Don't Even Bother

#22: Joey McPeek...America's Favorite Home Inspector

• Katiuscia + Megan • Episode 22

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0:00 | 2:23:08

Buying a home can feel exciting… until the inspection report drops and suddenly you’re spiraling.

We're lucky to be joined by Joey McPeek — “America’s Favorite Home Inspector” and owner of Peek Home Inspections —  to talk about what actually matters when it comes to home inspections, and what buyers, sellers, and homeowners often misunderstand.

From hidden structural issues and safety concerns to inspection myths, this conversation pulls back the curtain on what inspectors are really looking for, how to read an inspection report without freaking out, and how inspections can protect you long after closing day.

Whether you’re buying your first home, selling, or just living in one (so… everyone), this episode is packed with practical insight you’ll wish you had sooner.

Find Joey on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube @peekinspections, and visit his website https://www.peekinspections.com/ for more information.

02:58 Introduction to Joey McPeek
06:51 Challenges in Home Inspection
20:10 Crawlspace Adventures
30:53 Building a Business in Boise
36:48 Navigating Client Expectations and Reviews
43:20 Balancing Professional and Personal Life
51:47 Implementing New Business Strategies
01:08:14 Navigating Client Interactions
01:12:49 Impact of COVID on Behavior
01:16:00 Social Media and Business Growth
01:26:49 TikTok Journey and Viral Success
01:33:51 Home Maintenance Tips and Myths
01:46:08 The Role of Home Inspectors
01:52:27 Conspiracy Theories and Algorithms
02:01:49 The Challenge of Calling People Out
02:20:42 Conclusion and Contact Information

Click to Subscribe on YouTube, Follow on Instagram +  TikTok , email us at dontevenbotherpodcast@gmail.com, + share with your cool friends :) 

Speaker:

Don't even bother.

megan:

Mattress

joey:

Thousand percent. Yeah.

megan:

Like because there's every,

joey:

there's so many.

katiuscia:

There's like maybe one person in there buying a mattress.

joey:

yeah.

katiuscia:

Also, don't you buy mattresses like every 10 or 15 years? Isn't that the whole point of mattresses? Yeah. So wet need is that you don't need them all the time. 50

megan:

mattress firms in

katiuscia:

Meridian alone, I haven't even really paid attention and Oh,

megan:

there's a shitload of 'em.

katiuscia:

I haven't paid attention here. I remember from San Diego there were like mattress stores everywhere

joey:

and nobody's ever introduced.

katiuscia:

Yeah,

joey:

my cousin went and bought beds one time. I went to help him. And I was like, this is the first time I've ever been in one of these. I was like, yeah, they're definitely laundering But I've always seen these, like, they'll call like birds of a feather like that. And I'm like,

megan:

I've

joey:

never heard of that. First of all, how can you afford like the, the overhead for a brick and mortar,

megan:

right? And

joey:

you're selling bird feed and like what binoculars and like, there was like a, a breakfast spot right beside it that we would go to back home all the time. And I was like, look in the They're laundering money. Like there, there's no way This has to be like, I was like looking it up. this is like $2,800 a between that like 3000. you selling that much bird stuff

katiuscia:

there? So there's also, wait, there's like an exotic fish place. There was maybe a year and a half ago it's big and I walked into it and I just thought, there's nobody in here. It's dark, it's dreary. It's the perfect front.

joey:

Oh, a thousand percent

megan:

exotic fish market is weird. That's a weird world. Yeah.

katiuscia:

From Meridian, Idaho. Like,

megan:

no. Like it could general, hundred percent could be a front, but like just fish. Having been an aquatic specialist at a pet store for years, were you aquatic and years a pet store? Yeah. Oh yeah. And those people is perfect.

joey:

I've

megan:

got so many fish are weird and it's, it could for sure be the mafia, not your mafia. But

joey:

I, I had like the Chinese mafia, a close friend of mine, he, he was pretty wealthy. He was a doctor, his wife was a doctor, but he was telling me about his in-laws and I think they were up in like Pennsylvania And they did exotic fish, and they're like, yeah, they'll sell like a koy fish, like 20 grand or

megan:

something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

joey:

And they just had an exotic fish farm and they were multimillionaires. it, you hit one of those moments where you're just like, why don't I stop everything I'm doing and just invest completely into that?

megan:

Right.

joey:

Like, like college degree. Don't need it. I just need, how much land do you need for a fish farm? Like a,

megan:

can you stack 'em up? Like how do you Yeah, it's, it's, it's a wild business.

joey:

What? I mean, how much loss can you. Like if I had a fish business

megan:

Yeah.

joey:

And I had a $20,000 Koi fish die. That's gotta help taxes a lot. I mean, how are they gonna prove, you know what I'm like,

katiuscia:

that's a solid

joey:

point. Yeah. You're losing 300 grand in fish every year from from death or something like that. Like, dude, I know this is a front,

katiuscia:

I mean, I think we might, we might find some new thing for you to pivot into, but in the meantime,

joey:

yeah, we'll go ahead.

katiuscia:

In the meantime, is that the

megan:

new Somali daycare?

katiuscia:

Yeah,

joey:

sure. Yeah.

katiuscia:

Is the fish, maybe It's the

megan:

original.

katiuscia:

It's even new. It started so long ago and we didn't even know it. Yeah, it just blew up

joey:

so

katiuscia:

My

joey:

bad. Y'all

katiuscia:

crazy. No, it's wild. All right, we got Joey McPeak

joey:

here we are.

katiuscia:

Peak home inspections. America's Inspector, Americas favorite inspector.

joey:

We're getting there. I think I gotta be close.

katiuscia:

Welcome to the podcast.

joey:

Thanks for having

katiuscia:

me. We're so stoked to have you.

joey:

Yeah. Appreciate you guys having me on here. This will be, uh, there's definitely a lot of interesting stuff that there's uh, there's a lot to talk about.

katiuscia:

So. Tell us a little bit about your background. What got you in where you're from, what got you into home inspections, the whole, let's learn about Joey.

joey:

Yeah. Okay. Well, a little bit about me, the, the shortest of stories. I grew up in South Carolina, kinda on the state line, so, uh, I always just say the Carolinas, a mile. And then every time I, somebody repeats it back to me, they say North Carolina. And so I'm just like the Carolinas. So, grew up in the Carolinas, went to school out there. Um, I've been in sales or construction basically since college. And in high COVID hit when I, I actually moved out here 2018 and COVID hit, I was working for a company out here and I was Called my buddy back I was like, dude, tell me more about this home inspection thing. I had worked with him a couple times and he is like, dude, you come out here for a I'll show you everything you need to know. He told me how much he made. I was very interested now. And uh, I was like, dude, I'll do you one better 'cause my parents still live back there. And I was like, what if I move back for a year and You're more than And so did, went back, worked with him, did about 500 inspections, put all myself in a storage unit out here in Idaho, and then went back to South Carolina and just did a ton of inspections. And so that was my competitive advantage is I gotta, I gotta skip ahead like 10, So many of these guys are trying to figure it out as which is, I get it. You gotta start somewhere. But it's a huge And so when I jumped in here in Idaho, I was already. I was ready to go. And the good news is I had a mentor who wasn't a competitor. You know, he's on the other side of the country, whatever que he, the dude's never been wrong. He knows everything. So it's like that's a lot of confidence coming into starting your own business. Like I got handed a, a golden ticket and all you had to do was kind of put in the footwork and it just, it just kept compounding year after

katiuscia:

And you're literally the best. You're the only one I'll refer to. You have so much background training.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

And hours logged and so many inspections completed that when you hear of what people go through in Idaho to get to be a home inspector, what is it? You go into Doppel or

joey:

you don't have to. Yeah, you

katiuscia:

don't even have to,

joey:

nothing is required.

katiuscia:

You just fill out a Google form

joey:

basically. Yeah. You got your LLC get to work or what? The joke that I've heard since I moved to Idaho is like to be a general contractor. It's uh. Just a, a truck and a dog.

megan:

Oh, pretty much.

joey:

And you're, and you're a gc. So, I mean, I've been involved and I've worked with custom home builders. I've been involved in that process. But like even if I started my own like building company, if I became a gc, I would still need a lot of help. There would still be a huge learning And you would think that I would be like able to do it. There's a lot that goes into all of that. And so I like my little niche. I like where I'm at. I do want to eventually build. Houses one day, but it gets a little expensive out here in Idaho now. Sure. So it's like, like back in the Carolinas, I don't wanna move home, but it's a little cheaper back there.

katiuscia:

Well, I tell you, I would definitely trust you to build a house with all of the, like I trust you to build a house for me. Yeah. With all of the background that you've been through and all of the shit that you've seen.

joey:

Yeah. Yeah. And

katiuscia:

that, because it's been a lot.

megan:

Well, and it's not like we have a lot of really good quality home builders out here either.

katiuscia:

No, we do. Hold on. We do have a lot of quality. I would say We've got a lot of good quality home builders. Yeah. But there are a lot of, you know. There's always the ones that fall in the cracks also. For sure. Um, so you do have like the custom, the more custom, like Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

joey:

And the hardest part that I try to explain to people about my job too is like, my job is literally to, to be negative, almost like, I mean, I'm, I'm not here like saying, oh, I like the color of, of the walls. Like, and it's like the, the good stuff I don't comment on. And then people get real excited, like, oh, you know, they want my opinion. That gets me sued. I'm here to give a just a third party. Here's a look at the house. Here's how well they did. I can, you can ask me well, usually this builder is about along or really good. This is kind of a one-off, or, Hey, this is one of the best I've ever seen, kind of thing. And that's kind of where we judge it by. But there's, there's so much going on during this process. It's so hard to keep up with it. So even if I, I've never worked for a track builder, but if I, if you give me as good as I am as a home inspector, give me 30 houses in a neighborhood. There's gonna be a lot falling through It's, I mean, there's, there's a neighborhood out in Namp. I don't wanna say who the builder is, but I was out there and I kept seeing the same superintendent and I finally started talking to him. He was the only guy there, and there was 50 houses. And I'm like, when are they getting you some help, bro? we're working on it. And so a national builder. And so, you know, and that was the cool thing is, is I got to see that neighborhood, uh, I don't know, like have a lot of mistakes. Then as they kind of evened out a little bit, kind of got the ball rolling, got the help in then the mistakes started kind of going away.

megan:

Oh, that's good.

joey:

Yeah. Yeah. So it can happen to anybody. You know, a lot of times we think about like, oh, I'll just build a custom and that, that's like a larger it's either really, really good. Way better than than stuff, or Because if, if you're building the same plan over and over and over, these guys kind of know what they're doing. Copy and paste. It gets a little better each time. Custom houses. They're really having to kind of read, right? They're, they're having to read plans and they're having to figure out things that haven't been figured out yet. And that's where we have to kind of come

katiuscia:

I think even with the best of builders, 'cause I, I've worked with a lot of, there are a lot of good builders, but in anything, everyone's human, you've got the whole chain of command. But then from the super to all the subs to everyone that's involved in the building process of a house, I do think that like a lot of places. typical to Idaho.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

When it took off pre 2020 and then 20 20, 21.

joey:

Mm-hmm.

katiuscia:

You're building so fast, you can't keep up with the demand. Obviously things are gonna go, there's going to be a lot of shit that slips through. Oh, yeah. But that happens in any industry. It's just typically the other industries aren't as big of an investment as the house. Yeah. So

joey:

Kansas looking real good.

katiuscia:

Yeah. So when you see, when you see those things, but. I always allowed grace for that, but it's then when we had the slower times.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

That if stupid mistakes are being made, especially in new construction.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Because you understand with a preexisting home, but new construction and it's not like the neighborhood is being thrown up in a month. That's taking time.

joey:

Sure.

katiuscia:

Then tells me, did you not learn to just, now you're on a slower pace. You can take that slower pace, like, yeah, maybe don't treat it so copy paste because this is what we've done before and just know how to move forward properly.

joey:

Yeah, and I'll say like, that's a perfect example of that is our big regional builder here that's been here since the nineties. When we did slow down and they had a bunch of inventory, I noticed that their houses started getting a little more, what I call like inspection proof. They had some time, they slowed down a little bit. I was finding less mistakes. And they're one of the only builders out here that I've seen, and they're, they're our biggest builder in Idaho where I know they study these reports because that like when I start a new neighborhood and it's all starting to go up, here's all this stuff on these inspection reports and it's little mundane things, but it's things that need to get done. And then those mistakes I see start to clear up over time and I'm like, that's, that's who I like. And they're one of our budget builders and, and that people always talk crap about. And I always Like I'm, I'm always a, a fan of, of any of them. You just have to get an inspection. I mean, it just, that's, and here's the thing too. Here's, here's one of my biggest things that I tell uh, such a good takeaway is because Inspector Talk, right? All the social media stuff, we're just showing bad stuff all the time. Comments are just filled online with like, name the builder. This builder's terrible. I would never buy new construction. I hear that on every single video that I post. I would never buy new Here's the thing though, you mentioned a second ago, like, you know, a resale house. What if they didn't have an inspection? It could have been a terrible build, but at least, you know, they got an inspection, they got some things fixed. You have no clue. Maybe this house is 10, 15 years old, you can't find the original owner of it. So like, for example, this is one thing that I try to market to people. Um, I'll do like a framing, a pre drywall inspection. I'm like, doesn't matter how bad the inspection comes back, it's the fact that you got it done great for resale. Like if I were go to go buy a house that's five years old right now. And they show me, oh, here's my pre drywall inspection, here's my new construction inspection. And at the 11 month warranty in, we got an inspection too. I'm like, oh, I'm happy. That makes me feel better about my investment. Whereas like, oh no, we didn't get an inspection. Like if I was just like not an inspector and just a regular person, uh, not too sure about this. Whereas I can go check stuff out now, but,

megan:

well, and what if some previous owner was like a DIY electrician? A plumber.

joey:

Yeah. And then you get under that whole side of the horror stories too. And it doesn't take long either. So like I would say the best house for me to inspect is There's not a ton going on. I'm not having to write up a ton of maintenance items or I've been in houses that are like two years old and I'm no way. if I walk up to the electrical panel and I can see like the panel screws are different than the original ones, I'm, this is not good. And every time it's like an engineer lives there or somebody that's in the field.

katiuscia:

Oh,

joey:

the worst, worst people. And so, um, I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, well. Now, now I'm on a, a wild goose chase for whatever the heck they did in here. And then the hard part too is like they're doing stuff behind walls and attics under insulation and stuff. And my biggest thing as an inspector is to try to translate that. I can't see everything. Like if this dude did a bunch of stuff behind the wall and he's got some open splices and they, they catch on fire later on, I did the best I could, you know, like, but I can't, I can't

katiuscia:

see. But you're not required to start cutting the walls and stuff.

joey:

Yeah, I can tell you. Like, Hey, there's been things added to

katiuscia:

And you're really good about that. You're really about the recommendations mm-hmm. To consult a professional, consult a professional electrician, consult this, because even though you are so well versed in all of it, it's also covering yourself like, I'm noticing this, I'm letting you know, you might wanna get that checked out.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Further.

joey:

Yeah. And that's, that's a lot of pushback that I, I hear I had, I had a cousin that, that got inspection on other side of the country. They sent me the report and they were just like, I always try to be an. I'm on both sides of the coin. There's so many bad home inspectors, but I always try to be on their side first. 'cause I get it, then I'll see a report sometimes and I'm like, holy crap. like it's, it's just so funny how tight and clean my team is and the amount of like threats and lawsuits that, that we get a year versus like, I see these other people and I'm like, how are they still in So like back to my cousin's report, they're just like, Hey, the entire report is just see a professional, see a professional, see If, if you break down our standards of practice, you look at the agreement and stuff, that's really all we can tell you to do. And I like, I, I wanna be in this business for a long time. I enjoy it. If, if I get sued one time, I'm shutting the thing down. Like if, if, if I, if something goes wrong my way, I'm just gonna shut it down because it, it's, it's pointless for me 'cause everybody's trying to attack me at all times and they don't actually know like what a home And if you try to figure out what we're supposed to do, it's not like you guys are buying and selling houses literally weekly. You know, we're, we're doing this daily, so we have a routine and the standard you practice, we go by. But like, if you don't know what we're doing, you expect a And what I'm getting on inspectors right now, I'm like, I'll, I'll comment on like other inspector stuff on TikTok, there's a dude, like he's up here with a torch like. Um, he's in like Minnesota or somewhere like that in northeast, north Minnesota somewhere. Yeah. And he's like, he's like getting up on his ladder in the dead of winter and torching snow so he can look at shingles. And I'm like, bro, please. Because, because now like all, so you guys don't know that like, oh, now I inspect, now I expect my home And I'm like, that's dumb dude. That's way beyond our standards of practice. And so a lot of it is really translating like. What we actually do and try to do a good job versus what people expect us oh, you know, this started leaking two months after. Sorry. It wasn't leaking during the You know, it happened to me. My, my mentor inspected the house that I, my first house I bought back in South Carolina month later, the, like, uh, air conditioning And he says the same thing that I, I tell everybody now, like, well, you know, I told you it was 23 years old. Way beyond its life You need to have it serviced. Something you need to anticipate. There's a, there's just such a huge range, and I got a million I mean, it, it, it, it's literally every

katiuscia:

I would say one thing I always recommend to anyone is get an inspection, because I know there was a period during COVID where people were waiving inspections mm-hmm. Just to get the house because they were already over bidding and overpaying, and That's so wild to me because you're literally making this massive investment. Without knowing you're going in blind and you've accepted that and you've overpaid for it. To me, there's nothing more stupid and you're doing yourself the most massive disservice because you could walk into that and it fall down in two days because nothing was done. Right. But you didn't know e

joey:

Exactly. And that's like back to your, your original point of like, Hey, get this further evaluated. Get this further evaluated. It is a cover for us too, because like. How many houses it, how many houses do you guys know that have burned Like personally? Like, I don't know anybody personally. I know some people do, but it can't be more than like five or six. Like,

megan:

I mean, my aunt burned two houses down. Just of her own. Her own Yes. Revolution. Yeah.

joey:

Yeah. Okay. Well see that. That makes sense. Yeah. But we know the cause from that, right? Like,

megan:

oh yes we do.

joey:

