A great way to advertise your product or service is to add something for FREE. Buy this and get this free. Much like the Sham-Wow infomercial; But Wait! There’s More!! Is free really free though? In the home inspection industry – free is the new black.
- $25,000 in Free Warranty coverage!!!
- FREE 5-year roof leak warranty
- Free 90 Day Structural and Mechanical Warranty
The list goes on and on. The most popular of all ‘frees’; the ‘free’ mobile phone is not even free. It comes with a minimum one-year contract. Break that contract and see how free that phone really is. You’d be better off buying one for the price of two at any retail phone store.
Why would a home inspection company pitch you with $25,000 in FREE warranty coverage? They’re selling your data. Your contact information goes to a national company who in turn, pays the premium for your ‘warranty’ coverage or pays the inspection company a flat fee for your information. Most inspection companies opt to have your Recallcheck or warranty paid for by these large companies.
Not too worried about folks having your data? In 2014 Porch struck a deal with Realtor.com to provide a database of a home’s history of repairs or projects. Homebuyers using the Realtor.com site will be able to request the Porch Home & Neighborhood Report for specific properties for sale. The reports will give a rundown of the home’s project history, including cost, details of the projects and information about the professionals who have previously worked on the home and in the neighborhood. Data is the new currency. And it’s worth a ton!
It remains to be seen if folks shopping for a home inspection are wooed by the shiny ‘free’ objects in exchange for giving up their data to mailing lists, or if consumers will rely on a company’s history and reputation when choosing someone to evaluate the condition of their prospective new home.
At Home-Probe, Inc. we don’t peddle any of the warranties provided by third party companies in exchange for your data. We do have a 100-day guarantee for every inspection we do that is written in house and facilitated by our employees. We are simply following Core Value #2 – We do the right thing and everything seems to work out.