Franchisee discovered opportunity while buying home for himself.
This article originally appeared in the July 13th edition of New Brunswick’s Telegraph-Journal.
GRAND MANAN — Kevin Travis stumbled on a business opportunity while buying a house a year and a half ago.
He bought A Buyer’s Choice Home Inspections franchise for south-west New Brunswick in October and opened for business on June 1, the Grand Manan resident explained in an interview on Friday.
The New River Beach native left university and moved to Grand Manan at 20 to take up lobster fishing. “Been here ever since for the last 20 years,” he said, and even served a term on the village council.
“I was going to end up switching boats, finding another job,” Travis said, explaining why he quit fishing two years ago. “My financial security seemed to be at the whim of someone else.”
He wanted to work for himself, he said. He talked to Rick Mayuk in Nova Scotia, owner of A Buyer’s Choice Home Inspections Atlantic, took a 400-hour online course that included reading 55 pounds of book, and went to “boot camp” in Calgary where he followed licensed home inspectors for two weeks, returned to Grand Manan and hung out his shingle.
New Brunswick does not require that home inspectors have licences, but ABCHI’s training surpasses the standards in provinces that do require licences, Travis said. “They focus on training the franchisees,” he said.
“We have vast amounts of general knowledge of all the trades,” Travis said. The physical inspection of a house takes about three and a half hours, from the roof and attic down into the basement, and everything between.
His franchise covers southwest New Brunswick, roughly from the Fundy Islands to St. Stephen and McAdam to Fredericton and down to Saint John – Charlotte, Kings, Queens, Sunbury, York, and western Saint John counties, according to the news release announcing his franchise. “I will be putting a lot of miles on,” he said.
As far as he knows, two other home inspection companies cover this same area.
He has no plan to leave Grand Manan. He can catch the 7:30 a.m. ferry putting him on the mainland at 9 a.m., and catch the last trip back at 9 p.m., allowing hime to do two inspection per day.
He and his girlfriend have family on the mainland, and he can stay overnight with his parents at New River Beach, he said.
“Most home inspection happen on weekends or in the evening,” Travis said, so that prospective buyers can tag along. He figures that the work ethic he learned fishing and as a deckhand on the ferry will stand him in good stead in this new undertaking.
“We don’t do anything that’s unsafe,” he said; however, “You can’t be afraid to get dirty.”
“The typical client is someone buying a house,” Travis said, but he also does “presale” inspections for sellers and real estate agents, too.
“We’re an independent third party,” he said, aiming to “give a comfort level.”
“I go through every system in the house,” he said, including but not limited to the roof, insulation, plumbing and electrical, the chimney, the structure, foundation, living space, and clearances for wood stoves. He uses a thermal imaging camera to find uninsulated cavities in walls.
“It normally takes three and one-half hours. It’s quite an involved process… we look for everything.”
He takes pictures with a cellphone as he goes, and enters information into a tablet computer, allowing him to produce a detailed report by the next day. “Everything’s high-tech now,” he said.
The bill for a typical home inspection starts at about $400, but it depends on the age and condition of the house, Travis said.
ABCHI requires franchisees to take continuing education to keep up with changing codes and issues, for example, with certain types of water pipe or electrical panels. They also make themselves available for follow-up advice, he said.
All ABCHI inspectors carry insurance for errors and omissions as well as liability, he said.
Bill Redfern began ABCHI in 2005 after more than a decade as a successful real estate broker in Halifax. ABCHI claims to be the only major home inspection company with a foundation deeply rooted in the real estate industry.
ABCHI has franchises in 14 countries including 120 across Canada, nearly 30 in the United States and dozens more internationally, and expects to become the largest home inspections business in the world this year, the news release states.
The company describes itself as “ideal for corporate escapees in search of greater work-life balance, opportunities to work from home and a fast growing sector with unlimited potential.”
It apparently works for a lobster fisherman looking for a change, too.