But you know, for, for example, um, like back in in the Carolinas we'd have these little mill towns, right? And, and. Couple generations before us, but they would build like 200 of the exact same house and then, and that was the neighborhood. Then across the street there's the mill and everybody just walked over there to work. And that's what those towns did. There's nothing else doing those towns besides hunting fish, like, and so every, like, so you'd go into those older houses and they'd all have those federal Pacific panels, right? And Federal Pacific uh, recalls on 'em. There's safety hazards there. There's a lot on 'em, right? There's class action lawsuits. And so one thing that I would tell clients, I'm like, look. This has a class action lawsuit on it. It needs to be replaced. It it, that's an expensive thing to do. You can't always get a seller to do that. Right. I'm not there to negotiate that. I'm just here to provide information, but I'm like, I don't see any one of these houses that is like brand new. Like they've all had the same panel for 48 years now, or 62 years now. Like it's, it's, we're, we're, we're operating on that side of like the 0.01%. you know, and in Boise, we got a couple houses falling down Right now I inspected one. I inspected one of those. It's up in quail, something

katiuscia:

quail, ranch

joey:

Hollow. Everything's named after Quail back home, so I can never like Quail Hollow, quail Haven, quail something. So, um, it was one of the only times I told a client like, please don't if, if I can see this much wrong with it, and then it's just a beautiful place, a nice house, and you kind of go through with it. And I, I don't wanna get too much of it. I think they're like trying, they, they weren't the original owners of the house. It wasn't a brand new house. I think it was like four or five years old, but a handful of those houses started sinking. And I'm, I mean, I'm in the crawl space seeing gaps in the framing that are like this big, that I'm like, oh my gosh, that's separated that much. It doesn't even take a home inspector or a genius to figure this out.

katiuscia:

Yeah.

joey:

And then I, I've heard through the grapevine they've had to sink

katiuscia:

Ooh,

joey:

triple digit or six digits more than so. And then, there were some of the ones uh, up in the foothills too. Yeah. I've inspected on the

megan:

mesa.

joey:

Yeah. On the mesa. Yep.

megan:

I used to live up there.

joey:

Did you? Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I inspected one of those bad I very rarely do I call out for like an actual foundation or a structural foundation contractors and structural engineers are a little bit different, but like if I'm calling for a structural engineer and I'm putting it in red in the report, let's pay attention.

megan:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

I will ask, when you were in South Carolina, the craziest shit that you've seen in houses, would you say that it was there or is it here? Since you've gotten into this.

joey:

Here's one thing about Boise and the Treasure Valley in general is we're still a pretty young Um, like now that I've done most of my career has been out here, so I, I kind of have a snapshot there. I grew up there, but I, I've done about 500 inspections out there. Um, we're still such a young city. We don't really start seeing neighborhoods here until like the know? Mm-hmm. And so that helps a lot. Whereas like back home, I might inspect a house from the 18 hundreds. If there was a Civil War battle fought in the front field and that house was used as, uh, as a medic or, or something like that. Right. Or it got, part of it got blown up or anything crazy like that. So there's more opportunity in South Carolina and I saw a lot, and I know if I was still like in that area, I probably would've seen a lot more. The one big difference, and I didn't learn this until I came out here, is crawlspace hatches to get under the house. They're inside the house here.

katiuscia:

Mm-hmm.

joey:

And I didn't realize And, uh. Which I thought was kind of weird at first, but they're all on the outside. There's like a hatch on the outside. Sometimes it's tall, it's like a door. Sometimes it's like this big and it opens up a little bit once you get inside there. But that leaves a lot of, and, and we have more ventilation there too, and those vents are a little bit bigger than what we have here, and they get knocked out. So that leaves a lot more room for, for critters and So I've, I've found a lot of stuff in crawlspaces. So I hop into a crawlspace here. I lift the hatch up, I drop in I'm not worried about anything. We have black widow spiders. That's about it. back home, you're scanning, you open the door, you take your flashlight and you look for eyes. Do this first.

megan:

Are you smelling any cucumber?

joey:

You smell you smelling anything? Yeah. And you will smell some stuff.

megan:

Mm-hmm.

joey:

Yeah. And, uh, so first thing I, I would always do is I, I scan for eyes. Well, first thing I do is kill all the black widows that are right there at the, they like the edges. So you're always crawling under like black widows to get in there. Um, and so the next thing I'm doing, I'm scanning for eyes and I've seen possums, raccoons, uh, I saw a dead bobcat one time.

megan:

Oh, dang.

joey:

I've seen dead house cats. Seen live house cats. Uh, saw a dog once. Um, there was a video going around on like TikTok of like a mountain lion or something. Oh yeah. Thank god I didn't have to run into that.

megan:

Yeah, I thought a possum live under my house, I

joey:

here.

megan:

Yeah, I would.

joey:

Let, oh yeah, I let you

megan:

got it.

joey:

Let 'em live. Yeah, yeah,

megan:

yeah, yeah,

joey:

yeah. For sure. Yeah. They're, they're not, and then they just play dead. You can pick 'em up and pet 'em. They just sit, they're their teeth. They just

megan:

see tick. Yeah. They smell terrible, but like they're pretty beneficial. They're pretty fun. And Gritters go.

joey:

I would let a snake live under my house as long. There's no way

megan:

for in a snake. And snake. Not a lot of snakes.

joey:

Yeah. It, yeah. One singular snake. That's the caveat. Yeah.

katiuscia:

Zero. 0%

joey:

wouldn't

katiuscia:

allow that.

joey:

Well, here's the thing. Snakes don't really do a ton.

katiuscia:

Yeah. Mice.

joey:

They kill

katiuscia:

mice. Yeah.

joey:

So like if I lived up in the foothills here. Yeah. I'm putting a snake under that bad one. I'm go grab some bull snakes. I'm putting 'em in my crawlspace.

katiuscia:

This is why I don't live in the foothills. 'cause I have like a snake lizard phobia thing. Um,

joey:

any kind of reptiles gotta go. Yeah.

megan:

And we behind our house before, 'cause we were the first neighborhood on our street.

joey:

Okay.

megan:

It was all ag before that. Actually, I used to go pheasant hunting with my dad where my house is now.

joey:

Oh, no kidding.

megan:

Yeah, so it's so cool. It was all ag up until a certain point, but, so we had a wheat field behind and so the amount of snakes we found in our yard all the time, which it was like, that's a bull snake. Yep. Just throw 'em back in the field.

joey:

Yep. Yep. You're good.

megan:

Yep.

joey:

Yeah, we had black snakes back home and that was one of the things too, is they, they don't bother you. I've seen a handful of snakes in crawlspaces before. black snakes don't bother you and every snake kind of wants to get away from you, but they like to go in that insulation and they'll shed

megan:

Oh yeah.

joey:

And so, yeah, so I would, I would sit there and I would, I'd be crawling through and I'd like look up or I'm scanning over and I see like a large snake skin that just goes down. There're like that. I'm like, well that's like a four foot snake skin. I'm like,

megan:

and it's bigger now.

joey:

And I was like, is homeboy still in here? Yeah. I don't want to, but, so then, then if I'm straight looking at plumbing, I, I, I've got like a, a piece of pex, it's like three feet long and I got it sharpened on the end. And so I'll just like, I'll move the insulation down to make sure no snakes fall underneath it or something.

megan:

I don't like surprise snakes. I don't mind snakes. They don't bother me. But like, I don't wanna be surprised by one. So

joey:

I get

megan:

that.

joey:

The ironic part though, is the only crawlspace that I, I put on the report that I would not go in was out here. It was in Idaho because of snakes. Mm-hmm. It was, uh. Mesa? Is that the name of it? Near like council,

katiuscia:

I was gonna say was the snake house that was in a lawsuit.

joey:

Oh no, that was here. The one with like all the snakes behind the walls and stuff.

katiuscia:

Yes.

joey:

Well, that, or were they all rattlesnakes?

katiuscia:

I'm like, that would've been the death of me. Um,

joey:

oh yeah, me

katiuscia:

too. Like it was a, it was, um, a big, a big case. We learned about it in case law.

joey:

I feel

katiuscia:

like I've seen it, but I didn't know if it was here or not. 0% would would've died like a hundred. Oh,

joey:

and then what do you do with a house like that afterwards? Like

katiuscia:

burn it, burn it to the ground.

joey:

Like you just gotta take the loss.

katiuscia:

That's the day that yes, we, we will be like your aunt's and burn the house.

joey:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, insurance can be a phone call.

katiuscia:

Whoa. What are you gonna do? So my follow up question is, South Carolina was, did you ever inspect any plantations?

joey:

Not like big, like majestic ones that we, that we see, um, like in, in movies and stuff like that, but

katiuscia:

no,

joey:

but yeah, some old, old houses for sure. even my mentor, like he, he's got some stories like there, there's like the, the sellers were home he's like, oh, the ghost likes like things in three. And so he is like, he's like, oh yeah, this place is definitely haunted. And he is like, man, when I was there, everything these guys were talking about was happening. You would hear a door or a cabinet go, like 1, 2, 3 kind of thing, stuff like that. Oh, like, interesting. And so I did, I did a house one time, and this is not my only ghost story doing this, but I, I don't think I've had any out here, but I was doing this house and nobody was there. Um, cellar wasn't there. And it had this really, really long driveway. I mean, it, it probably took 60 seconds driveway, through the woods and all that. It was on, on some land. I finished the inspection and the last thing we do is the crawlspace. Crawlspace access is on the backside of the house, on kind of on the foundation and, um, nobody's, I mean, the house wasn't vacant. When you're, as a home inspector, when I walk into these houses, I, I instantly like get a sense. I'm like, oh, somebody died here. Divorce, they're just selling it. Like, like I always kind of get those senses when that happens. you walk into the master closet and it's just all the women's stuff and you see a bunch of pictures face down and all that stuff. I'm like, oh yeah, check the vibe. Divorce. Yeah. And um, but this house was just, it was creeping me out from the beginning, older house and, uh, I'm, I'm like by the crawl space or I'm kind of sitting there, just finished the crawl space. And the, the door's open and it's quiet out there. Like if somebody had pulled up that gravel road, So I'm sitting there, I'm kind of working on my report and I hear two sets of footprints. people don't understand. Like if, if there's a crawl space underneath us right now, and I was underneath there, us just having this conversation, I might be able to pick up exactly what Like, I, I can hear people talking, sometimes I can even And kind of vice versa too, if you're down in the crawlspace, like we had a, a termite guy that was always down there, and I was upstairs with the clients or on the, in the house with the clients, and he's down there mad cussing and, he is like, all right, I was, knocking. I was like, Martin, we can hear you, dude. Like, like we, I can hear the words you're saying, but anyways, I'm sitting here by this door and I hear two sets of footprints and I'm like, or footsteps rather. And I'm like. weird. Nobody, nobody's supposed to be coming by kind of deal. And um, so I get out. So by the time I hear those and then I heard 'em walk from like where the front door was over to like above where I was, kind of like by a bathroom. And so I'm like, oh, lemme go see who it is. And so I walk around the house, so it was like 60 seconds from the time I heard these footprints. By the time I shut the door, walked around the house, no cars out front. I'm like, it, it hit me. I got chills and I was like. This was the first house I didn't like go through and like turn off the lights. I didn't check the oven, I didn't do anything. Opened the door and I was like, hello? Hello? I said that like five or six times. Boom. Locked. The supra gone.

katiuscia:

Done.

joey:

Yeah. I was like, what the, because I know I wasn't just hearing anything. It wasn't like a furnace kicking on or I can tell, that's why I say it was too distinct. People walking through that house. I'm like, I'm outta here.

katiuscia:

I guess that makes sense. I didn't even think when I asked about plantation, about the haunted. But that makes sense because that shit is so old. Yeah. Why wouldn't it be? And those houses I'm sure have a lot of history with just the eras that they were in and all of the things that yet No thanks. You have like your own ghost adventure.

joey:

Yeah,

katiuscia:

no,

joey:

and I think one of the best parts about living in Boise too is I think only one time I've carried with me. Whereas I used to carry my pistol with me a lot of Um, just depending on the neighborhood or the, or, like, the type of people, like the sellers that are just real, people are just matter over there for some reason. I guess like the people that are just kinda way out, like everybody here is, you know, Boise nice is kind of a real thing that I've discovered. But I've only had to carry my pistol with me like once, maybe twice out here. Whereas like back home I'm like pulling into some neighborhoods. When you pull into the neighborhoods and you can see the outdoor, the AC unit has. Either like a fence around the gate or angle iron that's been welded over it so it can't get stolen and you know, there's some crack hits running through. Yeah. You take a couple extra precautions. Yeah. And I've had to put stuff like that in reports before just to cover me of like, like, Hey, like this guy kept coming by the house. Or I would say things like that, like just anything to just like cover me of like, Hey, I couldn't do a full inspection or, or something. Like maybe I make a phone call. But yeah, doing it in Boise is so easy. This, this is like cheating. So the Carolinas was great. It was a good place to cut my teeth. Um, the only thing I like about the Carolina is there's more slab on grade, then out here is like 99% crawl spaces. Yeah. So you're gonna have to crawl every day here.

katiuscia:

You do

joey:

for the most

katiuscia:

How crazy.

megan:

I will say I have an incredible crawlspace in You could, you could comfortably walk around in my crawlspace. That's, and it's all visqueen. Amazing.

joey:

That's what I love to hear. Yep. I, that, that, that will literally make our day, like, like we have our, my other inspectors, we're all on a group and we, we, we will send pictures of like a la like Joe did it yesterday, there's a ladder going down into the crawl space. And he's like, score.

katiuscia:

Oh. I'm like,

joey:

and I was doing this whole farmhouse and it was on a slab and I was like, oh my gosh, this is best day of my whole life. Like, and, and it's not even like the, I don't mind getting in crawl spaces. They're, they're, they're way cleaner here than they are. Mm-hmm. Back in the Carolinas too. It's just like the extra time that it takes. I don't know if, when I, when I go in that thing, if I'm gonna be there 15 minutes or, or 45. And then if it's a tough crawl space and you're down there and you're dirty and you're sweating and you're mad and you're, you're having to get, like, I know the master bathroom's over here you're trying to figure out a way to crawl to it, and it's not that easy and you're like, I, I gotta get eyes on it no matter what. I have to get eyes on this

katiuscia:

thing. Are you army crawling through the crawlspace?

joey:

Oh yeah.

katiuscia:

Okay.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Majority of the time,

joey:

majority of the time.

katiuscia:

Not in Megan's.

joey:

Yeah. Sometimes it's like hands and knees, but. I always joke like, it's not the fatness, it's the tallness that gets me Sure. Like I can get through a lot of places. Um, it's the, it's like if you're the taller, you, like, if I was six, six, I probably just wouldn't even it just wouldn't be worth it. I'm six one and it's like you have to, like, if you're on your hands and knees, you're, you're too high up if you're really tall and so. I'm like, I have to belly crawl a lot, which is just a lot more work.

katiuscia:

Yeah.

joey:

That or you're doing like the little kind of scoot, like your legs are kicked out. You look like a frog. You're just kind of pumping through. Yeah.

katiuscia:

You're scooting in. I mean, you do what you gotta do

joey:

for sure. Yeah.

katiuscia:

But you get the job done,

joey:

gotta get the job done

katiuscia:

and you get it done so well.

joey:

And that's what they pay us for.

katiuscia:

What they pay you for. So how, tell us how you built your business then in Idaho and how it's kind of evolved and grown to where you have it now.

joey:

For sure. I would say 20% luck because you, you kind of just timed it right? I mean, honestly, so I moved to Boise on a whim. Like I'm from a really small town in South Carolina, but we were 20 minutes from Charlotte, so that was really cool. Like I graduated like 97 people from my high school, but we were 20 minutes from an international airport, so that was very prime thing. I liked that. I did not realize how much Boise he was going to grow, so. It's one of those things, like I watched my little town get taken over by Charlotte, so I was like, well, if it's gonna get exploded, I might as well make And so I got 20% lucky. I say with, with timing it in Boise with all this new construction. Um, but getting it started was, like I said, you know, coming back with my mentor, having him in my back pocket, jumping in. I was doing Instagram when it was still videos. You remember Swer? Yeah. We always forget that. It was like just videos. Yeah. I'm like, I moved out here and I was like, I'm not gonna get another job. I'm gonna make So it was, um, June of 2021 was when I moved back to Idaho to, to start it. And that first like six months, I did 75 or 76 inspections and it was just feet to the ground. I was going to open houses, I was talking to people, passing sample reports out and just doing everything. And so I'm like looking at some of the bigger companies out here and I'm it's gonna take me forever to get 1,005 star or 500 to look legitimate. And we still like. We still look at that stuff like, I hate to think that we do sometimes because I'm like, Hey, I know I started and I had like 30 reviews and I knew I was the best. And it's like I wanted everybody else to know that too. And so I was like, I'm just gonna try to take over. And that was kind of really, I guess there were influencers back then too, but like, it was never my goal. I was just like, I just wanna be the guy. I'm just gonna win social That was kinda my jump. And so I remember like posting actual videos and then they turned into reels. And so if I, hindsight, I wish I could go back and like. I remember when TikTok came out, I should have jumped on it 'cause that that would've been the bread for, but, um, I got on on that and I had this, I, I've got a sales background too, so I, I know how to, how to talk to people and how to get in front of people And it's, you know, it's one of those things, like it takes on average like eight touches to, to get a, to get a sale, right? And so if I stop by an open house and I throw you a card and I leave it, it doesn't do a whole lot. It can, but not, not usually. So I make sure that I use Instagram as a and I credit most of my success to Instagram. And then once I got my foot in the door, I was, everybody. The, the, the line that I would always throw out to people was like, I know everybody's got their inspectors that they love. I'm new. I'm, I'm just kind of getting out here. I'm really good. So it's, it's like, I'm doing you a favor. 'cause now you've got Michael Jordan sitting on the bench, you know, like. So whenever you're ready to call him up to the big leagues, you're gonna, you're gonna see what happens when you put Big Mike in and that, and that's what would happen. They're bringing MJ off the bench. And here, here comes Joey. And they're like, holy crap, I've never seen an inspection. So it's one, one thing, you know, my mentor would always talk to me about, he is like, I know you can talk. I know you, you, I can wease on my way into anything. He's like, you gotta have a good report. Like, dude, this is, this is, if you get sued in your first year, all that was for nothing, you know? And so I just got really lucky that I had him. Because he, he probably turns down, he's got three or four guys that work for him too, and probably still turns down 30 to Wow. The dude is killing it. And so that's who I got to learn from. And uh, and so then I just, I would do that and make that contact. And the second somebody would gimme a chance, it was off to the races and they're like, well, I'm not calling that other guy anymore. you're up now.

