Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Inspect Before You Lease
Jim and Laura discuss the critical importance of property inspections even for leased commercial spaces, highlighting a case study of a children's workout facility with dangerous mold conditions.
• Laura conducted air quality testing at a commercial property where children worked out and found dangerous mold levels
• The landlord initially resisted reviewing the inspection report but eventually attempted inadequate repairs
• Follow-up inspection revealed significant water intrusion and ineffective sealing attempts
• Inspections protect both tenants and landlords by documenting building conditions before occupancy
• Triple net leases make tenants responsible for maintenance, making pre-lease inspections even more crucial
• Property condition reflects on your business and impacts customer perception
• Regular maintenance inspections (annually or between tenants) help prioritize repairs and prevent disputes
Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohio.com or jimtroth.com.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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How to save money by winterizing your home | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
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Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to Standing Out Ohio. This is Jim and with me is Laura.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone.
Speaker 2:All right, laura. So we did air quality well, mold testing.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:A day or so later I went a woodshed inspection on the building that a business owner is leasing Any place I would say, yeah, it doesn't care, or that's what we're getting. It doesn't care, it doesn't fix things.
Speaker 3:And that was evidenced by what your inspection showed.
Speaker 2:I mean, it wasn't just. Yeah, I guess you're the reporter. Anyway, we're going to talk about the importance of inspection. You don't own the place, you're not buying the building, but you want to find the space and you don't have to object yourself to it. So let's listen to this.
Speaker 4:Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs from radon to mold to warranties, For a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit homeinspectionsinohiocom.
Speaker 2:All right. So, Lauren, how did this person get in contact?
Speaker 3:They found us online and gave me a call and started talking.
Speaker 2:They looked for Habitation Investigation.
Speaker 3:I think so because it came through Amy.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we have multiple ways you would get a hold of it Right. Sometimes through Habitation Investigation, sometimes through commercial property inspection. Okay, or environmental consultants or environmental consultants in Ohio, which they Okay, so they property inspection okay, or environmental consultants, or environmental consultant ohio which mainly? But we don't know, okay, so they big habitat, I think because amy was telling me about it.
Speaker 3:So megan and I were already out doing a bunch of stuff that day and we worked this guy in so that we could do the test, because it sounded like he really needed to know something. So we we met him, went in um ceiling, was caving in in the bathroom and we could see black, fuzzy stuff all in the attic space. So I went and did several air tests and they all came back pretty high. And the sad thing about it is that they came back pretty high after the doors being open all day and just being closed for four hours prior to my testing so you want like 12 hours yeah, 12 to 24, yeah, and, and you still get that.
Speaker 3:yeah, so did did the mo pest forum? Um told him, based on what I was seeing, that I thought that the meal was more prevalent up in the attic and probably coming down through the walls and that, and you know, I wrote up my report and said nobody should be here because it was also a place where kids go to work out. So kids from 8 to 18. And I'm like they shouldn't be there. You shouldn't be there, nobody should be there until this is fixed.
Speaker 2:Yeah because the lieutenant told me that a day later I went back to the hospital, Right, and they had mainly, mainly looked for a couple of these. Well, yeah, but remember in the morning we had we had somebody was in China. They were alive. And they come back to the city. The doctor thought they were smoking.
Speaker 3:So they've been smoking for years.
Speaker 2:It's not that he was a smoker. He was exercising every three weeks. He was out running in Chicago ten times as much as he was sitting down. He was a lot more workout. This place where kids work out, they're breathing more. They're just lounging Right. They're going to get more of whatever can move in there. We're not doing VFC.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:But if no one goes, I kind of lean against that.
Speaker 3:But they're breathing a lot of coffee so I wrote up a report for him and at first the the seller the seller, the landlord didn't even want to look at the report. He just wanted to call and talk to me and I said no, I'm not going to get into what he said. She said if he wants to talk, we can do a zoom meeting. We can go over the report together. I have no problems with that. Ended up that he finally sat down and looked at the report with Earthbinding and decided that he was going to attempt to fix the roof. I said he needed a new roof but he thought it would just do a couple of things and wait for Earthbinding to stop.
Speaker 2:Alright, let's go from there.
Speaker 3:Let's go from there because you went out after. That was the goal.
Speaker 2:So the landlord would fix it right right, that's not the last thing you heard that's what he was.
Speaker 3:He was going to fix stuff. That was he was he was. He was going to pick stuff, but he was still saying that the move wasn't as throughout the building, as I said yes, so I go there to do it because the moisture is actually the day before.
Speaker 2:Apparently they put on two coats of this sealant. I don't know what it was. There are no hands, I don't know if it worked out, but it was raining at that point and as I walked up, there was all this white rain all over the front, and then we're going out the back and the back. There's no gutters, there's no proper drain. Well, very slightly right next to the property, the slope is torn. It looks like a pool of water, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, slope is towards it. It looks like a pool, right? Yeah, so all this moisture is cooling up. And then, as I go along, check me out. Right now there is moisture in the lower part of every single interior wall. Here water is leaping in. We're really just always, though it's not until, probably always, though it's not until. And up inside the roof show a lot of pictures. See the white water. It wasn't going underneath, oh, and little pieces of like plywood or the outside kind of seal up the bottom of the rodent going in there. But it's sticking out beyond the bottom, so the reams coming underneath it was underneath it. There's a bunch of noise which we got bad raining, bad material sticking out that will pack the water and it'll build gutter.
Speaker 3:Don't happen I see the weight from that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes we make pictures during normal introspection or with a building, like by air and water and RBC. Sometimes we don't have to have that camera at a certain angle to show reflection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this you don't.
