Home Real Estate Inspection Business Plan

Inspection Connection will initially begin marketing services in Westchester County, NY while the owner completes the Internship Requirements for Licensure in CT. This will accomplish two objectives:

• Inspection Connection will have some income while completing the CT Licensure Internship requirement
• If Inspection Connection can complete 100 or more inspections in NY before January 2006, when the NY Licensure laws come into effect, it may be easier for Inspection Connection to obtain a NY License.

Once a Connecticut license has been obtained, Inspection Connection will be marketing services primarily in the county of New Haven, CT. More specifically, Inspection Connection has identified 23 towns, by ZIP code, which appear to have sufficient monthly home sales to support My Home Inspection, LLC’s entry into the market.  This is explained in more detail in the next section.

4.1 Market Segmentation

Inspection Connection has divided the Home Inspection Market into three segments:

• Buyers
• Sellers
• Owners

Most of the established Home Inspection Businesses are currently marketing to the Buyer and Seller segments, offering Buyer Home Inspection and Pre-Listing Inspection services. Inspection Connection intends to capture 2.5% of the Buyer and Seller segments which are small in comparison to the Owner segment.   Inspection Connection has identified twenty three ZIP codes in New Haven County that, combined, averaged seven hundred home sales per month from January 2004 through February 2005.

Information gathered from the 2000 Census indicates that the there are 340,732 Housing Units in New Haven County, 66% of which are owner occupied, translating into 224,883 Owner Occupied Homes.  By offering Maintenance Inspection services, Inspection Connection intends to market mainly to the larger and more stable Owner segment.

The “Market Analysis” table offers a summary of the three segments. Information about New Haven County, CT was gathered from the following two sites: 

• www.census.gov/census2000/states/ct/ct.html
• www.melissadata.com

There was not any information about growth rates, so a growth rate of 1% per year was used.

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

As mentioned in the previous section, Inspection Connection intends to market in all three segments, but will focus marketing efforts on the Owners segment, which is not being widely marketed to by the existing Home Inspection Businesses. The size of the Owner Segment and the fact that few existing Home Inspection businesses are marketing maintenance inspections to that segment, make it a very attractive niche.

4.3 Service Business Analysis

The Home Inspection Industry is selling time and knowledge. An Inspector spends a designated amount of time reviewing a property and educating the client about the property. The resulting Inspection Report, which is presented to the client, represents a transfer of knowledge.

4.3.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

Most of the competition in the Home Inspection Industry occurs in the Buyer and Seller segments. Inspection Companies need to maintain relationships with Real Estate professionals and rely on word of mouth in order to obtain business in those two segments.

The advantage of selling to the Owner segment is that direct marketing becomes possible in the following ways:

• Postcards directed to specific ZIP codes
• Informative column and Advertisement in local news papers
• Organizing informational and educational events within target communities