out here, and if the client really wants a vendor out there, will coordinated to have them be there on the day of their special and have everything transparent on the daily inspection, so that they have all the information moving forward that they want to purchase the house or they want to walk away that way. We’re not waiting inspection. Wait two days later, get another vendor, wait another and, you know, and we’re constantly pushing that j1 date back, so we try to get it done all at once and move forward from

ATTILIO:
there. Yeah, one of the things too, we offer with ours is one of our vendors with Hawaii Unified, is that we can get them a free estimate if the home doesn’t have it, and get them an estimate on what it would cost if you don’t have it at all, and what it would cost to upgrade your system if you, for example, don’t have batteries or enough photovoltaic panels. And then I think the important thing too is like, typically, we always just say, get the estimate. But if you have a system and batteries and everything, and it’s producing more than you need then, then everything is functioning, okay? And we don’t want to, we don’t want to have our clients doing unnecessary tests. But I like the fact that you said that those are the third party vendors, because you’re mastering the general home inspection and not trying to be an expert on everything. Which is good, yeah, is the

ADRIENNE:
source of the source, and being a resource and making it easy, yeah, right, trying to just making, making that the one appointment for all of the inspections. Yeah,

ATTILIO:
you know, talk of, talk about, is anybody? Because sometimes we do recommend this in our certified pre owned marketing program is doing a home inspection up front. Do you guys have talked about that? You get requests for those. This is different pricing.

KENJI:
Okay, so we actually market that as a market ready inspection. Okay, so that’s, that’s what it sounds. That’s what it basically is, yep, there is no price difference because we’re still doing the same thing where it’s full blown, especially on the property. The difference is now you actually are able to take that information, have your sellers, and have the agents price the home where it needs to be priced at. So, you know.

ATTILIO:
And you know, so cool. Yeah, make it you have a hyperlink, so it’s so easy to add it to your marketing now that you guys have it all there. So even better,

ADRIENNE:
yeah, and then it gives the the owners a checklist of things that they can take care of prior to going active on the market, or it’s just, you know, they offer some kind of a credit because they don’t want to do the work, yeah, but you know, it’s like, there’s less surprises when you do this. Market ready home inspection.

ATTILIO:
I think it might be helpful too, because sometimes you guys have the ability with your technology and equipment to detect water leaks that are not visible to the. Make it i Yeah,

KENJI:
yeah, definitely. I just did one yesterday, and they weren’t realizing that their shower, shower drain line is leaking, so having a market ready inspection would have caught that ahead of time. Yeah, could have you now they’re gonna have to. Now they have to physically repair it because it is an active leak within the home, compared to taking care of that ahead of time. And either, you know, have it looking nice, and now they actually can get the market value instead of having to shovel that out and lose money on the sale.

ATTILIO:
Yeah, because the home and so for folks, if you’re listening in the three most the three things that so once you get into escrow, fully executed, we tell people, don’t go by the plane tickets. And you know, if you’re leaving to the mainland or be popping the champagne bottles just yet, because you have three major areas you need to go through. First one is the home inspection. Next is termite inspection, and then next is the appraisal. And if it’s like, you know, going somewhere really fast, and you got green lights, no problem. But then if get, you know, active shower, drain leak, red light with traffic, with one accident, and you got to stop and you got to fix everything before you continue on your path to travel for closing escrow. So you’re right in that if they had done that beforehand and got it fixed, it wouldn’t have been an issue at all.

ADRIENNE:
And no negotiations or buyers feeling uncertain about the, you know, just the condition of the home, the repair

ATTILIO:
probably would have cost you less because you just had, you would have taken your time, gone three estimates. You know, had to slow down, whereas in escrow, it’s Go, go, go, go. You got a rush. You got to find a plumber. You take the first one because they can fix it now, because you’re trying to get that back to that repair and buy a license plumber and that and that proof of it back to the buyer ASAP to keep the transaction moving along. So we just need your commercial for the What are you guys calling it again? Market ready. Market ready. Market, ready home inspection. So,

ADRIENNE:
um, so Kenji, I know that it’s been a little while since you’ve been on the show. Yeah, and I always find this very interesting, um, with the licensing requirements to be a home inspector, can you, can you touch on that, like what is required for you to call yourself a home inspector here in Hawaii,

ATTILIO:
and what? And talk about the certifications that you do have that validate, making you the expert that team Lally trusts.