katiuscia:

Yeah. You're the only one that I'll ever use. I have your, um, oh my gosh, what's it called? A tape measure. Oh, you gave me a tape measure. Once that's in my car, I always have a tape measure in my car because. When I show clients property, sometimes they'll be looking and they're like, I wonder if my things can fit here. And I'm like, I will be able to tell you. Yeah, we'll be able to see that in a second.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

So I love it. But you're also just so good with everyone that you encounter. You've been good with clients, you're super respectful. All of these things. How has your business transitioned to where it is now? You have Dom, I will say you've dominated the Instagram game now. Like I said, America's Inspector TikTok, you're everywhere, so you've really leveraged that. But I think the biggest point is that people love information and they love not being lied to. Sure. They love hearing it straight and yeah, it's not always pretty. Mm-hmm. We're a sick society that we like seeing the shit too. Especially in someone else's house. Horror

megan:

stories.

katiuscia:

Yeah, horror stories. We want it, we wanna know because one for weird mental things, but two, because it makes us be more aware of maybe what's going on in our, what's going on in our house. Yeah. Or whatever it is. You're a little, just more open to it.

joey:

But, and that, that's one of the weird parts about being a home inspector is, or, or just like the psychology of it in general is like, you just paid me a bunch of money. You almost want something wrong with your house. nobody's like happy, they're happy, but they're then, then the questions roll into of like, oh, was he a bad home inspector? Yeah. Did, did they do their job the way they're supposed to? Yeah. There's only 10 things on this report, and then I'll hear those too. Like I've done like. I've done like buyer's inspections that have had pre-listing on 'em. It's another way I got a lot of business too. They look at the pre-listing inspection and then they look at my inspection and they're like, uh, he didn't do this. Or, or find a lot of And so that's kind of one of the other ways that, that I would grow as well is like just getting those reports out there, getting in front of people and, and showing them. But that's, that's the sad truth of it, is we do wanna see the bad but. Even like me, like I, I sent, you know, when I bought houses, I'm like, oh, man, I, I, I want something from it. Like, if I'm gonna pay some money, I want something from it. Even though you really don't.

katiuscia:

You really don't. But you, we all, we also have to see the bad stuff because we have to know how to fix it if it's worth dealing with. Right. Yeah. That's, the home inspection is the perfect time where you're literally, it's a contingency. You can have a buyer mm-hmm. That says, you know what, based on. All this and maybe a seller's unwillingness to cooperate to fix it or credit or do whatever they have to do to make that right, because maybe it was their fault that they neglected, then a buyer has the option to exercise that. Right. To leave the deal because of the inspection.

joey:

Yeah,

katiuscia:

so that's why it's so crucial that you have a good home inspector and not someone who is just kind of. I don't know, lollygagging through and not calling shit out, but then you find it's a problem. Or the ones that, there's the other ones that overly scare and then if they have a repeat inspection with someone else. 'cause I've heard a lot of those stories with colleagues that it's not like that at all, but you've already blown the deal because that first one put the fear of God in them.

joey:

Yeah, and there's definitely a fine line too, right? Like I said, Mo, we're in an unregulated state, so. I can, do what I want as a and it's gonna be tough for you But the, promise that a lot of home inspectors do that, that we do is we provide, like achi, who is the biggest like home inspection training. Like they provide a standards of practice. And this is what we, we are promising you when you sign that agreement and we send you that standard of practice, we're promising you that we're going to go off that standard of practice. And that standard of practice is exhaustive, right? There's a lot of things. It's not just like going through a checklist like I care. A lot about the house. I do wanna know the, like, the reasons why things are I'm not just there like there's a leak because the thing that my mentor taught me too is we're trying to eliminate callbacks. okay, there's a leak under the sink in the bathroom. Okay, well the callback I'm gonna get is which bathroom was it leaking from the drain? Was it leaking from the water supply? Left sink, right sink. Like you, you like, that's just a small example, but you'll get 50 follow up questions and so. I was taught early just to be super, super thorough. Like, I want to answer every possible question. You could, you should be able to read my report and, and here's the joke my inspectors and I make. If you have a question after reading our report, you're probably an idiot. Like, like, and, and, and it is true. I would say 1% of the questions we get are actually valid. it's gotten to the point where I would just screenshot the report and send it to them Like, Hey, heres your answer.

katiuscia:

This is the answer.

joey:

Yeah. Here's

katiuscia:

the answer.

joey:

Yeah. So it's, it, it's definitely a fine line of. not doing too much or, or emphasizing the things that don't matter. unless there's a massive hole in the drywall, that's cosmetic. I'm not calling that out on a 10 15 20 whatever year old house. I might let you know, I might even put up just under information order like a minor But yeah, you don't wanna do too little, you don't wanna do too much, but you want to give people information. And that's the other good part too, is even if I don't find a lot of stuff I've been. I have so many photos in there that show that like, this was a thorough inspection. there's no way, like I, I looked at another inspector's report the other day and there's 10 photos in the entire report. 10 photos. I've got 20 photos of just your roof. I've got another 30 of your crawl space. You have

katiuscia:

video,

joey:

I've got videos explaining everything. So that's kind of one of the ways that we started doing it is. Is with, our software. We could do the videos, we could do pictures, we can add texts and arrows and all it's really helpful for the end user

megan:

so I'm gonna give a little perspective as the only Idaho native in this room. Um, 'cause I, you know, I just met you today, but it sounds, and from what Katu has told me about you, that you're awesome and you're so thorough, but, so before the boom

katiuscia:

mm-hmm.

megan:

Idaho was very much a, I know a guy state. And everybody, you know, I have a skill and you have a skill and so I'll help you out when you need my skill and you'll help me out when you need, you know? Mm-hmm. And it's just very under the radar. And we had not really any good contractors 'cause you know, a guy. And so it was like. What's the P? You know? Oh, well I don't need an inspection. My dad will come look at it. Or you know, my uncle Gary or whoever.

joey:

Yeah.

megan:

And then if you need it fixed, you know. You know a guy. You know

katiuscia:

another guy.

joey:

Yeah.

megan:

Yeah. And then right before the boom happened, a lot of real shady contractors came in. Mm-hmm. So there were some real shyster plumbers, HVAC guys who were coming around just taking advantage of people.

joey:

Sure. Yeah.

megan:

Really bad. And so I think you've probably being able to back up, you know, to walk the walk

joey:

Oh yeah.

megan:

Has probably helped a lot because there have been a lot of just people totally screwed over.

joey:

Yeah.

megan:

Who were, you know, like, oh, well I'll use this big company, and then they're just. Theft

joey:

and, and the broad version of that whole thing is that's very small townish. Mm-hmm. What I grew up with too. you know, like, oh, the, a guy one street over, he owns the only masonry business. Yeah. In, the area. Like, he's gonna do the work, like good, bad, or indifferent. That that's what's gonna happen. But kind of the, broad stroke for that whole thing is like at some point you have to roll the dice. And one of the things that, people ask me for recommendations for these people all the time, something like a roof. Get a big company, even if you pay more, like get a big company that's been here a while. And, and it's not to like, not support the local, the local cats that are starting stuff up or these mom and pop, the ones that actually need it, but I don't know if they're gonna be in business to fulfill that whole warranty. You gave me a 10 year warranty on this roof. I don't know if you guys are gonna be here coming from the East coast. My, my ex father-in-law owned a roofing company. You get storm chasers and it was just, it was crazy. It was like you get hail and then all these. Places show up and then they're gone and it's like one day they just all stayed. And then Idaho just kinda did the same thing with roofing companies too. And I've been friends with, with like on Instagram and stuff with roofing companies that are trying to get, like, everybody acts like I can give them a million like dollars worth of business. I can just suggest it's up to the sellers usually. But I've seen so many roofing companies come and go to where I'm like, Hey, you know, call one of the big companies. I know, maybe we don't like to, but first of all, they've got the money. just 'cause they got 30 trucks going around, gives you a little more security. And so. You kind of want your Uncle Bob who knows how to do plumbing to do it because it's cheaper and this, this, and this. But it's like, okay, what kind of warranties do we have now? Yeah. So now you, kind of have to, you gotta do the research at some point. You roll the dice there, there's gonna be a bad egg in, in every one I watched that same thing. I've, watched those, like, like especially with GCs, they, they, they got their boys. Yeah. Now Idaho's still a good old boys club.

megan:

Oh yeah.

joey:

Very much. A good old boys And I've weasel my way into a few of 'em, which, which has been nice. But, uh, but at the same time, I don't care. I don't care if the seller hires me. I don't care if the buyer hires me. I don't care if the builder hires me that that report's gonna look probably the exact same because one, this my, my favorite thing is like, I love doing home inspections. My number one goal not to provide a good home inspection, it's just to not get sued. And the byproduct of that is I'm gonna give you the best This the best. Yeah. I don't wanna get sued and I don't want a phone call. and so. You run into the, the good old boys that have done some work and sometimes they do a fantastic job, and you got really lucky, like, Hey, my buddy Mike, he's been plumbing for 30 years. He doesn't care about money. And I found some inspectors that are like that, and that pisses me off because I'm like, Hey, raise your rates, man. we're not, we shouldn't be doing $300 And you see that too, it's like sometimes it's some guys that from the military and they're, you know, they're getting money. They, they've already retired from the military or police or something and they're, they're doing it kind of as a hobby. And they might be really good at it. I've seen some guys that are really good at it, but I'm like, you're hurting the rest of us too, man. I'm like doing a $299 home inspection. You're not doing anybody any favors. So it's, it's still, it's, it's, we're most cautious we've ever been. Social media and the internet does not help at all either. we're always scared, and that's the thing. People rarely leave reviews when they're happy.

megan:

Right.

joey:

Yeah. So if you see a, a plumbing company that's got 42 reviews average of like three and a half stars or something like that, I look at them like, you know, I'm still kind of biased. oh, they're probably terrible. But then part of me too is like, they might actually be really good, who knows? So at some point you just gotta roll the dice. Yeah.

katiuscia:

I'll say by nature, when I'm looking at companies, when I'm looking at restaurants, 'cause I do love the Google Review thing.

joey:

Oh yeah. For a restaurant for sure.

katiuscia:

I, but even like a company, Mm-hmm. A company who's gonna do some work for me. I always want to read, like I'll look at the reviews and I go to the one star and I'm like, I do too. What

megan:

was the

katiuscia:

issue? And it's not because I wanna read bad things about the company, but I wanna know what was your issue that maybe one. People are notorious for not being able to communicate properly. Mm-hmm. Right? You're not, if you're not really saying exactly what it is that you want, but you're expecting a different result, hello, insanity. But also how can you put the blame on the company when you never really came out and said that that's what you needed. Or the company responses are my favorite when they're like, we told you that we would do this. And that's something that I do encourage. Mm-hmm. Companies to always reply, especially to those bad reviews. It's hard sometimes to reply to all the good ones. You also don't wanna. Make it like inflated, right? Yeah. All the time. But the bad ones, if there's a justification mm-hmm. Maybe that client or the buy, uh, I don't know, consumer was in the wrong, then you definitely wanna clarify a little bit bit. Sure. Because it just shows good on you and it shows, Hey, we were willing to, whatever it is. I'm not saying you, I'm saying in general.

joey:

Yep.

katiuscia:

Um, but I love that. I love that. Yeah.

joey:

I remember my first four star review and it was so funny to me, and. Is, you know, you can tell the person that wrote the review was very analytical and it was like, it was, the whole review was like a compliment oh, I highly recommend him. I would use him on my next time. Or it might have been a three. No, I think it was just a four star. Anyways, it wasn't a five And, um, and he loaded like pictures, from my report onto the Google thing, and it was a very thorough review, but he was admitting to, he was mad at the problem that I couldn't solve because like, uh, furniture was in the way, the house was staged and. He's like, yo, peak does a great job, very thorough, uses a thermal camera and this, and list all these things. I did well. And then he is just like, but he didn't find this leak that was hidden. And I'm like, thanks.

katiuscia:

Not your job

joey:

to

katiuscia:

move the

joey:

furniture. Appreciate, appreciate that my friend. Yeah. Like I got a house, you know? And a year after I moved into the, my house out here, the upstairs bathroom started leaking. Like, it, it, it happens.

katiuscia:

It's life. Yeah. It's the

joey:

lifecycle of the house. Yeah. It's just, yeah, like I said, you gotta roll the dice at sometime, but like, I was just so funny with that review. I kind of wanted to screenshot it and show everybody, like, hey, um, I can't, I can't see if this couch is blocking this wall. I'm not pulling couches out. there was even a thermal picture of the room. Like, hey, like so there's a, regular photo of the room 'cause we have to do so much CYA, like. I've got pictures of And so I just thought that was funny. my first like four star review, I think it's my only non five star review still. And it's just something like that.

megan:

I think there are some people who are just hardwired to not give a five star review

joey:

thousand

megan:

because like I used to work in a service department for a car dealership and they ha I've had so many jobs

joey:

that that's a whole podcast on itself.

megan:

Um, and we had a review system and the service writers would say, okay, and you're gonna get a survey. And if there's any reason you can't give me a five star review, I want you to call me

joey:

beautiful.

megan:

Because I wanna know what I can do to make it a five star review. And it was like the psychology, and we would talk about it all the time of these people who are happy with your work. And, but they just are disinclined to do a five star review. And, but if you say something like that, you know, like, well, why wouldn't you know, what would make it from a four to a five? And then they really would be like, well. Nothing. It was awesome.

joey:

Yeah,

megan:

it's give an

joey:

answer

megan:

such a weird mindset that some people have,

joey:

and that's kind of what my email that goes out, when I ask for reviews, I'm like, Hey, if it, if it's not a five star review, respond to this email. Well let, let's, let's either email or let's jump on the phone or something and figure it out. And, and most of the time people just wanna be That's what it comes back to.

katiuscia:

Absolutely.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

I do that. Also, if it's anything less than five star, please gimme a call and we'll talk. But I think when you take such an immense level of pride in the job that you're doing and in the work you're doing, and the care and every step of the way with your inspections, with me guiding clients through transactions. Mm-hmm. You know that you literally did everything you could, and sometimes, in my case, the job of the other agent as well.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

So you're trying to kind of navigate all of that. When, when I can look at every situation I've done with pride. Mm-hmm. And say, well, thank God, like I am j found my soul for, to make sure that everyone is happy. Yeah. And that everyone you know has a great experience. 'cause that's so important. Cool. You remember that? You remember the shit that you had. It's the same reason I only call you and the same reason I'll only use you. Mm-hmm. I have a listing coming up. They're a little past a year, so he had. His initial inspection, he had his 11 month warranty and he had asked me, 'cause he wasn't my client to purchase. Yeah, he's gonna be my client to sell. And he had asked me, this is, this is the company we used, do you have experience with them? I said, absolutely. I have experience with them. Is that who you'd recommend? I said I would a thousand percent recommend Joey McPeak with P Home inspections because he's got the prior training from not in this state where it's so easy to get. Your license or your certificate or whatever it is. When you have that backing and you have that, it's almost like a guttural training because you've gone through the shit to get there. Mm-hmm. You put in all the legwork you did all the time. Nobody can really say that, so I appreciate that.

joey:

Yeah. I, I would say that my, my skillset is forged by anxiety, you know, so like, going back to the Carolinas, you know, I'm working for one of my closest friends, like he, he's my mentor, he. A lot older than me, but he, he's a very close friend of mine and I don't want, I don't wanna get him sued. And then, and he was, you know, he was very direct with me. we, we weren't friends when we were working Like he, he forged me. And so, I mean, there's so many nights when I first started that I just could not And I'm sitting there, I'm like waiting for him to call me of Hey, you missed this picture in this report. You what, what, why did you word this like this? You Like all the stuff that, was needed. to make me the inspector. I'm now, and I still like, if I forgot to take one thermal photo or something, I'll, I'll pace my house. Like I, I can't, one, I'm super competitive, so I wanna be the best no matter what. Two, I care a lot and I don't want my name to be tarnished. so like, if you get me or you one of my inspectors, that's, those are the top three inspectors you're gonna get in And even, I always joke about Joe, when he was my, first inspector I hired, I have to pull him back. He's better than I am if, if I'm being honest, he, he's got this very militant mind, he's very precise and he's very analytical and everything he does is perfect to be a home inspector. Whereas I get a little a DHD sometimes and that, that was the part too where like my phone's constantly ringing or I'm, or I'm doing business side side of stuff where I can't be a dedicated inspector. That's why I had to make a lot of changes this past year with my company it's kind of a sink or swim you're either gonna, here's how we're gonna do it. You're gonna get the best possible inspection you're ever gonna get. You might be mad at how we do that, but this is the sacrifice you'll have to make so we can make that same sacrifice. And so, one question, and I, I do want to talk about this 'cause I, I do wanna raise some, like, ruffle some feathers for first. Ooh,

katiuscia:

hold on. Before we ruffle feathers.

joey:

Okay.

katiuscia:

bad. So I'm trying to hold this and trying to keep it low. Joey ruffles some feathers.

joey:

Ah, so

katiuscia:

this is what we are here for. Ruffle 'em up.

joey:

So, like I said, I'm very competitive and ultimately I want to give the best possible inspection. You could ruffle that mic a little

katiuscia:

I ruffle it every time.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

I'm a ruffler.

joey:

Yeah. I want a drifter on you. Okay. But so one thing that was absolutely killing and, and I I, we always like to joke, like, I think COVID shifted people like we are such a selfish me first mentality, like And it's very, very difficult because like, when I first started, there wasn't like, it, it takes one out of a hundred to ruin, to ruin your And that's all it takes now. Now it's like 25% of these people I know are just gonna be mad about something for some reason. And it doesn't. And, and like I said, they're probably just stupid and nobody's ever had anything like, like I've never missed anything, knock on wood, where I've like, like every time somebody's accused me of something, I've been right. Or my inspectors have been. Right? So that's, that's the kind of stuff that we like to So the question that I'm gonna start this is I just, I want both of your answers because this, this is my main justification for Let's say you're buying a house. You hired me as your home and that seller was there and he's just talking to me, distract me. I miss a couple things, I miss a leak or something. A few Who are you gonna sue?