Speaker 2:This was so easy to see in the water. But look, it's all white. That's crazy. There's milky water all around the outside of this place. Well, I go up and see the attic space Okay, checking that out and I find a couple of cases up there. Not surprising, not the main focus I'm looking for, but I did find an active leak up there, others involved in an active leak. An active leak up there, others involved in an active leak. It's filthy, white.
Speaker 3:Oh, that made it so nice to identify.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so the sealant is not working. It didn't seal.
Speaker 3:Probably didn't have enough time to cure before rain.
Speaker 2:That may have been a large part of it, but we got it. If you're doing a rushed job, if you don't have time to do it properly once, are you really going to have time to multiple times? You're spending more time on multiple tasks than doing it all at once, especially if you're not correct, things can be fixed correctly. But yeah, I've melted acids and stuff. I've been doing it all at once, especially if it's not corrected, things can be fixed correctly, but yeah, not here.
Speaker 3:Here's something that some people don't get. You fix it once. You fix it right and you don't get all of that damage that you would get if you just half-ass it. Because of what this guy's done, all that trim around the base of the barn is wet. That stuff's all going to have to come off. The inside was wet. There's a lot of damage going on here that he should take care of and just be done.
Speaker 2:It was an older building. I expect it should be an older building. You and I expect it should be an older building, but you and I have seen old houses which are more complex than this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and very minimal issues. It all depends how well they are taken care of. Which reminds me house I inspected yesterday. I looked out the cellar and I assume the listing agent helped them get things ready. Nice, I'll show you. Actually, I put the table brochure when you go in the house to do a brochure and all that. They did a very nice job. Oh, cool, really nice, and there's no summation, but nothing.
Speaker 3:But you know they've at least taken care of it, They've tried to do right by themselves.
Speaker 2:That's how you give your assume, a home buyer or a commercial building buyer. That's how you give them a good feeling of what's going on. But yeah, even I guess a little more of this whole episode here is, even if you're not buying a place, you know, lease office space, a building, whatever, get it inspected because that protects you. Because I believe the same place, the landlord, at one point, was telling them that they damaged the air conditioning unit, but he had evidence that no, it was not.
Speaker 3:The air conditioning had never even been on.
Speaker 2:It looks like it had not been even connected for a while. There was no refrigerant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the tenant before him said he'd never had air conditioning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so current tenant, our client, was able to yeah, for my students it's not a thing, but it makes the landlord Looks easier. Yeah that, or fully unaware of know where we're going with that, with that building.
Speaker 3:But he can't claim that. No, no, he cannot claim that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, if you're buying or not, you need to get it inspected. And if you own a building, especially one that you don't occupy.
Speaker 3:You should always get it inspected, every year.
Speaker 2:Maintenance inspection? Yeah, at least Wow. Every two or three years, get it looked at or if you're changing tenants get it looked at.
Speaker 2:I've done that before. Somebody don't lease their condo out. I came in to do an inspection. So when that tenant leaves, they know, they know like no, no, this is new damage. Here's all the pictures I think extra pictures of the. So they're leaving some furniture as well, so I took pictures of furniture as well. But yeah, you always you need to protect yourself and it's good you need that protects yourself and is good. Risk management and maintenance. You can help prioritize what to do. You can't fix it If you don't know how to fix it. You can do it with a vision In this place, lots of visions that I think have probably been ignored for many years.
Speaker 3:There's something called a triple net lease in commercial real estate. If I'm renting from somebody and I do a triple net lease, that means that I'm responsible for the upkeep of that building. So having an inspection prior to going into that lease and into that building is going to protect you, because then you're going to have this was the condition when I moved in and it's going to protect you down the road, because we've actually seen companies where they've been in litigation with tenants and the tenants are like no, this wasn't like this. This was like this when we moved in, but they hadn't had an inspection done, so they had no proof of anything.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so you need it's protecting yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so either from the landlord's perspective or from the tenant perspective, an inspection is a very good way to protect yourself and show the condition prior to somebody moving in. Show it as soon as they move out and it's better for everyone.
Speaker 2:Inspections really don't have a side. No, it is what it is. This came up the other day. We did a previous strip-off a couple weeks ago and we're just waiting for the buyer to show up and talk to some things. And we're just waiting for the buyer to show up and talk to some things and we're talking to the agent the buyer's agent, lots of things. And somebody said, well, yeah, that depends on what side of the transaction you're on. And I'd say, well, fax shouldn't have a sign.
Speaker 3:What'd they say?
Speaker 2:And the agent goes yeah, you're right. I mean, it's just facts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the condition of the building period end story and it's everybody knows. Going in, you know what you need to fix and then you know if any new damage has been done, if any other things have been lagging behind getting fixed.
Speaker 2:It's just more it's going to pop up sooner or later. I think that's it for this one. Always get it inspected. Based on the message of this Protect yourself, Get it inspected. Protect yourself If you're a workout place for this example protect your clients that are coming in. Can you imagine being a dentist and you're a workout place, for example, or text your clients that are coming in? Can you imagine being a dentist and you rent the space and then your clients get sick because they're old all over the place?
Speaker 3:They're not going to talk to you. Yeah, you're done.
Speaker 2:You're done, and this is something brought up in the commercial perspective. You have a parking lot that's junk. You're customizing your windows that are rebuilt or not, like you want to stop in your store with a parking lot that's a massive pothole that looks like junk, but you're like all right, this is quality out here.
Speaker 3:What's the quality?
Speaker 2:inside yeah, it needs very functional, looks safe, looks inviting.
Speaker 3:Upkeep maintenance.
Speaker 2:Don't be a slumlord. Don't be a slumlord, yep, all right everybody. Thank you, bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H. And click on podcast. Until next time, learn and go do stuff.