KENJI:
Okay? So as far as certification goes, there’s two of them, yep, and they’re national programs. One is Anachi, and then the other one is Ashi. So those are two different certifications that individual can gather and we carry them. Yeah, there is other sub certifications that you can carry, but they’re not acknowledged throughout this, throughout the that is national. So they say going to LCC and getting, you know, a certificate to be able to do something. So we carry those as well. But generally, in the state of Hawaii, there is no certificate or licensing that they’ve mandated for us to take. Other states, has that requirement on Washington, California, yeah, those different states have that requirement. I think we’re fall. Hawaii might be following suit with those other states, but I’m not, not as yet certain. So, yeah, not as good yet.

ATTILIO:
But you guys and you guys are also national franchise, right?

ADRIENNE:
So they’ve got their standards. Pillar to Post has some pretty strict standards.

ATTILIO:
Your franchise license, yeah,

KENJI:
yep, we have to be part of some form of national certification to be able to be hired. Yeah, with Pillar to Post and do inspections, yeah,

ATTILIO:
so if you know not to, not to say that this could be true, but there’s no motivation or requirements or accountability if you’re Joey bagadona Home Inspection Company correct,

ADRIENNE:
or anybody could just say that they’re a Home Inspector a business card Office Max,

ATTILIO:
yeah, and, but yeah so and we’ve taken the time to have been in business with you for a long, long time, seeing firsthand the quality of the inspections and then the fact that you guys are constantly improving. It’s very hard for a one off home inspector to have an update to a website. I mean, that must have cost Pillar to Post, you know, 1000s and 1000s of dollars to make that kind of coding update, especially and to allow for the 360 tours, it’s pretty, pretty substantial amount of information that you’re providing to the potential buyer of someone’s home, and it’s good for the seller and the buyer, right? You. Everybody is, everything is wide open above board. You know exactly what you’re getting into. And sometimes even you know, even the sellers don’t. You know, like, like you said, that seller didn’t even realize that an active leak on their shower drain, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t disclose something to you that they weren’t even aware of till we did the home inspection

KENJI:
Correct. All right, what other that’s why you hire us to find those

ATTILIO:
things. Adrienne’s got a question.

ADRIENNE:
Well, Kenji, before we wrap it up with you, maybe you can share a you know, like a quick another story, a quick success story of you know, how your home inspection, you know, helped when he, you know, one of your clients,

KENJI:
all right, besides the the one that it did, yeah, sour drive, another one was in

in this was a first so well, he had an agent, and he took him two years to do the remodel of his townhouse. Oh, wow, you know. And he did it himself. He the seller did it himself so and when it did the inspection, the she there was a leak, again, another leak with a shower. But that particular owner was so invested in during the remodel, and it looks so fabulous, that he actually came out that night to find and figure out where that lead came from. And so it ended up being a really smooth transaction, because the seller was super involved and happy to do these repairs, yeah. And he wasn’t like, Oh, I’m, you know, you know, it wasn’t, it was, it was not a combative transaction. It was very smooth. You know, we’re hand in hand together with this, everything worked out. So yeah, that was a good you know, turnaround would be like, Hey, we found this big issue of elite. But when you have a willing seller and a willing buyer to be able to make those repairs, it goes along smoothly. So again, if they were to have that pre listed market rating, especially, we would have caught that ahead of time, but, you know, we found it during a special and now you got happy, you know, happy clients on both ends. One put in the hard work and one was really patient for the homeowner to take care of it.

ATTILIO:
You know, do I do? Really nice to see. Yeah, I want to add some broker advice to the people out there. You know, been uh Adrienne, I both been brokers for quite a few years. We’ve probably got, I don’t know, 17, 1600 transactions under our belt. So it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the business. If you know you’ve been in the business for 40 years and you only done 100 transaction, or you can be in the business for 20 years, like Adrienne myself, and we’ve done, you know, 10 times more than most realtors will do. And this is giving us hands on experience. And I’ll tell you, sometimes buyers will want to be make their offers more competitive and not do a home inspection. I will tell you, that’s a big mistake. What you can do is just say it’ll be for informational purposes. But my number one advice regarding home inspections for buyers, never, ever, ever ever skip it. And my number one, my number one advice for sellers, never, ever, ever let anybody buy your home without a home inspection. And then our third piece of advice, always call Kenji from Pillar to post. Love it,

ADRIENNE:
that’s right. So always get

ATTILIO: 
a home inspection. Always use Kenji and your life will be so much happier.

ADRIENNE: 
Yes,

ATTILIO: 
all right. Well,

ADRIENNE: 
thank thank you, Kenji, for coming on the show and giving us the great news about the updated homepage and all these new tools and resources that Pillar to Post is providing for their the buyers.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. Peace of mind. Peace of mind, thanks, Kenji. All right, you thanks, Kenji.

KENJI: 
Alright, you guys have a good one. Alrighty, alright.

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