katiuscia:

The home inspector?

joey:

You're coming after me. Is that my fault? it's not my fault. Right. And it, and it, and it's tough because Yes, it is my fault.

katiuscia:

I mean, like, it would be argued, right? I'm like, laws are going

joey:

would be, are we going to court over 5, 6, 800 bucks? Right? Probably some, some people love it. Hopefully not. I haven't had to yet, knock well, I guess I do got one coming up. But that's a different story.

katiuscia:

different

joey:

story. Yeah. But, um, so, so that's the thing is, is a home inspection is, I kind of refer to it as like. Like, like your mechanic. You don't sit there and watch your mechanic the entire time he's working on your car. There's a reason they don't let you back in the shop. One, there's liability same thing, like if you step on my ladder when I'm not looking mm-hmm. Home inspector's been sued for that. Oh yeah. I let my client on the roof or, or I, I got up on the roof and next thing I look over and he's up here with me, like, stuff like that. Like, I'm gonna get sued for that. Right. Something gets stolen from the house, which I've been accused of before. I sent a picture, I was like, what do I need eight pairs of women's shoes for? I don't need, like, I don't even know what like expensive men shoes are. There's a fetish for everything. Shoes. Yeah. I was like, don't check the crawlspace, but I'm like, I don't even know what like expensive men's shoes are. I don't care about pretty successful home inspector. I don't need to steal people's stuff. And I'm like, you had 23 people come in for an open house. Like, so there's, there's so many factors. Right. And the problem too, so social media, thing's like a double-edged sword. People wanna come, they wanna see me, they want the home inspection to be an I want it to be my job and I can't turn my job into an. And it just got to a point where like, people were coming by and turning the, in the inspection to like this whole thing. And the other thing too is like, if, if you show up early, it takes one second to distract me. I'm doing my report on my phone. I might have taken a picture of something. And then you come in and say, you, you just come in and say, Hey, what's up Joey? Good to see you. I forget to click the little button to put in my report. And then you move into the house two months later and you're like, well, you told me about it, or, or you didn't tell me about it. Like something like that. And shoot. I remember seeing it. I got a picture of it in my, in my folder here. put it in the report? So there's so many little things that could happen and little things like that were happening and I got tired of it. So I back last summer, I just, I was like, I don't have a life I we're, we're waiting for people nonstop. We're holding people's hands nonstop. What's the point of us doing this thorough report, if I just have to read it to you? When's the last time you bought a book and asked the author to read it to you? Like you buy the book so you can read it. Good point. Right? And so I'm like, I'm tired of holding people's hands. And I get it. There is a level of like customer service and understanding that helps when, when you're there at a home inspection. But ultimately it got to a point where it was hurting us way more than it was Um, we, we started recording how much time we were wasting, letting people come inspections, and it was over 12 hours a week. That's a day and a half worth of work, either us waiting on people or people just wasting our time. Hey, one more thing, one more thing. I'm like, well, what's the point of me doing this report for you? Like, I can't do a thorough report. And so, you know, for example, I had an inspection yesterday. It took me six and a half hours. I didn't know that until I pulled up that that inspection could have taken me three hours. Like I do not know until I pull up and I have an afternoon appointment too. So it just got to a point where people wanted make the inspection like an event.

megan:

That's wild. I have never once been to an inspection.

joey:

And so it comes down to, like back in the Carolinas, I think it's getting more popular, but when I was there, not many people showed up. And so that's what I was kind of used to. Coming out here.

megan:

Like, I didn't even know that was an option. Well, it's not with him anymore. Well, yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I mean, it, it really shouldn't be. No.

joey:

Yeah. And, and well, you know, and it, it's one of those things too of, of like, I get it, I understand it. Everything that I say that's not in that report when you and I are sitting here having this dialogue is now, it's, it's speculation and liability. Like you've gone to court and I, because I've seen this man, I've been in part of these Facebook groups with thousands of Like I, I've, I've seen every example, and my job is to get you the best inspection report possible if you want to, you know, it's the, the, the other example I always like to help you is like, imagine you, you, have some work you You go in and you tell that mechanic, he's got an hour and a half to do it, and if he can't get it done in that hour and a half, you're basically just gonna sue him for the stuff that you can't get done.

megan:

And then you're gonna be in the bay yapping the whole time.

joey:

Yeah. Right. And so, like, man, I, I, I, I, I can't finish this inspection or I got an hour left and then now you're here and distracting me. And, and this, it was just, it just got to a point where it was so bad. Um, so one thing that I did do to kind of counteract that now is. Actually just got kind of released. like, like I'm famous now. Hey, check this thing out my brain, this new drop. But one thing that we're gonna start doing this year, uh, Joe and I are, are two of the only certified master inspectors in Idaho. Um, and so we're gonna do a Peek premium inspection now and this is a fully interactive, then you're gonna pay double because you're gonna rent us for the whole day. But for the people, the engineers that need to be there the whole time, you're gonna meet me in the driveway at 8 30 and you're gonna do the entire inspection with me. I'm gonna go through, 'cause nobody knows your house crawl

megan:

space and all.

joey:

No, they, they can pop down there. I've had one guy go through, I just can't let you get on a ladder. If you wanna get in a crawl space, you're more than welcome to. Um, but I'll kind of maybe see if you hang out by the hatch. But if you wanna crawl, I've had like one of my buddy's dad's, he was a, a plumber for, for years and he's like, I'm going through that crawl with you. I was like, come on with me.

katiuscia:

Come on.

joey:

Yep. And so it's gonna be like nobody knows your house as well as the home inspector does. And it's, and my job as a home inspector is to translate that into a report. That's a lot of information. Sometimes I can't expect you to just know all this stuff. So we're gonna do this new thing. You meet us in the driveway, 8 30. We're gonna talk about disclosures, needs, your wants, like your suspicions, whatever, whatever problems you might have. You're gonna go through this boring inspection with me and you gotta plan on like four to six hours. Like you, you're renting us for the day. I'm gonna take you through everything. You'll know that house better than the current owners And that's, and I've done a couple of those already. It's worked out really well.

katiuscia:

Yeah.

joey:

Yep, yep. So it, it cuts down on my report writing because I don't have to do these videos and a ton of other stuff. 'cause I've already showed you in person, like, okay, the, you know, the water heater's leaking. I don't have to do a 32nd video holding your a report explaining it like you were here with me. You saw it leak in real time and all this too. There, there's no confusion. You've already kind of got it mapped out in your

katiuscia:

That's a great idea.

joey:

And, and you know, and that was the thing is like, we're not getting paid for our time. And so when you, when you show up and 15 people come by or, or you're 15 minutes late, you know, and I'm like, man, I got told my parents I'm meeting for dinner at six. It's already five o'clock. You know, and you know, I don't have a family, I don't have a wife or kids, but if I did, I wouldn't be able to do that and, and do my job because like, the amount of times that I've had to stay till like five or six or seven, just trying to customer service, I'm good at it and I enjoy it and I like helping people, but it's also a career and I have a life And that took my life away. You know? It, it was so tough. Like when, when are realtors showing houses on the weekends? When is my phone lighting up on the weekends? What do I like to do on the weekends? Not inspections. I like to go fish. I like to be outta service. And so it was one of those things, I was coming home and I got 14 missed calls and a hundred text messages that I have to try to answer now. And like, so I had to automate everything I've got, you know, got an office that, that handles a lot of that. Everything can be booked online if you wanna come by the inspection. You can pay for it. I'd love to have you there. You'll get me for that whole day. I won't book another inspection that day. 'cause I wanna make sure all of your needs are taken care of. But if you just want the most thorough and documented home inspection, you can possibly get, just go let us work. I mean, there, there's just no, there, there's a lot of pros for you showing up to inspection, more cons is, is how I thought about it. And that ruffled a lot of feathers. I had a, had a lot of hard conversations and I lost some, some like real good realtor referral partners. But I still, I was turning down 10, 15 inspections a week during the summer. I'm either gonna make this thing what I want.

katiuscia:

Yeah.

joey:

Or I'm gonna do something else. You

katiuscia:

need a life. I gotta have a life. You need to have the balance. I'm so happy. I remember, I think the first time that I had called you and your office answered, I'm like, uh, wait, what? So, you know, because I didn't know it was coming. But that was probably better, like better for me. I don't make big stinks about anything. I'm pretty chill, uh, regarding that stuff. And especially with you because I know you and I respect you, and I'm like, okay, I get it. When you explain it to me, I'm like a Absolutely.

joey:

Mm-hmm.

katiuscia:

When you're that accessible and that's the issue, say with my job, I don't really put guidelines on it because there, I don't wanna lose a client. Sure. In that sense, you are doing multiple things a day. Mm-hmm. It's a different business model. It's still client driven, the realtor and the buyer or the seller, if it's that inspection is your client. But for me, it's like realtors that don't answer their phone. Yeah. And I will tell you, I have had more experience with that in Idaho than I ever did selling real estate in San Diego. Really? Nobody answers their phone.

megan:

I believe that a hundred percent.

katiuscia:

I'm trying to show your house to make,

megan:

I can tell you the last time I answered my phone, but I'm not a realtor, so it

katiuscia:

doesn't matter. No, but it's like, call the listing agent to make an appointment and then the listing agent doesn't answer, or they don't work on Saturdays or Sundays. But that's when my client's available to see the house. So they make it so complex we need to at least be in contract to call you. So there's a lot of I get it though. Yeah. The taking advantage, if you give everyone, if you give everyone an inch

joey:

mm-hmm.

katiuscia:

They're gonna take it. They

joey:

just keep taking advantage of, keep taking of it. it of it. And like I, you and I talked about it before too, of like, you know. I, I, I had the number that I started my business just, I can't control that kind of volume anymore. 'cause like I said, like I, I would get, when Joe first started with me, it was so funny to watch. Like, it got to a point where like, as he got better and could do inspections by himself, it wasn't in my back pocket. And we're just teaming up doing He's doing 90% of the inspections. 'cause I'm calling people the whole time. I'm emailing people back, I'm texting people. again, not to be rude, but 90% of the crap people ask me, they don't need to have, everybody wants to be spoonfed now. Or it's just a dumb I'm like, you, you made a, a great point too of, of like, you, you know, you're there for your client. You're representing them. That's the only thing that that client has going on. I got six of these a day my and I can't do. I've, uh, thank the good Lord. I've, I've been able successful enough to where I can fire people. And it's such a good feeling. People that are thinking, they, they, I owe them something 'cause they're bringing me business. And I'm like, oh no, no. Guess what? Your number's blocked. I'm not doing inspections for you ever again. And so, and I've got like, my admin keeps a, keeps a list. We've got like 25 people on a black list that, that absolutely cannot. One of 'em hit my website this morning. She's got all my numbers are blocked from her, blocked her on Outlook and she's still trying to book inspections through my website declined, declined. Not responding back on the pre-chat form. So like, 'cause I don't have time to deal if it takes you 75 per inspection. So it comes back to, like I said, I've been in sales, like there's a sales cycle for every single thing. And if I'm selling a house a month, that house is all I care about and I'm gonna represent my clients the best. If I was a realtor I'd, I'd do the same thing. I, I've been in that side of things, you know, like that's all I care about. I'm just one small, small piece of this thing. I'm not making nearly as much, it's not gonna take me nearly as much time. I'm not sitting at tables closing, I'm not doing as much either. I can't, I can't be involved in like 45 email Like, and I want to help, but I'll be honest with you, if, if you're asking a question. It's probably not valid, and I hate to be mean, but people need to sack up this, this, this is not the age anymore where, where we can just sit around and like bully people over. Like I, I've, I've talked to other like small business owners, like, just 'cause I, I've been vocal like on TikTok and they're like, no, this, this isn't the, the customer's always right thing Like, I became an entrepreneur because I like wearing shorts every day. I like wearing a hat and I like, and I don't like authority. And you know, you ask my mom, I've never done good with authority. That's why I could've never gone into the military. So when people start trying to tell me what to do, that's, that's when we, that's when we run into some problems. Uh, so I had to eliminate a lot of that. And uh, and that's the problem is, know, name the last job you had. How many bosses know, you might have a manager, they might have a manager and CEO, whatever. You got really kind of one to maybe two people you're reporting I've got thousands that are telling me how to do my job every and they're clients and realtors and I'm like, you're hiring me because I'm the expert. I do this daily. I know this is a one-off thing for you and it's very important, and I wanna show you that level of respect. And I will communicate with you. It's not like I'm blocking everybody. That's what everybody thinks is people off. But when you don't have a direct line to me, it's crazy how in two more seconds you figure out the problem, like the answer to your question. And, and that, that's, that's what we've cut off a lot of. And uh, and it's helped us tremendously. 'cause now we're better inspectors. If, if I have, yeah. Like here's the thing. If, if I know you're showing up at 11, I'm gonna rush the rest of that I don't care. I, I, I've got a, I've got one. I'm gonna eat lunch as I'm driving to be late to my next appointment every single day because you guys wanna sit there and talk and then you're like, oh, well my dad's gonna be here in 15 minutes. Can you go over this? So again, I'm like, no, I'm, I'm not. I I have now I have to be a dick. And, and, and that now I look worse doing that in person than I do if I kind of set those guidelines And the realtors that are, are real busy. And then the people that just hate going to inspections, they love it. I'm like, I'll take all that business. And the people that insist on, like some people just act like if they can't be there, you know, like, 'cause I've had to have this conversation If they can't be there with the client, then the entire thing is pointless. And this is, this is where I'm trying to like draw the line. I'm like, I'm like, that's kind of shady to me of like, you've told me that I'm the best home inspector, you know, but you won't recommend me to clients anymore because I don't hold their hand hand through through stuff. I'm it's like, this, this guy's the best roofer I I've ever he does things a little different. I'm gonna give you this kind of of beat level guy just because he's gonna do what I ask him I'm like, eh, I don't get controlled. Sorry, I'm out.

katiuscia:

You're a part of the equation for a transaction. A big part because it sets a lot of the tone.

joey:

Sure.

katiuscia:

But you're not the hand holder.

joey:

Yep. And.

katiuscia:

And. I do understand where that would be very detrimental, not only to your business mm-hmm. In, in a business sense, just that balance that you have in your own life. Because how are you supposed to be everything to everyone and you're only a portion of this equation? Yeah. But they just want, it's, it is the handholding. Everyone does need to just sack up because I'm, they do,

joey:

I mean

katiuscia:

now I mean, I love, I will disclaim like I love, that's my job. I love guiding Me too. It's guiding.

megan:

Well, I was just gonna say, isn't that the realtor's job? I don't think I've ever talked to a home inspector. We get the report and I call the realtor and be like, well, is this critical or is this like, I don't perfect. I never once called the but, but I, I also am not calling, you know, I don't call my one specific guy who changed my oil.

joey:

Yeah.

megan:

You know, you call the office. Mm-hmm. The shop office, like you're not, that's what the realtor's there for. This

katiuscia:

is my, yeah. And when I say sack up, I obviously don't mean my clients. I mean, when you're working with professionals like this, yeah. This is not their job to do this. It is my job. Yeah. And then if there is a question which, like you're saying, 90% are dumb because they shouldn't even be answered. If there's something that's so baffling to you, but I mean, your reports are thorough, they're crystal clear. There is no room for questions between all of the words and the findings and the photos and everything that you have. Yeah. There's no room for questions. It really must be that one person who has to just be taken to the finish line. Yeah. With the hearing of the voice. Like I have to make myself heard. Mm-hmm. Have to know that I got that validation back. Right. Yeah. That this was done. Okay. Okay. Was it so It was good, right? Like good, you're not worried.

joey:

Yep. Good. Let me hear. Yep. Okay, good. Yeah.

megan:

Cool. I do think there are people who ask questions just to hear their own

katiuscia:

Sure.

joey:

Yeah, of course. That's, and the good news is, is my business just cut all those people out.

megan:

Yeah. Well,

joey:

that's the

megan:

beauty of owning your own business

joey:

Yeah. Is

megan:

that you can build your clientele mm-hmm. That you, you don't have to work with the people you don't really wanna work with.

joey:

Yeah. And the thing is, is I've, you know, like when I first started doing this and I had to have this conversation with with, with realtors who are so upset and people that I had really good relationships people, it, it's just so funny how, how people switch up when it's on, when it affects them now, when it's not on their terms. You have to have your own life. This, this, and this. Like, I can't believe this, this. And then in a second I do something where I get my own life that affects them. They're like, they start panicking and freaking out now, well, you know, we're gonna use another, another I spectrum. I'm like, cool. I don't care. Yeah. I'm still turning down inspections Yeah. The, the people that that love me, love me. But the thing too is like the amount, it's, it's literally every week that I'm still fighting this a little bit. And I, and that's to be expected. Um. Somebody will like the realtor or the, uh, the client will every other home inspection I've been at, I've been there the whole time, or I've showed up to the infra review and I kind of hit 'em like, Hey, you can cancel the inspection. It's perfectly fine with me. Um, I've, I've got a backlog here, right? I can, I can fill this in an hour. I was like, but if you're gonna have the best inspection you'll ever have, you will be surprised, I promise you it will not be like any other inspector you've And every single one of those, I can show you an email from yesterday, the exact same thing. I think I put it on my, yeah, I did put it on my Instagram story. Yeah. If you look at my Instagram story right now, there's a screenshot from an email and it's just, and it's like wanted to be there had a million questions. I answered all those questions on email beforehand, you know, which saves me hours on the phone. Like, Hey, if you have a question, shoot But every one of those people are their response every time, best inspection I've ever seen. I can't believe how thorough you are. I did not know home inspectors like this exist. Every single week. I, I turn these doubters into lifelong clients. It's, it's because like ultimately I think we do want the best sometimes we have to push and fight a little bit to get there. And if you're the person that can't understand why I'm doing this, thank God this weeded you out because you're the same person that's gonna call me in six and tell me your water heater's and then I'm gonna have to go through that and I'm gonna send you pictures from the report showing the water heater's. Not like I had a lady do that. I just had a, sent me a, a demand letter from a, an inspection back in June and I'm like, well, here's a picture. Here's seven pictures of your water heater, one's a thermal it's not leaking. And then it was so funny, I loaded her second email into chat, GPD or her husband reached out to me first and I was like, Hey, sorry dude, I'm not paying you the 2250 that it costs you to replace that water heater. And so the second email, she, she steps in. Now, husband couldn't handle it. So like a month later, the wife comes in. I was like, Hey, I'm gonna forward you the same email I sent him. Like, here's seven pictures of your water heater. Here's the top of it that you're saying's leaking. You said there's water in the pan. Here's the picture directly of the pan with no water in it during the inspection. She didn't like that. So she chat gtd this wild response. And so I loaded it up into chat and it's like, oh yeah, 95% chat, g pt. And uh, and so I even responded to her. I was like, next time don't have chat, GPT, write your response. You're still invalid. And uh, and then so my attorneys sent them a letter and shut them down. Like, like it's, and that's the, that's, those are the people that we're unfortunately dealing with. Like, there's no water on that table right now. I take a picture out, I put it in my report, and in six months there's water on that table. You guys are coming after like, Hey, there's the inspection. And then people will see that and they'll still be like, well, you still need to pay for it, or I at least want my inspection feedback. And so that's what I'm saying. So that's, those are the, those people, they used to be like 1%, I swear it's like of clients

katiuscia:

now. You think COVID did that for, I mean, I, I see so much of the entitlement and the handholding and all of these things, but these false expectations, I think also since COVID and since we came out of it.

