Structure Talk

Special guest Tim Molgren with The Woodlands Financial Group joins the show to share some fresh insights into the world of homeowners insurance, hail damage, and insurance claims.

Homeowners insurance costs have risen at an unprecendented rate here in the Midwest, and garbage hail-damage claims are at the root of this problem. Insurance companies are beginning to fight back against this, and they’ve drawn a line in the sand at the 15-year mark for the age of roof coverings. Not only does this affect existing homeowners, but it makes it much more difficult to purchase a home with a roof that’s more than 15 years old.

We’ll definitely have Tim join the show again, as he shared some fascinating information.

Our very own Lisa Ferrario joins the show to discuss the evolution of home inspections, scheduling, and all things related.

To follow up on our podcast from several weeks about building permits, we invited building official Andy Schreder with Rum River Construction Consultants onto the show to discuss everything we may have been wrong about in our previous episode. Either we got most of it right or Andy was really nice because we didn’t discuss much from the previous episode.

Andy did offer some very interesting insight into the whole building inspections program, however, and even made a good case for cities to use private building officials, rather than running their own programs in-house.

Andy also discusses some of the most common items that building officials require, but have no legal right to require. What a treat it was to have Andy on the show. He’ll surely become a regular guest.

Twenty-five-year real estate veteran Rhonda Wilson joins the show a second time to discuss pre-listing inspections. Rhonda has been encouraging her sellers to get pre-listing inspections for the past decade, and she has become quite accustomed to having her listings sell faster and with far fewer hassles than most other real estate agents are accustomed to.

She explains how frustrating it is to have a home get put into “pending” status, wait to get the home inspection, have a bunch of surprises come up, and then potentially have the home go back onto the market because of a bunch of unknown issues.

Rhonda addresses all of the arguments that people make against pre-listing inspections, and the gang leaves the show convinced that they should all have pre-listing inspections on their own houses, even though they’re not listing ;-).

The show closes with Rhonda sharing a success story where a pre-inspection and listing photos were used to help her buyers buy a home contingent upon the sale of their home, despite the strong seller’s market that we’re experiencing right now.

Experienced real estate agent Rhona Wilson joins the show to help the gang have a good conversation about allowable real estate terms. The idea for the show came up while having an internal company conversation about the term “master bedroom”, and whether or not that term should be abandoned in favor of a more PC term.

Rhonda talks about fair housing law, explaining a lot of terms and photos that cannot be used in real estate listings. The gang also talks about the importance of maintaining complete professionalism with all language at all times, and how this can come back to bite you if you don’t.

Reuben also explains why at Structure Tech, we never, ever, ever say that a roof is “shot” anymore.

Reuben begins the show talking about how Structure Tech has started a TikTok account, and nearly puts Bill to sleep. At the time, we hadn’t yet made a TikTok, but we’ve made one since. 

The conversation quickly turns to the main topic of the show, and the gang spends the rest of the show discussing all things related to building permits. Are they worth it? Do we all pull permits at our own houses? Does pulling permits add to the value of a home? What about work that hasn’t been permitted: do home inspectors freak out about that stuff? Should they freak out about that stuff? Can the city shut you down for having unpermitted work at your own home?

It’s a good discussion, but there will definitely be a follow-up podcast that will involve a building official who will surely set the record straight for us. Enjoy!

Bill, Tessa, and a Reuben are back together in the studio to discuss what successful homeowner looks like. It’s all about running your household like a business. Everything shares how they budget for major items in their home, and what types of items should be budgeted for on a regular basis.

Reuben waxes on the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and explains how he and his wife have furthered that method by setting up several personal bank account that are dedicated to saving for specific things. Reuben also goes on a small tangent about guards vs guardrails, mostly because his deck guard is about to collapse.

Reuben discusses the term “winning a new roof” because of hail damage, and gets whipped up about how everyone replaces their roofs because of hail, only because this is what insurance companies are willing to pay for.

The gang also discusses the value in HomeBinder, a digital home management app and website that the folks at Structure Tech are so in love with that they’ve started including free to all of their clients with every home inspection. Reuben also shares his personal experience in selling a home with a HomeBinder that was completed and ready to go for the next homeowners.

James Thomas joins the show to talk about all things related to home inspections. The show starts off with James touching on the origins of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI), and how he ended up in his current position. The conversation shifts to education and training for home inspectors, and James talks about some recent changes to The ASHI School.

James also talks about increasing diversity amongst home inspectors, as well as the future of home inspections in the next 5-7 years.

For this episode, the gang gets down and dirty discussing disgusting doozies discovered during home inspections. Most of the grossest stuff is related to people and animals, but that's not all. Don't listen to this episode while eating.

The gang discusses hard-to-find home inspection discoveries, which they call Easter Eggs. Reuben talks about a recent inspection that he did, and shares some of the finds from that inspection. One of those was a blocked toe-kick register below the kitchen sink, pictured here.

Reuben also discusses finding a hot dimmer switch that controlled a 900-watt chandelier. The conversation turns to furnace fan settings for summertime conditions, and then the gang has a good discussion about exactly how much water damage should be disclosed by a seller.