joey:

Yeah. The other thing too, and I'm not blaming like people in like, I think it's a defense mechanism that we can't really because now it's like we, we, we don't trust our government. We, we don't, like, we don't trust people around us. We hate everybody because their political views, we hate everybody for, we're finding reasons to hate people instead of finding reasons to love people. I grew up in the Bible belt. I used to wanna be a missionary. Like I, I, I, I used to love people until I started be being a home inspector. And, you know, when I have to deal with thousands of 'em a year now, and now I started getting a little, a little disrespectful, a little, like, I gotta stand up for myself. But I think it was around that COVID time. It was like, I've talked to other agents and other people and home inspectors across the country too, and there's kind of, there's been this shift. It's, it's, it's not necessarily that. It's just like, I think me reaching out to you is gonna scam Like it, yeah. And, and people are just so defensive and, and they're, they're trying to protect the house. I don't think they realize how far they've, they've crossed And it was not blaming COVID, but it was right around that time where something definitely changed.

katiuscia:

But, you know, with COVID, and we've talked about this before, there was a shift, it happened a few years prior to COVID, I'd say. Mm-hmm. Specifically like 12 Um, it happened George Bush carry the two, um, nine 11. Yeah. During, during COVI because that hate was so created Yeah. From the media of you have to stand there and if that person's not vaccinated, then they're killing your grandma and dah, dah, dah. They started programming everybody perfect with this hate. So now that hate is just carried on and it's been perpetuated and it's gotten worse and worse. I mean, we live in an era where you have politicians that are slamming our own country. Mm-hmm. And, and I've never, with all the performative cussing, I've never lived in an era where that's okay because it just looks tacky.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Jasmine Crockett, like, that shit looks tacky. You're an elected official. Represent the people with some class. I'm allowed to cuss because I'm not an elected official, but

megan:

it Well, and you're not here in a professional capacity. You're just sitting here having a conversation like that's totally different. Like you're not, you know, talking to clients and realtors just cussing a blue streak. Yeah. You know, telling say all color jokes and, yeah. I don't like, I don't hardly trust because I've seen it. I've seen who we've had in the valley Yeah. Before everybody started moving in. There's a lot more options now, but like, but I also know how to ask questions. Mm-hmm. And I know how to look things up and I know how to not, I don't just walk around pointing the finger at everybody.

katiuscia:

Yeah.

megan:

But I also, you know, we've talked about that before, like COVID made it encouraged behavior.

joey:

Mm-hmm.

megan:

To like wrap people out. And I think that that's a weird, easy mentality to fall into. It's the same as being offended.

joey:

Yeah. And, and social media's got a lot to blame

megan:

for. Yeah. Yeah.

joey:

I mean, I, I've built my business on social media. I, like I've mentioned a few, it's a double-edged sword and it's a tool in so many ways. It's a, it's a great tool. I've, I've used it to market, I've used it to grow, and it kind of feeds, I, do like a little conflict. I, I like talking craft to people. So I, you know, like, that's the thing. People, you know, a business, like so many boomers on Facebook you own a business, so I can't believe you would talk to me like, and then I'll, screenshot a picture of their dumb looking kids or something like that. And I'll put it as a comment like, dude, don't talk to me First of all, none of y'all can beat me in a fight. So watch that, watch change pops Yeah. Time change Grandpa

katiuscia:

we're

joey:

allowed to talk about this. Like, you know. Yeah. Or, you know, I post a video and there's 7 million different Right, wrong, or indifferent. So like, we're at a, at an age too, where like. We think, and I'm, very, I talk to my therapist I'm very black and white. It's either right or wrong. This couch is either green or Yeah. And the amount of people I have to argue with of this couch not being green is, insanity to me. And, and there's part of me that'll never wrap my head around that. And that's where that kind of conflict comes in. And I'm like, it, it's easy for me. I don't have to try to explain to 'em like, well, the color hues mix it. I'm like, no, you're just stupid. That couch is green. Like, yeah. And I, I don't have time to sit here and try to hold your hand through all of it. So like, everything's very black and white. But, you know, watch any electrician, TikTok, can post one thing and they'll cite code, like in, in our minds, let's, you guys aren't in construction industry. What, what do you think about when you hear the code book? you, think it's either right or wrong. Sure. The right, like, oh, the code says you can do it or you should do it. you know, how much of that book is left to interpretation? So like, you've got 30 year master electricians with different you have to understand too. So that kind of gives me a little bit of grace too as a home inspector I need to understand, like I know what my lane is. can have my opinion, I have a, photo and a video, and if anything, I always err on the side of safety. So whether I'm right or wrong and I'm like, Hey, you can't put, uh, two wires into that circuit breaker, um, because you know that, that they can overheat, expand and contract it. It's not supposed to do that. And an electrician comes out and he says, no, that's a square. D you can put two copper wires one, I just learned something. Right. Two, he, he's right. Three, it's printed on the And uh, but at the same time, I made a mistake, but maybe I erred on the side of, of safety.

katiuscia:

Yeah.

joey:

Yep.

katiuscia:

Always better to err on the side of caution with anything. Yeah.

joey:

Yep. And so like doing, inspections specifically, that's kind of where I like to so everybody wants to argue and, and be with social media. And that part's fun for me. But you know, at the end of the day, I still did what was best for that client. And if I posted some video online where 700 people disagreed with then 1400 people agreed with me like. It me feel good. It's like,

katiuscia:

I'm glad that you've gotten to this point in your business, in your own personal life though, where you've limited access. I think that's such a crucial part of mm-hmm. Just especially this timeframe. In this we're going through of limiting access to yourself. Who gets it? Why are you getting it? Mm-hmm. Is it conducive to my own personal wellbeing, mental, physical, and my growth? Like, is this good to my business? Is this good for anything? A lot of people don't do that. Yeah. And that's, you weren't, you weren't doing that at the beginning, which is why you were so inundated.

joey:

Yep.

katiuscia:

But now that you've done it and you have a life again, how amazing.

joey:

It's it. I mean, it's, you can,

katiuscia:

fish again. You can fish again. Can

joey:

Joey, this is so

katiuscia:

glorious.

joey:

I I just, I couldn't fathom, I was like, I can't believe I created a business that sucks this you know, and, and I always wonder too, like, I would see my mentor get so upset sometimes. And like I said, I was like, I'm a pretty chill guy. I've worked with people, I've been in sales a lot too, and like, I'm here to help people. Now, I don't wanna do that anymore. Like, you know, it's like they, they force me to be this way and I can see why he's angry all the time. And so, so yeah. So like with, TikTok and, even Instagram, my office will tell me like, yeah, some guy from Louisiana just called, he, he, wants to know if you can call him back. Like, Like, oh, 'cause he has a question about his own house. It's, it's, you have to, the amount of people that just see me online or, or think like, or somebody says, Hey, ask a home inspector first guy you click on and so like, I can't my per, or like my, I got two, I got a personal and a work number, but like, only like 20 people have my work number. You and like 10 other people and my team. But like, I told you the other day, the amount of times that I would wake up in the morning and when do not disturb came out, that was all cool too. But like, the amount of texts when I first started this business, that would wake me up at like midnight or one in the morning, you know, really made me upset. then, you know, okay, turn that off. It's not like I was responding to 'em. Then I would wake up and ID and D would go on and I'd wake up and there's still four or five I'm just like, oh. It's like, so now I'm starting my day with a to-do list. And I'm like, okay, now I gotta wait till eight to call this know, and I'm trying to get this inspection started. Whereas like when you take that away, you know, people find a way to defend for themselves. And the ones that don't make it, then just natural selection, like, yeah,

katiuscia:

exactly.

joey:

Yeah. I mean, what happens if all these grocery stores shut down? You better learn how to do some gardening. You know, you better learn how to hunt. you'll find a way to figure out your, your problem, the solution to your Um, and so, yeah, so minimizing the way people, and so that's where a lot of negative feedback has come to me of like, everybody thinks that I don't want to talk to people. If you've got a question, I know I make a joke about it, like 99% stupid and it probably is. I still don't mind helping But when my phone number's plastered on that report, I'm getting calls and texts and emails and I'm like, Hey, page 14 of the. the, the one in the red with the picture that says like, Hey, whatever. And so when, people have to go and, and you take one of their steps away, oh, I can just text the the home no, please don't, man. Like I, I deal with thousands of these people a year. And so that's kind of the, again, like if, if I did, if I was a part-time home inspector and I only booked out like two or three of these a week for fun, man, that'd be cool. Yeah. I'll be, glad to answer you. And I do wanna be a resource for people. Shoot me an email. I can't, I can't have a 30. Like if I let that, if I let that go, I would probably have over an hour worth of conversations that didn't

megan:

Well, and

joey:

how

megan:

many of those questions are the same that five other people asked you last month?

joey:

Yeah. And that's where, that's where, that's one of the first things my mentor taught me too. Right. Of like, if, it's gonna come up on every single inspector, if that those, when I fast forwarded my career by a lot, I took all of his. One is inspection knowledge, two, all of his, like working with people knowledge. I, see it in the first 10 reports. And so I make sure that question gets answered you know, and that takes away maybe 90% of the time that that call would happen. it's, it's definitely interesting. But I, do enjoy, like, the position my business is cause I do have a and, you know how it is, I mean, like, you work with lenders, realtors, like, there's, like, I would, I would never be a lender. I think it's like, because they, they gotta be on the horn and it's what have, what have you done today? thing. Like, I, watch them and like, they, constantly have to be on social media. They constantly have to go out to coffee, constantly have to be in front of people. And then at seven o'clock on Saturday night, after you just got done showing houses, hey, can, you know,

katiuscia:

can you do a pre

joey:

Yeah. Boom, boom, boom. Now there's all these other questions that lenders need. And I'm like, unless I'm making like a million dollars a year, none of that's worth it You know, I, I. I'm not doing these for free. You tell you for charity to live here. It's

katiuscia:

so weird.

joey:

Yeah. I'm not taking it for, for fun. Yeah. It's so expensive to live here. Like, I got a regular house and my mortgage tells me I should be on a lake Like when you see a boy working on weekends, you see, I'm just excited to be here. But, um, but yeah, it's just limiting the amount of people and access that, that you have. you gotta cut people off and it's for their own

katiuscia:

it's for their own good. It's for your own good. The, I think the beauty of you when you do finally cut off access to people is that you have to do it before you reach that point where you're like, I hate everybody because the more, it's the majority of people who treat. Everyone else is expendable mm-hmm. As they're entitled to having a response. Right. Then their priority is the only one that matters. Their questions the most important, and they're the most person in the world.

megan:

Mm-hmm.

katiuscia:

That's not the case. We all are individuals. We all are important, no one is you know what I mean? There's no need to ever have that. So Yeah. If you don't cut off access, and I mean, if you had probably continued your business, you would be burned out in a year, like the way you were doing it.

joey:

Yeah, yeah. You know, well, well, I mean, that, that was my thing of like, I had, I had Cooper, Joe, and, and my, so I have three employees, and it hit a point back in the summer where I'm like, you know, there's three families that, plus myself that, that rely on me to, bring this business in and for me to hit a point, to hit a wall where I, where I say, I would rather shut this business down and you guys all have to find new jobs because honestly, I, I was 50. thought that was gonna happen. I thought I would lose so much business to where I would have to go back and be a solo That's fine too. I'll, charge you a thousand dollars and I'll do one a day. And, and I know I would make, you know, I'd make more money doing that than I would now, if I just dropped all this and became a solo inspector, but I wanna build a team of the best inspectors. But, I, had to make that choice because it was, destroying me and it was, and I was killing them. You know, when I got an inspector that's making really good money telling me he, you might have to do something that's a problem because people are showing up and now somebody else showed up and now somebody else is and it's like, Hey, we tried to give you guys something. Y'all ruined it. Here's how it's gonna be. I'm willing to shut my old business down. and one thing that everybody's just so scared to take a chance. it, I, the worst that could ever happen for me is I might make like 75 grand a year. 'cause I can pick up any sales job anywhere like that. That's I can make 75 grand a year and if I lose my house, I can still move in Like, I mean, it's my, my net and I'm, very lucky that I can say that at least. But like my. My net is, pretty, pretty high from where if all disaster strikes and everything fails, I'm gonna land pretty much on my feet no matter. I've been successful for a long time. So for me to not, for something in my life to happen to where I won't find success, that's, that's pretty hard for me to fathom. So I'm gonna make this business exactly how I want it, and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, I don't care. I'll go do something else, or I'll revamp this and do it some other way. And I think that's where like adding that premium inspection is going to help, it's gonna kind of scratch that itch for some it's, crazy. Like we still, Idaho is still, I'm the most expensive home inspector out here and I should be, and I try to, and I try to tell people that like, I should be the most inspector

katiuscia:

you should be.

joey:

I've seen every other home inspector's report out here. I should actually be charging a lot more than I I But, you know, with the, with the premium inspection, like, I want to be there. I want hands on. I want to talk to the guy that there's your your solution. I think that'll.

katiuscia:

That's perfect.

joey:

I hope it's working out so far.

katiuscia:

Hey, so tell me about this, uh, transition when you started getting onto TikTok, and what's your most viral video that, like, one of the, one of your best, just like your favorite viral videos on TikTok?

joey:

Um, so really, I haven't even been doing TikTok for even a year yet. When was it? Well, it was ki I was kind of on it. Um, I think it was March was the first time I ever made money on And so I'm like, well, I'm already putting this stuff on on Instagram. And I was like, well, we want to, I kept having people tell me like, Hey, you need to put it on ah, I don't, I feel like learning a new thing. I didn't realize how much people were getting and I feel like that's kinda shifted too, but I was, I didn't realize that the people were like making money, money or I'd done that a long time So I start posting and then. This is gonna be funny. This is, I probably shouldn't even

katiuscia:

oh yeah. Now you have to say it.

joey:

So, you know, to be monetized as a creator on TikTok, you have to have at least And I was stuck around like 5,000 followers for a while. Um, and I wasn't doing a whole lot. I was co like, you know how everything is, the less effort you give it, the more it gives you back. And that's kind what And so I did this framing and I, I like click baited, the title. I'm like, major, major structural issue, all red, all this stuff. And I'm going through and I'm explaining, this trust system. And I'm saying that it's missing support, but it's a, a carry through trust. And so I knew what I was saying was wrong, but I knew it would get the right people fired up. I blew up, I got like 4,000 followers off of it just, it kept going, kept going, comments after comments, and then I would see people like clipping in. I was like, oh, crap. This is kind of getting like, it was like an engineer, like, this is why home inspectors are so stupid. And I'm like, I, I want y'all to know I did this on purpose. Like I know, know what I'm talking about. And so I did that and hit 10,000 followers, deleted the video. That was kinda the plan. So I was like, boom, I'm monetized. And then even like a month ago, I saw that video come back up again. I was wow.

katiuscia:

Oh. 'cause yeah, once you,

joey:

yeah,

katiuscia:

it's, the internet is forever.

joey:

Internet's forever. Yeah. I learned that lesson, but hasn't bit me yet. But even if it does, like I can explain to 'em, like, yeah, it's just a, a little guise here to, to get into TikTok. Yeah. But hit 10,000 followers on TikTok, and then I was like, all right, this is fun. I made I think like $112, like the, in March, and I was like, I'll do it for, know, waste a couple, and then I, next month I hit like 500. I was like, oh, okay, I'll do it for an extra 500 bucks a month. And then. I just kept plugging into it and it just kept going up, up, up, up. And I've made several thousand dollars in a, in a month off, just off TikTok. I think my highest month was back in I and I was like, grand a year if I can keep this up. And then I don't know what happened. even I call Please for Love God, I hate being called a creator, but all the other creators, like, um, they, they were kind of like, I was talking to other people in the industry and it's, there's been a shift. And so now I don't really care about because it's not okay. It's not paying like it was. And I still get, like, I've got like 65,000 followers, I think on TikTok, but you go look at like, people with like millions of followers, they still only get like, 2000 just, it's just weird. Mm-hmm. A lot. The algorithms constantly shifting it. I became so obsessed with it when I started making that much money with it, whereas like, I'm like, another reason why my inspections are taking so long. I'm getting content, baby. I'm, I'm getting paid off these things. Mm-hmm. So that's kind of shifted too. But the cool part is, is you know, it's brought in business and that's what I care about the most, like keeping me and my uh, Instagram is my LinkedIn, TikTok is that Joey doesn't go to church, that TikTok, Joey's a different animal. And then, and then kind of the same thing now with, uh, one of my buddies, like, oh, I don't feel like doing long form uh, which I would like to do maybe eventually, but I started uploading a bunch of shorts and then

katiuscia:

Oh, that's right, they're shorts.

joey:

Yeah. So I started throwing a bunch of shorts up there and I like opened it up one day and I'm like, oh, 40,000 views this, this. And I was like, 400 followers, subscribers, or whatever, oh, interesting. I'm not getting paid off of it. I, I made, uh, 5 cents off meta Facebook. November, I made like 500. You better.

katiuscia:

10 99. That

joey:

gonna have to, you

katiuscia:

better pay your taxes.

joey:

I bought a boat after I saw that one going through. I'm getting rat boats and ho Yeah, boats and hoes we're gonna party. So I, you know, this, this year I made a decent amount of money off social media. I think I made, I had a month where I made like 500 bucks off Facebook. But it's to the point now, I'm just gonna keep feeding the machine, just playing a slot machine at this point. If it hits, it hits. If it doesn't, it doesn't, uh, it has kind of taken a little bit of a tank. But I did get my first like, um, like I have a referral source, when, you're filling out my, online thing to book a, book, an inspection and it said, saw you on YouTube. And I was like, oh shoot. It was kind of cool for me 'cause I'm like, nice. Okay. I, I got all the, I remember when the TikTok stuff happened. Um. And then kind of going back to when I got all the business was was Instagram. You know, I was just constantly like, you're a realtor. I can, I can like, Hey, Kaha. That's cool. Yeah. Oh, oh, I hiked that mountain. Or like, oh, I've been there. Yeah. Last time I was in Vegas. And I can keep those conversations going and, and that's what brings business. And then you're seeing what I'm doing every day. Whereas tiktoks just, it's its own, own, it is

katiuscia:

is its own

joey:

game's game. You just throw as many videos as you can and it's like, you know, if I go to the, the gas station right now and I buy 10 scratchers, one of 'em is gonna hit, hopefully. Right. kind of what you're doing with TikTok. Yeah.

katiuscia:

You're rolling the dice on TikTok. Always

joey:

rolling the dice on TikTok. Yep. I'm, I'm doing it for fun and, money. Instagram. I'm trying to be professional, that's where I try to connect and, like show them Instagram is my, advertisement. TikTok is

katiuscia:

Okay.

joey:

And we don what YouTube gonna be for fun

katiuscia:

and play and play money. YouTube will be educational. Like people will like that for the educational aspect and it'll probably be a good referral source

megan:

for you. When people wanna learn YouTube. Oh yeah.

katiuscia:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

joey:

And I like everybody else, I was doing this before it became popular, I started designing like a home inspector course. Um, but that's what eventually I do want to have like, you know, 30 minute segments of hey, here's how we, here's how you inspect a bathroom. And the thing is, is like people love that kind of stuff. And I love that. You know, when I first started doing Instagram, the amount of realtors are like, oh, I, I show, or they tag like the client in like one of my videos, Hey, this is gonna be your home inspector. This is the guy I was telling you about. Or they're like, Hey, I sent your Instagram to people. 'cause of that last new construction And it, and it's, it's my, uh, it's, it's my interview. whereas you, you know what I haven't done in about three years had somebody call me and ask me why I

katiuscia:

Hmm.

joey:

I used to do that all the time. And I have to sit here and list out I'm this, this and hit 'em with some sales lines and

megan:

Yeah.

joey:

And do all this other stuff. Well, well I should be your inspector because like. I, I've already, I've got a permanent place now where you can see why I should be your inspector.

katiuscia:

The internet is a beautiful thing because it's eliminating the, it's the vetting process.

joey:

It

katiuscia:

is, yeah. Anything you are reading, whether it's reviews, whether it's the social accounts, it's the vetting process. Mm-hmm. And that is the interview process now for specific types of jobs for, but also for other types of jobs that people wanna make sure you're a decent human. Um, but I, I love, I love that. I think that's great for you.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Just in a general. Holy shit. Uh, I have a question. My question is, since I moved to Idaho, I find that there's a lot of things that I hear, and my grandpa was a general contractor, and him and my uncle built a house, built many houses, but built the house that I had before I moved to Idaho. Mm-hmm. And my question is, since moving here, I've heard so many things in terms of the maintenance on. Uh, you have to get your ac and I've talked to Megan about this 'cause she's like, oh, don't get me

megan:

started. she's like, oh, don't get me started.

katiuscia:

ACS and furnaces or calibrated or, um, whatever. Every year service 'em, it's serviced. Yeah. Every year.

megan:

Well, they'll try to have you do it every six

katiuscia:

Well, per the season.

megan:

Shyster

katiuscia:

and then it's, it's the duct cleaning.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Right. And all this shit. As a home inspector, how much do you think that's actually valid? Or is this a money thing? Yeah, sorry, I'm gonna ask it.

joey:

I can tell you what I do. Okay.

katiuscia:

Like,

joey:

I mean, I've had, My parents had bought a house years ago and I moved into it before they moved out here from South Carolina and houses from 2004. I think. I had the ducts cleaned 'cause there's a bunch of kids lived in the house. There's a bunch of crap in there. I could have got down there with a shot back too, but they'll run their little tool through there. You buy an old house and you've probably seen an inspection reports. I'm like, man, there's a ton of dust when you look up in that return duct. Like, yeah, duct clean is good. You don't have to year.

megan:

Well, and this is a dusty place.

joey:

It's a dusty place.

megan:

Yeah. Yep.

joey:

Construction always too. And if youve got a ton of pets and kids and stuff inside too, maybe check it out again. But that's what your air filter's for. I get my AC serviced in the spring. I get my, uh, furnace serviced in the fall.

katiuscia:

Every year.

joey:

Every year,

katiuscia:

okay.

joey:

Yep. Makes me feel good because you still gotta practice what you preach too.

katiuscia:

Sure.

joey:

Yep. And at least I, I know, you know, I, I know what the process is. and the thing too is I'm not standing over them. You would think, me being a home inspector, I'd sit there and bug them. I let them do their jobs. Hey, here's the garage code, dude. I'm,

katiuscia:

well, you also practice what you preach in that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Exactly. So you practice where you preach in many ways,

joey:

which is so funny. My software company, they like, I get so frustrated sometimes I'm such a hypocrite because I, I've, like, I have a small question, but they want you to load their little chat bubble up and do this and this. I'm like, can I just shoot somebody an email or like a five minute phone call is all I need. And then I'm just, I just look at myself in the mirror like, you you it, you deserve it. But, but I'm like, Hey, I understand. I'm still on your side for but no, as far as like maintenance and all that goes, I'm, a big fan of yearly stuff. It, it's really just if you're doing what you're supposed to, changing your air filters. Being a home inspector is not This is honestly, it's one of the easiest jobs and one of the cause if you do miss something then it does suck. But if it looks wrong, it probably is. So like if you see like, you know, your back splash at your sink and you need to add some call cam, my house is 15 years old, it's expanded, contracted. There are some maintenance things that, that need to happen yeah, I get my stuff serviced every year.

katiuscia:

Okay.

joey:

Not, not scared.

katiuscia:

Okay. Except the ducks. The ducks are like three to five Maybe

joey:

it's even Yeah.

katiuscia:

Okay. That's what they, I think the companies typically recommend three to five, but I guess it would depend on the, what's going on well.

joey:

Yeah. There's a little bit of snake oil and all that too. And I mean, duct cleaning is nothing but margin. They're not going through consumables or, or having to buy product to the same Um, so I, yeah, I'm a big fan of that. Like, I didn't even get the duct clean in my house. 'cause I, I can look in 'em and see that they're, they're not dirty then I, I was fine with that. If there was, I'll take a little shot back and pull some of it out like right there. But if a house that you know has been. Rode hard and pets and all this other stuff and dust everywhere. Road

katiuscia:

hard.

joey:

Yeah. Did you ride

katiuscia:

ride your house hard? Holy shit.

joey:

That's one, that's one common thing in our group text too, is wow, this house has been road hard. I don't know if that's a, a different,

katiuscia:

I don't think I'm ever gonna get that outta my head. I'm gonna just think about that

joey:

every time. Have heard that before?

katiuscia:

No. Every time I walk in you, that whole phrase No.

megan:

You

joey:

house

megan:

as a No. As a house. As a house.

katiuscia:

I was

megan:

gonna say in relation to a house. No, but like

katiuscia:

in relation to a house. House,

joey:

yeah. And

katiuscia:

now I'm gonna think about that.

joey:

Yeah. I

megan:

mean, I grew up with horses, so

joey:

like that's, I know what, like,

megan:

I,

joey:

I got a horse tattooed to my body. Yeah, I Yeah, I know it. But yeah, that's, you can, that's the thing. We walked into these 10-year-old houses This is terrible. And then you, provide an inspection report and, and you, put a bunch of stuff down and you hope that they don't come after you for something later. But most of the time that I've found. Kind of a separate story too, of like, I've got somebody who just sent me a demand letter for 50 It's just so funny. Like, I mean, I guess it's worth rolling the dice, but it might scare other people. It doesn't. I know what a demand letter is. I've been doing this long enough, I don't really care. If it was my first year and somebody's like 50 grand and call my insurance right away. And that's the other perception people. I want everybody to know that, uh, we don't have an e and o like policy to where we just have $20 million sitting in the bank that we can just shell out, my, my, um, e and o policy will like double or triple. And if it does that, I'm not gonna be in business anymore. I'm not gonna pay 30 grand a o insurance for your $20,000 Like if it's valid, we'll we'll go through that, but I'd rather pay it out of of pocket than hit my But anyways, they go, they, they move into the house. I'm looking back at the inspection report and there's like 90 things on yeah. So we'll get those buyer's remorse people. They move into the house, they hate it they'll, they'll. they're, just lashing out at anybody. They might even attack their realtor. They, come out at anybody that they they can get. I get that several times a year. And I go back and I look at the inspection report and I'm like, brother, I gave you 80 reasons You still bought it. it. And so these people moved in. We told 'em two places where there was mold. We told 'em where there was leaks. They moved in, they do an, an air quality test, they find all this mold, and now they want 50 congratulations, you're an idiot. I sent their demand letter over to my attorney and that, that was his response. He said, yeah, dot, dot, dot. This guy's an an So I mean, it, it might, worst case scenario, the most they can get from me is the

katiuscia:

but why? They're

joey:

not going to.

katiuscia:

Yeah, but why?

joey:

I just want them to know. I'm like, Hey, read your agreement.

katiuscia:

Read your agreement, read your contract. That is a contingency for you. Everybody. If you don't like what's on the inspection is gonna be done about it, you can get out of that contract because it's your right to be able to do that. That's a protection. It's one of your biggest protections. So to come after you or I, I have heard of people then blaming their realtors and I did. Was there a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy this house? Did you have to buy this house or did you choose to buy the house? Oh, was it was a choice? No. Okay.

joey:

Yep.

katiuscia:

Okay. Major, Major.

joey:

You had all these major, you had all these red flags, you still bought it.

katiuscia:

Okay.

joey:

And now you're mad.

katiuscia:

Mm-hmm.

joey:

I get it. Okay. But I, I'm just in my lane too, so I, I know there's gotta be a ton for you. And I do hear stories for, for realtors too, but like, I get it, you made a bad decision. You wanna lash out. But that's what, what I hate is like realtors and contractors are like, the home inspector should have this. like, no, that's wrong. Most And I've had to defend myself and, and I'll be honest, when it comes to what I'm looking at, sometimes I'm smarter than most plumbers, most electricians, most other people. And I, I'm a really good home inspector, but like I, I've, I've had to defend myself against people that are like, well, the plumber came and did this, and he said, this is required. I won't even argue. I'll screenshot it. Like, Hey, it's not, he's wrong. here's the other thing too, is I can teach a monkey how to go and wire a I have immense respect for electricians. 'cause most of my friends are, and I always dog them online just for fun of it. So I'm gonna dog some electricians. Like if, if you're a new construction electrician, you're a trained monkey. Mm-hmm. You don't understand a lot of this that you do because you're going through the but you, you're not applying it. Whereas I go look at a house with a panel from 1970, I know a lot more than you do about this. Now I'm gonna draw my, my line in the sand right there. I'm not, um. Skilled to fix a lot of this stuff where I'll still call my electrician friends. I might know how to, but they do it every day. Like if they're, you know, um, if they're service electricians, but I can teach a, an 18-year-old right outta high school, how to make up a receptacle, how to, how to run these home runs. And, this is, you just follow a plan and you staple some wires and you cut 'em, right? And, then it just becomes, you know, I can pick up this table and move it over here. It's, it just becomes natural stuff. So if you get a good home inspector that knows a lot of this so then you just kind of find yourself defending dummies. They don't know what they're talking about. Uncle Bob's Plumbing, who's like, oh, this should be this. I'm like, no, and here's why. Or here's the code, even though we're not code So it's just, I used to be a nice guy and I'm just constantly defending myself now, and I blame people.

katiuscia:

You're still an incredibly nice guy. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So I, I will give you that. It's To deal with it. It's so much just, and coming from a different side of your same business. Mm-hmm. Right. The same different side. But it's a lot. You've got emotions high in transactions. You have everyone that wants everything to be perfect and that's not really Right. So yes, you almost want something wrong, but you want it to be the easy fix or you want a clean inspection. Yeah. Nothing is better to me than a clean inspection with like some minor thing wrong. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, the door is, you know, the cabinets are off in new construction and you're like, oh my God, that's such an easy fix. That's it. This. Yep. And then that also helps builders build and improve their reputation when they're consistently putting out. 'cause you do a ton of new construction. Mm-hmm. And, and I love that because you rip it, you rip it apart when it needs to be ripped apart. Yeah. And that's why your videos are so great too, because you're showing people the behind the scenes, behind the walls and all the shit that you should, that you'll never know unless someone got in there and saw it.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Hence the pre drywall.

joey:

Yeah. And Boise Boise's not an anomaly, but they're, they're fantastic just What are we, the, the highest percentage new construction market in the country or something like that? 65, 70% new construction. And the hard part now is you book new construction what, like a month out for the like that? And so now when these resale contracts come up, now that I'm slow, I've done more resale houses because they couldn't get in, they, there wasn't a spot left. like the summer, or even the spring I'm booked out, all three of us are booked out. I got six inspections a day, for three weeks from now, you go write a contract on a 2001 house, I might get five days. And so I'm getting the, text of, Hey, can you squeeze this in? 00 PM inspection or something like that. But like, when we start rolling, it's all new construction. And new construction is another one of those ones where it can take me I mean it's, I can go into your, this house here, go into the same model two houses down and take me double the time. you just never know. And that's what I've got, uh, some issues right now with a, local builder who's, who's not doing any favors for themselves, but like try to say that I don't know what I'm talking about. And they badmouth me in front of clients and realtors and I'm like, cool, you wanna sit down with me like an adult and go over my report? 'cause if I have a picture and a video telling you that something's wrong, how can you argue with me about that? You're just upset that you have to fix it it's a brand new house. I'm not saying everything should be perfect. And you, the, you know, the funny thing about this whole thing is like, I get everybody jazzed up online about a brand new house should be perfect. This, this, and this. I don't care about 90% of stuff that boards 'cause I'm just not that kind of person. I understand it. I know it and I know there's people that care. And so I wanna cover all of my some people are just super chill. Like I don't care about a couple ds and dings on the wall, even if it is new But here's the other thing too, why I had to start being so thorough is I would go to these like. like 11 month like. the people that have lived in that house for 11 months are just freaking out. They're like, this little ding was right here, and this, this, and this. I'm like, you know what? I would rather just cover all that in the initial inspection and then let them negotiate Right. it's not like, here's everything that I could find and I don't understand. It's like these builders act like I'm making stuff up. there's a picture and a video of what's wrong. Whether it's a scuff on the baseboard, whether the cabinets need to be adjusted, like whatever it is. It's not like we're making this stuff. That's where I, like, I've got a really good relationship with a lot of builders. Um, but the ones that push back on me, I just, I can't understand. I'm like, instead of trying to sue me, like, a bunch of children have a conversation with me or pay me 300 grand a year and hire me about that. You're selling million dollar houses. Pay me 300 grand a year. I'll come work for for you. You know, and then we won't have any of these You know, like, I'll, I'll be your qc, you know, whatever. But. But. Here, here's my biggest compliment that I've gotten as, a home is I've probably done 20 plus. the people that hate us most are like superintendents, right? Project Guess who they call when they have their own They call me. Yeah. They see every other home inspector in this stupid valley, and they call Joey to come do their 20 plus times. I did probably 10 of 'em And I'll, they'll be there and they'll, tell me the same thing, I like you all these, or they'll come up and they'll talk to me like when I'm doing a new build or something like, Hey dude, I'm gonna, And it's the biggest compliment. The people that hate us the most, the people that see the most home inspections and the people that should be the smartest people in the industry have chosen me time and time okay. That kind of like, I, that's how I know I'm not making stuff up. I'm doing doing this

katiuscia:

Do you wanna know why? That is,

joey:

I would love

katiuscia:

because Joey McPeak is America's home Inspector.

joey:

Two Zero

katiuscia:

think you should start hash. I I think you should start hashtagging That could be your new thing. It could be your new slogan. America's Home Inspector.

joey:

America's Home Inspector. Yeah. Then I'll need to go get, uh, a license in every state and start, well start going, that's, that's one of the like, main comments too of like, can you go to Texas? I can't, like, not even for the right price. Like, 'cause I, I can't, I can't, uh, Texas is one of the most heaviest or heavy regulated states. And same thing, like North Carolina is one of the toughest states to become a home inspector South Carolina is also regulated. So I came from one of the best home inspectors in one of the toughest regulated states to, we love Idaho for this reason. Right. You grew up here. Mm-hmm. we, we love it. But I'm still trying to, I'm still trying to change. You know, I've, I've been at the to Doppels office. I've, talked to as many people as I can for years. I'm trying to get home inspectors think it'll do us a little bit of good, I mean. Bare minimum passed the, National Home

katiuscia:

I think bare minimum, a lot of industries in general just need to have a certain level of a standard. Like a standard, but a certain level of it where it's not that anyone can do it because not everyone is cut out for every industry, but when you're putting something on the line like your and what's wrong with it and what could be called out and what could make or break a million dollar or $300,000 transaction. This is people's money. Yeah. People's livelihoods, people one of the biggest assets in people's financial portfolios. Yeah. They should have the best of the best. The Kareem of the crop working on their house. Yeah. And telling them, advising them, guiding them everything.

joey:

and that's the thing too, it's like, you know, a lot of tradesmen become home inspectors and it's, doesn't mean you're just gonna be instantly be good at it. There, there has to be a mindset. I would rather have somebody that's never done anything home inspection or trade related. If, I know they're genuine and they care and they're not dumb. And they can pick up, if I don't have to tell 'em five or six times, like they, they, they pick up, like, I see I've seen this defect once. It's in my bank not like, Hey, you missed this 10 that's a great home inspector. I can train them. But some of the people like, Hey, I did HVAC forever. okay, that doesn't mean you're a great home inspector. I'm sorry. Right. You know, or, you brought somebody to the And that's the other thing that I've, been lucky enough too, is like, and I get it, like let's say you, you, don't know anything about houses and you bring somebody that you think knows

katiuscia:

Like the buyer's dad.

joey:

Like the buyer's dad. I, I, what I do is when I, when I used to do reviews is I try to, I try to like, I want them to make themselves look stupid, if they start getting on my nerves. There's been a couple times where like I, I've, I did, um. an for a guy who's like a master, electrician. And then the guy he brought was like a structural engineer. He did something else. These two were some of the most brilliant guys I've ever met. We're in the basement of this house. And I'm asking them questions because I'm not gonna say, I'm not gonna sit here and act like I know stuff. And I'm like, Hey, you know, I know what I, I know everything I need to know as far as what a home inspection I'm trying to learn too. I was like, Hey bro, I've got some questions Like, like te teach me this. And so the only time that I've ever been mean to somebody that's showed up to an inspection report this young guy. He started working for a local builder here. Uh, well, they're a national then he brought one of the older guys that works for the warranty And this dude started acting like a know it all. and I was really getting kind of frustrated with it. And I'm really good with people and especially in Uh, so I just started setting him up to I'm like, I'm like, oh, well you probably know what this I was like, you could probably explain it better. Tell, tell me how a sump pump And I'm like, so then I, I jump in and save him and I do that four or five times. And then him and I, he, one of those idiots. If here's, here's, if you ever go to home inspection and there's somebody going out tapping the walls or, or like doing this like, like checking, that's sturdy. That's sturdy. Like doing that stuff. They're morons. This dude was doing that. He was going around, it's

megan:

like a tire kicker.

joey:

The tire kicker. Yeah. He was like, his house is from the nineties and there was like a little piece of like trim on the front column that was worn down and I had pictures of that, but there was so much around the house that I just put a few general photos I'm like, Hey, basic maintenance And I got in an argument with this dude in front of the client and the realtor. 'cause was like, yeah, I kind of noted that. I was like, I didn't take that picture specifically, but I'm like, because there's a potted plant right here beside it. And these, you know, or it's just holding water. it's a piece of trim that was this big that could have been replaced. Doesn't matter, it's not structural or anything. It's on a front porch column. And he's like, you don't call out wood rot your reports and I'm like. That's not wood rot. yes, I did call out a lot of basic maintenance stuff. And he's like, I can't believe it. A home inspector doesn't put wood rot in a why don't you go ahead and look up the definition of wood rot, moron wood. And so I started going off on him. that's not what wood rot is. it's a piece of trim. I said, why don't you go to one of your job sites and pull it out of the dumpster and come fix it for your, for your boy here? what are you talking about? And then, so him and I got into it. He stormed off around the, the house and then I, this, I looked to the realtor and client. I was like, I don't wanna insult anybody. That guy is an Because this kid was scared. 'cause he was buying a house from the nineties with a ton of stuff in it. And I was like, you can ask me whatever question you want and I'll be but please don't take any And I like, I called the realtor later and I apologized, but she understood. no, you, you were right. that dude was a moron coming here. And I'm like, I'm trying to keep him from blowing up the deal. I don't know if the kid you just never know.

katiuscia:

You never know. It's the beauty of people.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Hold on.

megan:

What does this do for you? And I'm like, not interested. Leave me alone. I just want nails and hammers and wood which can also, so careful. Yep. Um. Okay, so we're back. Uh, and we have taken a bit of a break, but let's keep rolling into, let's talk algorithms on the internet. Let's just, let's go for it. Let's talk about it live and uh, you know, I find that my personal Instagram mm-hmm.

joey:

mm-hmm.

katiuscia:

My algorithm is either really fucked up. Or puppies. It's a beautiful blend. It's, or like baby comedians. Baby Theon, baby Bobby. Those are weird. But it's funny because those are so weird because that's my search page all the time. Yeah. It's the, the messed up, really inappropriate humor that everyone gets offended over

joey:

Or

katiuscia:

it's that stuff and I love it or, and conspiracies. It's the copi. I'm getting a lot of conspiracy party videos right now. Yeah. The people who are hosting conspiracy parties, and I just think that that's gonna be either my Christmas party or my birthday party is going to be a conspiracy party. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

joey:

You

katiuscia:

have to, wasn't there like a popular trend where like people would like come to whatever the party and like, okay, you pick whatever can and you try to convince your friends. Yeah. Power. They're doing power PowerPoint presentations. It's all over again. It's hit it's rev. It's revitalized. It's revived. It's back in the game. Uh, yes. And I think, are you a conspiracy person? I,

joey:

I, I'm

katiuscia:

a firm believer that I'm not a, a fence sitter, but I'm a firm believer that there's a little truth in everything. Mm-hmm. Uh, I know for a fact the earth is flat. Not a fence that are there. No, I'm just kidding. But I, I'm like, man, you, you'll hear something about flat earth man, and you're like,

joey:

it

katiuscia:

does make a lot of sense. I'm like, if you pull a helicopter up and you leave it up for 10 hours, it shouldn't land in the same, so you start going through, and then you

joey:

you

katiuscia:

start reading the comments. I just, I was just telling Kacha, I was like, listen,

joey:

the

katiuscia:

flat Earthers put up a real good argument. Like it's hard to argue with that. And there are days where I'm like, I think I'm too fucking stupid to understand what they're saying right now. But it makes a lot of sense. But like. that's the one, because like we've talked about the moon landing and I only had one person come back on me after our moon landing episode. We know that's not real and got so upset with me

joey:

and

katiuscia:

we had, it was at work and we had it out.

joey:

But

katiuscia:

I, somebody asked me last night, I was at dance with my kids and she was like, well,

joey:

you

katiuscia:

did the moon landing. Are you gonna talk about

joey:

the

katiuscia:

flat earth? And I was like, I don't know that people are ready for that because people get so upset with that one. man. it's it's fun to watch, like sit there. It's, well, you, my, my opinion changes daily and I'll sit there and read comments and I'm like, well, that's a really good point. Yeah. And I'm like, and I just, I made a joke, literally, I think yesterday talking to my buddy, I was like.

joey:

What's

katiuscia:

gonna be funny is that we all die, we get to heaven and God's like, you guys really think thought gravity held water, right? Like honestly to the side of, yeah. And I'm like, thank you. That's my only thing when I keep thinking about the flat earth. 'cause I have so many people in my life who, you know, maybe not close to me, but you hear them and they're like, oh, these flat earthers. And I'm like, but when you fill, but when you fill up a sink or a pot, water always finds level. The water rolls over. So how are you telling me that? It's a magical. Ball Anyways, we'll dive in. We will dive in eventually to that because I gotta, I gotta get all the points on that. Well, the thing is, is like, you know, okay, from construction, take a level. Yeah, right. What do we use from a level, what's in a level, A bubble and a piece and some water? Oh my God. Like a little air gap and some water. You don't see that bubble just doing this willy-nilly because. Whatever. Like, right now, like I'm, I've got my hat on, like I'm, I'm a flatter. If I had to bet, like that's what I like, like I know Bush did nine 11, I'd bet my life on that.

joey:

Uh,

katiuscia:

I know we didn't go to the moon. I'd bet my life on that. I'm getting close to thinking like, this gotta be flat, man. Like the water thing. I still can't wrap my mind around, no matter how many people condescend you on the internet or like, like you more on gravity from the moon and this. I'm like, that sounds really complicated. You know? It's not complicated. Flat. The flat. Yeah. Yeah. Look, look what happens when I turn it. Like, it's, it's, it, it just makes so much sense. And then I always think of like Game of Thrones when they're talking about all the lands and you're just gonna keep going on the water. And, but that's the map. It's just, it's like our maps, but they don't have a globe in that. But I just more think, how does it make sense? Like, is a plane doing this? So I had a, I was walking my dogs one night and it was a perfect sunset. And so I'm walking them near the water

joey:

and

katiuscia:

then by the time I'm going back,

joey:

I

katiuscia:

think, wait, was the sun down or up? I'm such a retard. I don't, I don't really pay attention, but it was a different position, right? And so I tell my friend on the phone, I'm like, dude, I don't know if if I just saw that, right? If the sun just raised or did whatever, if the moon's out. And he's like, well, we're rotating. And I'm like, are we though? But are we like, are we rotating? There's so many questions and I think the biggest thing is when you start giving people the crumb to, Hey, this could be.

joey:

be.

katiuscia:

Not like you think. Mm-hmm. And not like you were

joey:

taught

katiuscia:

in school and growing up. Mm-hmm. And on TV shows. Yeah. All of the things. Then you start to go down these rabbit holes and it's like, well, yeah, actually logically, and I love coming from a place of Okay. Logically though. Like, come on, be real. Tip. Yeah.

joey:

its level

katiuscia:

It's, its level now. It's just, so that'll be a fun conversation. Yeah. Maybe we do research and we bring you back on. If you wanna chime into the,

joey:

I

katiuscia:

think, well here, like the tides and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Here, like I, I, so are you saying like the earth doesn't spin or you don't think it's spinning or, It's, I don't know what, Well, here, here, my thought I'm just, if the earth is flat, right? Al force and let's say, yeah, that's our tides right there on a very small scale, see how they're coming in and going out. So I'm like. You start making sense and you start going down that little rabbit hole. And then, but that's with, with anything. Same thing like I talked about like earlier with like electricians arguing like, you're an idiot because you don't agree, or there's just some like. At the end of the day, there's what we always call the faith gap. You have to have faith one way or another. Either you think the earth is real or flat, or you think the earth is around.

joey:

It's all

katiuscia:

all real.

joey:

I

katiuscia:

hope it's real.

joey:

This

katiuscia:

isn't the true show. It's what are the chances of us sitting here right now speaking into this thing that we don't like

joey:

and

katiuscia:

it records and we can put it all over the, for the world to see. Like it's, it's a big world out there. It is. There's a lot going on that we don't know. And like we talked about earlier, like everything we've talked about today is literally psychology of people. Mm-hmm. And I'm, I'm obsessed with it. I like what makes people tick is the funniest thing to me. And then

joey:

that's

katiuscia:

all the algorithm is.

joey:

Yep.

katiuscia:

Yep. It's just, yeah. It's like, Hey, uh, you haven't seen this in a couple weeks. Are you still interested in baseball?

joey:

I'm

katiuscia:

I'm like, ah, baseball season's over. I don't really care how Scroll a little bit faster. That's fine. And then it know that I scrolled faster.

joey:

My

katiuscia:

eyes didn't make, how long did you watch this? Mm-hmm. So God, did you repeat it? God forbid you leave your phone up to.

joey:

Flush

katiuscia:

the toilet and that video plays three times and then they that that's what you wanna see. That's what you wanna see. That's funny though, 'cause my whole algorithm is, um, Waylon Jennings and baseball and conspiracies and now it's gonna stay like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know what my, my Facebook algorithm on reels is mini goats and mini like jumping and zoomies and all his random shit. And then there is a guy. I don't know if I've sent him to you, 'cause I know you don't do Facebook much, but there's a guy that works for this company that does these fancy keyboards and he does these unhinged email sign-offs to his boss. Oh, I saw. Until he notices. Yeah. So I just found him on Instagram too, and I'm following him because I need to start incorporating those and see like Cowabunga. Yeah. I'm like surviving, not thriving.

joey:

Those are

katiuscia:

Those are with ongoing regret. Yeah. Uh, that kid's my favorite, his name is Christian something. Uh, shout out to you, dude. You're hilarious. 'cause I wanna incorporate those in every business thing I have and see who picks it up. Only people with a sense of humor. 'cause not everyone has it. Yeah. And can, can hang with it. That's gone too. Mm-hmm. That is gone. Things used to be funny. Mm-hmm. uh, as a, the former middle school class clown like. I, I don't fit in anymore. These people take stuff way too serious. Like Yeah. I just want you to know, at the end of the day, I really don't care about 99% of what happens. Like I'm gonna make a joke about it and we're gonna keep moving on and my algorithm's gonna change tomorrow, and we're just gonna have to keep going on with life. Yeah. Like it, it is what it is. I can either be mad

joey:

for

katiuscia:

these next, however many decades I'm on earth, or I can just make fun of people. Yeah. Which they need. Yeah. And just, and stop getting so offended. It's this whole era of offended.

joey:

It's

katiuscia:

For everything. And I got a shirt that says, bring back bullying on it. And I'm the first person to stop bullying. cause ' I, I don't like it. I like, even in in elementary school, I stuck up for kids that were being actually bullied,

joey:

but

katiuscia:

there were very crucial times in my life where I was bullied and it made an impact on the rest of my life. And it's, it's a small amount too. Like

joey:

I

katiuscia:

I was in college and I wrote the wrong your, I was working at a pizzeria and I don't even remember this girl's name. But

joey:

she

katiuscia:

had a little to-go box and I wrote, you are fired and A-Y-O-U-R. And she roasted me in front of everybody and like, I can't, you're in college. You don't even know the right this, this, and this.

joey:

And

katiuscia:

guess,

joey:

guess who spells it right for the rest of their life now Who? Who? Who? I remember that dumb moment and

katiuscia:

it changed my life. That's the kind of bullying that I appreciate. I didn't get offended and be like, oh, well you're in high school and you just make pizzas like I'm delivering pizzas in college and I can't even spell your correctly. That's the kind of bullying that we need. And then take it with like

joey:

a

katiuscia:

grain of salt too. Mm-hmm. Like, Hey, you were wrong. Let's learn from it. Move on. Thank you. I think that can also be considered calling people out on their shit. Yeah. Instead of, you know, people get really scared of the word bullying, but if you just say, Hey, I was called out on my shit. I spelled this wrong. I was in college. Okay. But I

joey:

noted

katiuscia:

and I made the change for the rest of my life. Yeah. Just call people out. Well, nobody wants to call anyone out because they get offended. So it's like, well, I'm trying to help you. Well, it's almost pointless now. I know. Yeah. I mean, you, you have to like. You're asking Chad, GBT, what is the nicest way that I can present it to this person

joey:

so

katiuscia:

they can understand. And there's, there's nothing, there's nothing you can do either say to anybody. And like, I got like six people in my life who, if they told me something that was mean. I know they love me more than anything and that's the reason why they're telling me that. But the

joey:

um,

katiuscia:

same thing, everything. I was like, you're just some dude on the internet commenting on my photo. You're, you're an idiot. Shut up. And that, that, that's where you leave it. He might be a hundred percent right and I'm just too proud to care.

joey:

But

katiuscia:

you know,

joey:

I'd

katiuscia:

probably come back and be like, you have no idea how big of an idiot I am. Yeah, yeah. You don't even know, sir. You just start just, yeah, and like I said, like with the bullying, like when he said something like, the word gets thrown around bad now. I used to teach, uh, jiujitsu and MMA for like a decade, right? So I ran a kid's class forever. So I'm the most anti bully possible. Like I,

joey:

I

katiuscia:

I can't stand when somebody is picking on somebody. It goes back to my authority problem, right? Mm-hmm. you should not be picking on this person just 'cause you're bigger than them. And that's why, you know, I got to see that a lot. I had so many kids come into my school that, that were getting bullied and that's why they started jiujitsu and, and learning how to fight and stuff. and I taught them how to be respectful. Humans. Yeah. And like

joey:

it,

katiuscia:

the bully's never picked on 'em again. Like that, that, that's the only thing I, I, I care about is, is, is I, I want righteousness too. so when you don't get to pick on somebody or make fun of somebody for something they can't control. A thousand percent. Yeah. Like that's not cool. Yeah. It's funny. But yeah, if you make a spelling error, then yeah, it's, it's for sure. Funny. Yeah. But don't do it if you're gonna hurt their feelings. Right. Right. Oh, you, so then it's know your audience, but that's just your audience. A problem that we're in this era where everyone wants to take anything you say, no matter how nice Chad GPT tells you to say it. Yes. It's still offensive because they're being called out on their shit and no one is used to being called out on their shit because of.

joey:

I don't know,

katiuscia:

Years of media manipulation and government years of parents just enabling their kids to do whatever they want. It's those same parents who are squatting down in Target when their kid's having a temper tantrum and they're like, what are we feeling? And why are we doing this? Yeah, my ass was threatened with a slap and we're leaving now. Yeah, there's no, you know, it's that.

joey:

that.

katiuscia:

Do you wanna be respected out of fear or love? Yeah.

joey:

A

katiuscia:

a little You wanted people to do things out of love for you. Yeah. But you want them also to know that there is a consequence to your actions. Mm-hmm. That's also a faith thing.

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

So it's everything you do. There is a reaction to, there's a cause and effect to everything for a thousand percent. And, and you know, with the exposure that we have now

joey:

is

katiuscia:

US three can sit right here and I don't agree with a hundred percent of stuff. You say you don't agree with a hundred percent of stuff. She's gonna say like, if we broke down, wrote down every last one of our beliefs and this, this, and this. okay, well you can do that for everybody. And, and our mentality now is we find the one thing that we don't like about something and that's all we focus on. You know, like I, I, you know, I, I go to church too. I, sit in church with a bunch of people

joey:

who

katiuscia:

I might even disagree with politically. This, this, and this. And like, doesn't mean I hate 'em like that. That means I, that means I hate my parents. That means I hate my, my friends. Yeah. And everybody. Like, you're not gonna find somebody you a hundred percent agree with on anything. Well, and I feel like I would never have the audacity to say that everything that I think or believe or have opinions on is the right

joey:

thing.

katiuscia:

Yep.

joey:

you can

katiuscia:

can change my mind. Like I'll never forget the first time somebody was like, the world is flat. And I was like, get, get the fuck outta here. Yeah. Now I'm thinking you're crazy. And now I'm like, wait a minute. Like tell me why you think that. Like I would love to hear, I love to hear other people's opinions because I don't think that I'm the be all end all. I'm

joey:

not the

katiuscia:

the head idiot, but the majority of, I think the majority of people who think like we do is I love the difference of opinion. You love the difference. You love it. Absolutely. Yeah. Because it makes us unique and we've just been

joey:

monkeys

katiuscia:

trained.

joey:

Like

katiuscia:

from the media. Mm-hmm. From people elected, from whatever it is that they've created this hate, and then that's what's pushed online. So now your algorithm, if you watch one of those things, now you're deep down that rabbit hole of all of that. You just have the differences are the beautiful thing. They're not the thing that drives, that should drive hate, but they're really curating it to be that. So we do live in an era of hate. Yeah. Which is really sad because can't we all just get along and, and if you don't get along, that's fine. Not everyone's gonna like you and you don't have to like everyone, but can't we all just have basic respect for each other? Basic respect went out the window years ago. It, it, it really did on a basis, I would say, of politics mainly with COVID and then just based on what they were feeding us with COVID. Yeah. and it, and it takes away a lot of our natural, tendencies too.

joey:

here,

katiuscia:

here's, here's a really good example is, you know, back in the Carolinas, way more diverse than Boise, right? Yeah. So I gotta see all kinds of people, and I'm friends with all kinds of people. That's, uh, you grow up with them and nationalities, race, genders, whatever, whether they make it up or not, you, you know 'em. And so one thing that I always noticed is. with clients and realtors, like, like I said, I'm always studying like the psychology before I pick up on it. And when people would come by these inspections, it was 95 or more percent of the time. Like the realtor matched the people mm-hmm. in In, a certain way. And it's not just like most of I'm, if, if it was a, like, it even comes down to there's a big like, um, Indian population there, not the dot ones, the other ones. And they would always have an Indian realtor,

joey:

like,

katiuscia:

you go to the one you go. It's our subconscious though, is people that look like us. I just chance stop laughing. 'cause now Catusa is laughing,

joey:

so I

katiuscia:

didn't know what to call 'em.

joey:

I

katiuscia:

I got the feather, not the dot, the feather? No, no. Not the feathers. Yeah, I grew up around some feathers too. Yeah.

joey:

But

katiuscia:

the,

joey:

but

katiuscia:

that was just a, the seven 11 or a casino? Yeah. If it was, if it was like

joey:

just,

katiuscia:

uh, regular. Um.

joey:

Like

katiuscia:

a young man buying a house. Can I keep that? can

joey:

I

katiuscia:

I keep it in? I can keep it in. I can keep it in. Fuck it. Go. Was that a curve ball? No, it's fine. It's go, keep going. That's good.

joey:

I

katiuscia:

I didn't know what else to call 'em, but that was a good example. 'cause we did have a big Indian population,

joey:

uh,

katiuscia:

from India folks. There was also some cata and things out there too, so we had a mix. but but that being said, like the whole base of the whole thing is like, if it was like a, a 21-year-old dude, the realtor was like a, a a 21, 20 2-year-old who, if it was, and it would come down to like, you know, if it was a black couple, it was a, a black realtor, white, couple white, and it would come down to like specifics that I would notice too, if it was a.

joey:

A

katiuscia:

A married couple buying this house, and it was a very strong female lead in the marriage. It was a female realtor. Mm-hmm. If it was a very strong male led marriage, it was a male realtor a lot of times too. Mm-hmm. Um, and that, that was a lot. So

joey:

it,

katiuscia:

our natural instinct is, is I look like you, I relate to you on a very subconscious level mm-hmm. Of

joey:

like,

katiuscia:

like, that's, that's my baseline.

joey:

You know,

katiuscia:

know, like that, that that's what it is. So if I have a natural, it's not racism, it's not hatred or anything else. It's just like I we're designed this way. Mm-hmm. Like you look like me. That makes sense. But it is a connection and it's one that you can see. Yeah. It's a visual connection that people, you don't really need to talk to them at first to know like, oh, hey, they'll understand. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Anything like that. I get it. Yeah. But then we still just try to find the little ways to hate people. And it's like that, that's what it just keeps kind of coming back to like, okay, just, this is just how we naturally are. Let's quit hating everybody. we can do this and, and have a lot more fun. If Facebook died tomorrow, I would be so stoked.

joey:

Like,

katiuscia:

Okay. Now that I've built a business, it's such a double-edged sword. Now that I've built a business on an algorithm, I don't want it to be there at all. It's a lot. It has changed the game of just how people treat each other in our lives. You know, we've, we always say how we were raised and got it. Mm-hmm.

joey:

Whereas

katiuscia:

the kids today were raised with it on it, and that's all they know. Mm-hmm.

joey:

So

katiuscia:

it's a very different world for them because if you took that away, they literally have no identity. They, they don't know shit. Yeah. Whereas we. I kind of saw the evolution of it. Yeah. And that's why I think I'm able to connect to

joey:

the

katiuscia:

20 somethings also and speak to them because I went through this, like I saw what you were raised on. It happened to me.

joey:

I

katiuscia:

just know how to navigate it differently because it wasn't my whole life. So it's a different world, but I It is, yeah. Really don't like it.

joey:

I

katiuscia:

I really don't like it. I was born before Google. Hmm.

joey:

Surprise.

katiuscia:

I was born on, oh. Or I'm sorry, I was in college, I think with a OL was I in college with a OL?

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Something like that. I mean, a OL.

joey:

Dial

katiuscia:

up. That's crazy. Shit.

joey:

Can

katiuscia:

we take a pause?

joey:

Yeah.

katiuscia:

Whew. Americano break. Um, just too much coffee in a tank break. So yeah, the beauty of the beauty of life before social media and how we really don't want it anymore. Well, and I do think that there's, like, I, we've talked about it before, like I'm raising my kids in the nineties and I think there are a lot of people doing that. So I think we're kind of shifting, but the pendulum is swinging the other way. I saw a, a video where it was, it was like parents showing their kids the cartoons that we grew up with or the shows. I do that all the time that we grew up with. 'cause there, because there's not like the, I guess there wasn't as many like, subliminal messages and all the, the crap now. Well, it just, the frames of a cartoon were slower. Yeah. And the colors were like, that's how like Coco Melon fucks a kid's brain. Yeah. I don't even know what it is. Like I've never seen it, but it's awful. It's bad for their brains. Our attention spans are just getting worse and worse. Yeah. Yeah. Who were the, the Chipmunks, not Alvin and the Chipmunks, who were the chipmunks on like the Loony tunes there were talking about Chippendale Rescue Rangers, Chippendale Rescue Rangers. But before they were rescue rangers, weren't they? Just Chippendale? Mm-hmm. And then sometimes on the Valentine's Day episodes, they'd have the. Love interest. And then you had like probably Pep Lapu and all of these things. I missed. Pep is like a rapist. Oh yeah. Was he a rapist? No, he was just a sexual assaulter. Yeah, that's fine. We've there's what? A sexual harasser. There's a, there's a Dave Word. He was, dude, he was just French. That's pretty honest. There's a Dave Chappelle skit about that. Have, have you heard that one? I so Pep Lapu. Yeah. I can't remember. I'll have to send it to you, but it, yeah, it's funny though. But he says the same thing. He is like, Pepe, well whatever it was a, was a rapist. I'm like, yeah, we've made, you know, the media society, everyone's come out against all of these things and it's just like, that's how we grew up. And you know what? We're more normal than a lot of other people. Yeah. So. Who came either after or before, but now have to be offended about everything. And these are the same people who kneel down with their kids in target and argue and like, or mm-hmm. Not argue. Discuss. Why are we behaving like this? I would like to say for the record, if anybody's ever seen me kneel down to my kids in the store, it's because I was going, if you don't shape the fuck up right now, we are going home. I will beat your ass. Quiet parenting, not gentle parenting. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That could be a lot. The gentle parenting is just what, uh, has just ruined, uh, so much. I actually just read a thing about how detrimental gentle parenting is the other day, and it was like, because it turns into permissive parenting. Like there's a place to say, yeah, you're allowed to be pissed at me right now. Yeah. But what you're not allowed to do is roll your eyes and go whatever, mom. 'cause if you wanna have an eye rolling contest, I'm gonna win. Yeah. But like you. There's a difference between validating your kids' feelings 'cause you can have your feelings all day long, but that doesn't give you permission to be an asshole. Yeah. Versus, you know, and so gentle parenting's. Not the way. A friend of mine posted something on her Instagram story the other day and it was an article and the headline to the article, 'cause I didn't read it because the headline was so striking. Kids who have no responsibility. Mm-hmm. Kids who are given no responsibility. Before the age or after the age of seven. Oh my gosh. Don't fuck this up. Kids who are given no responsibility, the coffee's hitting. I saw this thing on Instagram the other day. Get you a nicotine patch. Let's get your brain in here. Let's redo it. Let's redo it. Kids who were given no responsibility, like up until the age of seven. Have lower motivation. Mm-hmm. Lower productivity in their life. And you just think, okay, these kids should be doing shit. I remember when I was young, I was doing a lot. So, because that's how, just how you're raised. Yeah. If you're able bodied and speaking fluently, you can do things. Yeah. I mean there's, there is an age that that happens. Some kids are more developmentally, um. Challenged and then accelerated than others that's there. You just mean it's a generality. That's okay. Totally. But still I'm, I'm like, well, it goes back to what you were saying about holding people's hands. Mm-hmm. Right. They'll figure out a way, like our back door, well now after 10 years of living in this house is just Ed, but. It's notoriously really difficult to do the deadbolt. Yeah. And when my kids were little, especially you have 202, like you gotta ask a 3-year-old to let the dog out 'cause I'm changing a diaper or something. And she figured it out. But then the little one had her sister to do it for her, and so she couldn't do that door until she was probably five or six. Because she just didn't have to figure it out herself. Yeah. 'cause her sister was there to do it for her. And I tell her all the time, like, just 'cause you're the youngest doesn't mean you can't figure things out. For sure. Yeah. You have to figure it out. Yeah. I used to tie my older brother's shoes. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm the smart one here. I, we would go fishing, I would tie his, his lures and stuff on too. I'm like, yep. I'm, I'm the, I'm the intelligent one. Well, you know what's funny though is, do you guys remember it was a Tim Allen movie called Jungle to Jungle? Mm-hmm. Um, and. I can't, I can't remember the premise. I'll probably mess a lot of that up. But the part that always stuck out with me is like, he, his son and the, the baby mama were this uncontacted tribe or whatever it was. Yeah. And so he is asking about his son, like he, that he's meeting him, he's going from the actual jungle to like the jungle of New York. And he's asked like, what, you know, what the kid's name is? And the lady's like, uh, his name is Mimi cco. Which roughly translates to cat piss. And they're, they're like, we let, we let the like kids pick their own names and they basically raise themselves kind of thing. And, and that's what we believe in the tribe. And someone's like, it's just such a perfect example. Like, like yeah. That's why you need to parent your kids. Yeah. Or like you're there for guidance one, it's biblical too. It's just natural, it's nature anyways. Like the, the kid named himself cat piss. Yeah. Yeah. How many cat pisses do we know running? There's a lot of cat pisses out here now. Right. And are ruining. And when I used to teach juujitsu, same thing, like I would want to discipline the parents. Mm-hmm. Because I'm like, you're the reason this kid's terrible. Yeah. You know, like they, they come in here and they, they, they look at me, the instructor, and they're like, it's almost, they never like directly said like, oh this. But they've asked me like, Hey, you talk back to his grandma, can you do anything about that? You know, maybe I'll have a conversation with a kid. But it's like, yeah, lemme pull you aside, man. Like, yeah, that's your job as a parent. And I get it. Never had kids, but like at the same time, like there's only so much they're gonna listen to from their parents, you know? And I was a, a figure in their life that they loved and respected. And so I would, I would do that too, but you can still see it of like, uh, I need dad to get out here on the mat. Dad, dad needs his butt kicked. Like, or Mom needs to do something else. But like you, you started seeing it more and more and more. And I'm like, I'm not here to raise your kids. I'm here to teach. Yeah, some stuff. Uh, even though it does help a little bit. Sure. Oh, but shout out to my girl's dance coach. She's the best. And she's a good friend of mine also. Yeah. But I will text her and be like, uh, will you have a chat about eating more protein, please? You know, but just stuff, I mean, stuff that pertains to dance, I'm not asking her to. Yeah. You know? But on the flip side of that, when they're in class, that's her hour. I'm not stepping in. Sure. If my kid's being a dick, you tell 'em they're being a dick. Mm-hmm. Which they're only a dick to me. But you know. Because I've had gymnastics coaches and swim teachers say, oh my gosh, thank you. Mm-hmm. Because I'm so afraid to discipline people's kids right in front of 'em. And I'm like, no, no. Don't be afraid. Yeah. And that's, and that's even, you know, like the generation we grew up in, like. You could sign, like parents could sign a waiver and the teacher could paddle you, right? Like Yeah. Yeah. Like, and even that was like, looked down on like, why would you need to sign a waiver? Just the teachers used to beat kids, you know? But then by the time I was going through elementary school, it's like, Hey, you, you could get the paddle hung up on the wall and you know, half the class, their parents let 'em get, get 'em spanked in school. And, and as that slowly starts to fade away, we're, we're just gonna find those people that wanna call me about home inspection stuff that have no. Those are those, they're those gifts. They've grown up. Yeah, they've all grown up. They've all grown up, but it was the kids who weren't disciplined when they were younger. And I mean, I don't, I can't say I was slapped or spanked many times growing up because I learned a lesson if I was mm-hmm. I kind of knew. My grandpa had that wooden, it was a thin wooden, almost like a ruler, a little thicker than a ruler with a hole that he drilled. And he sanded it real good. And it was on a nail. Yeah. Hanging in the kitchen and it was called, and you just knew. So what did I do? I never got struck with that thing because I wasn't an idiot. Mm-hmm. And I knew that the threat was there and it was real. 'cause it was shiny and sanded right there. Oh yeah. But kids now, I think when things started transitioning to. People calling child or CPS on parents if they spanked their kids. I remember that phase. Yeah. Uh, I just thought, oh my God. This is where, I guess this is where Kamala Harris is, like these are are children. No, they're their children. They're her children. They're his children. They're not your children. Like the community children of the community. Mm-hmm. A friend of mine said, these are God's children. He just loaned them to me. And I was like, oh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But you know, also, even outside of discipline, it's letting kids make their own mistakes. Sure. And I tell 'em, 'cause you know, I have one who's very, does not wanna make any mistakes. Mm-hmm. And the other one's just walking chaos. But it was like, no, you're in a family so that you can make mistakes. Mm-hmm. And you make an 11-year-old mistake and it's the size of an 11-year-old when you're 17, it's gonna be a huge mistake. So let's make 'em now. I know a lot of people who just cannot let their kids make any mistakes. Yeah. And you can't learn from that. Yep. And I think that's been a huge problem too. They're also gonna be the ones that are Yeah. Calling Joey and asking why they can't have a down, because that's too much handhold down. Yeah. It's so much handholding. Yeah. And you wanna say something to 'em, but it's, I, I do hate like the checks and balances too. Like I don't want a bunch of one star reviews because I told people what they need to hear. Like, you know, at some point it does ruin your business, you know? And same thing like with, with the social media stuff too, like that is the checks and balances too of like these builders or, or people like, you know, that's all blown up. And so, so you see it, but you know, like, I like your point of, of, you know, you make those mistakes within the family. Mm-hmm. You know, so if people started working together and actually care about each other, then, then that could happen. You know, was a very common thing that we talked about in like juujitsu and fighting and, and stuff too is like, you train so you make those mistakes now. Yeah. So you're ready for battle. Yep. Right? Like same thing with with military, same thing with police. Like firefighters, like you train so you, you make those mistakes with people that can help you and love you, whereas if you go to battle, you go do whatever those people don't love you. They're trying to kill you. They're trying to break you. They're trying to choke you unconscious. So I'd rather you do this here with people that care about you in a safe environment. Yep. And then now you're better to go out into the world. I love it. Yep. Uh, hey, listen, Joey. America's inspector, America's Inspector, America's home inspector. Thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me. This, this has been fun. This has been great. When we talk about flat earth, I guess you're gonna come back. That's it. Yeah. We're gonna have some bullet points. We're gonna do a deep dive. We will have a good discussion on on this. Yeah. Yeah. Just on this, look at that. It's level. When you picked up and turned it, the water was still level. I'm just saying there's a lot of great points. Maybe we do a PowerPoint presentation. Yeah. We all try to convince each other the same thing we all want. Yeah. The earth is definitely flat. I mean, it just makes logical sense. Um, I always like to put the ways to get in contact with you. Don't call him. We're gonna put your website. And your social handles, your business, social handles, if that's fine. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay. So I'll put that in the show notes and, uh, if you wanna share your, uh, public, like share your TikTok channel and what's that? So you can say that? Yeah. Yep. Just peak inspections. My last name is Mick Peak, M-C-P-E-K. So I just dropped the mc and, and became peak inspections. Um, and then. You call our office. It's not like you can't talk to me, uh, but if you do have questions, I'm always glad to help people. Emails are always the fastest 'cause I can pause for a second and do that. But yeah, the website's great. Instagram's great, tiktoks great. I guess YouTube now, maybe not to get in contact with me, but for some information. Um, perfect. But yep. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm gonna say if you have anyone that we always say, have a good day to everyone, except if you have a group of people. Who you would like to carry this, carry this out. Like just carry us home. Have a good day to everyone. Except how much time do you have? You know what? Because this is the most recent. That was funny. Have a good day to everybody except engineers. Ooh, okay. There's just too much They ask and they are, they're always so condescending. Oh, you know, I thought about being a home inspector if I hear that one more time. We're gonna bring the old Joey back out here. They're, they have the dumbest questions and they're the smartest people in the room. Somehow it never fails, and I've had a few of 'em recently, and I almost, I'll screenshot, I'll put it on my Instagram of the, the comment that this guy made for our inspection. Perfect. So have a good day to everyone except engineers. Ca engineers. All right. Bye. Beautiful. Okay.