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The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast Episode 14 - Interview With Tyler Burley, Home Inspector

Dan Wurtele

Living in Vancouver for the past 26 years it has been exciting to watch it grow into one of the most desirable cities in the world...

Living in Vancouver for the past 26 years it has been exciting to watch it grow into one of the most desirable cities in the world...

Sep 26 42 minutes read

The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast Episode 14 - Interview With Tyler Burley, Home Inspector

Tyler Burley is a home inspector with Pillar to Post.  He has inspected almost 1,000 properties and is who we recommend the most to our clients.  In this episode we learn what to expect, and what not to expect, from a home inspection, the process, costs and time involved.  Tyler shares some stories of the most beautiful homes he's seen, and some of the more shocking ones.   Everything you've ever wanted to know about home inspections can be heard here.

To learn more about Tyler, visit tylerburley.pillartopost.com

    

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Interview With Tyler Burley, Home Inspector



Dan Wurtele  0:02  

Hi, and welcome to the Vancouver Live


Ryan Dash  0:04  

podcast. This podcast is created to answer the most talked about questions when it comes to navigating the Vancouver real estate market. I'm your


Dan Wurtele  0:13  

host, Dan Wurtele, a licensed agent and accredited Real Estate Investment Advisor based here in Vancouver, and I'm joined by my co host Ryan dasht


Ryan Dash  0:21  

iden. I'm also a local realtor and exhausted father of two, husband of one and really happy to be here.


Dan Wurtele  0:30  

Let's get right into today's episode. Hello and welcome back to the Vancouver life podcast. Today we are continuing our conversation about the team that you need involved to buy a home from end to end. We've discussed how to find the best realtors we've discussed how to get financing with a mortgage specialist and today we are talking about home inspections. So we'd


Ryan Dash  0:55  

like to welcome Tyler here from pillar to post. Tyler is someone Who does the vast majority of inspections for our clients? and Tyler, maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe how you became a home inspector to


Unknown Speaker  1:10  

Oh, right to the good questions. Well, thanks for having me guys. Appreciate it. This is my first podcast. Usually I sit there and watch or listen to your podcast, so I'm doing something right in life to be here. Yeah, I am Tyler. You know, go through my little born in New Brunswick. Grew up in Vancouver though. And you know, I kind of had a various amount of jobs in my life. I started off and restaurant industries young guy and then I worked at TD and finance I was going to get my mutual funds license and then realize that just was not for me. And then I moved to Toronto, and because my mom lives in Toronto and worked with my stepfather as a general contractor, and that's where I picked up the vast majority of my learnings. And then I came back into Vancouver after a few years of doing that and got into sales. And I sold coffee. As you guys know, I'm a coffee He kind of sewer.


Ryan Dash  2:01  

Just Just to interject there. Tyler how many copies Have you already had?


Unknown Speaker  2:07  

It is 829 in the morning and I have had two quad espressos.


Ryan Dash  2:15  

I don't even know what to say.


Unknown Speaker  2:17  

Yeah. And I'm not bouncing off the walls. But, you know, I was at a crossroads in life and knows, you know, I realized in my last sales job, I just didn't, I wasn't liking my boss that much. He takes credit for a lot of stuff. You don't get a lot and I realized I wanted to be my own boss and I thought about getting into real estate but then I realized realtors can be you know, odd duck. So I decided to hop into home inspections and yeah, that's sort of taken me to here. It's been five years now. It's okay as realtors Thank you inspectors are weird. We're quirky


Dan Wurtele  2:45  

that is for sure. So Tyler, we see that you work under the moniker of pillar to post What can you tell us about that company and how it was how did that connection come to be?


Unknown Speaker  2:56  

Wow. You know, oddly enough when I bought my first townhome About eight years ago, my realtor recommended pillar posts True story. I don't know if you guys actually knew that. Yeah, so that was, you know, before I really had, you know, nobody really thinks about a home inspector to buy a place. Nobody even realizes the career. And I just remember how awesome it was the guy showed up, he delivered it, he looked presentable, you know, the, the branding was all on point. And it always just stuck in the back of my head. And then when I was talking to my realtor friends about pillar to post when I was looking to get into home inspections, they're all like, Yeah, you got to check them out.


Ryan Dash  3:29  

Well, certainly you've got the background for it. So


Unknown Speaker  3:32  

yeah, well, it's funny enough, you know, like, no matter what your background is, you know, the training that you have to do to get to this point, you know, you can know nothing and become a home inspector definitely helps to get you to that point. But a lot of it you learn as you go, you know, and simple truth about a home inspection is, you know, we do miss things that's nature of the business, you know, you try to catch the big things, that's for sure. That's realtors never miss anything. We get the blame for everything. But anyway, sorry, I went off on a tangent there. So pillar to post. Yeah, we're a big franchise company. We have head office in Tampa Bay and in Toronto, there's probably 700 franchisees across North America. And you know, some people who have been here a long time have individual territories and that's their territory. And then there's a lot of us that kind of work in conjunction and, you know, we just we kind of, we work together but we keep out of each other's way at the same time. So some of us have certain offices where we're busy and so the other one stay out of it. We work really well together. Yeah.


Dan Wurtele  4:31  

Very nice. appreciate all that backstory. So I guess for a person who doesn't know anything about home inspecting, and maybe they're a first time homebuyer, at what point do they engage your services and do you recommend an inspection for any and all properties from brand new to 100 years old?


Unknown Speaker  4:49  

Yeah, how to engage my services. Honestly, it's it's all through your realtor you know, and, and that's funny I was point I did want to bring up actually, you hear out there quite a bit. It's like, but from People who are a little bit more on educated they go, don't use the inspector, your agent is, you know, offering the services up. And it's like, well, that's just not true. No inspector is going to change your report or his findings so that an agent can get a sale that is not happening. Our ultimate goal is to educate the buyer about what they're purchasing. That's it plain and simple. I don't care if you guys get the sale, and I don't truthfully care if the buyer buys the place, I am there to educate and then they make their decision. And that's plain and simple.


Dan Wurtele  5:28  

Yeah, and to I guess, add to that as realtors we get no financial benefit by recommending an inspector over another one. Not that there's no game to us other than we know that we're working with a true professional that has proven themselves time and time again. Yeah.


Ryan Dash  5:42  

And I mean, even even to follow up on that point, like, you know, Tyler and I have been in several and and I've been in several instances, sorry, where we've been going through property and you know, we've had clients with deposit checks in hand and we're just like, Hey, you know, you got to put that back because The process isn't finished yet. And every time that that's happened, my clients have been over the moon happy that Tyler helped them protect a million dollars or more.


Unknown Speaker  6:11  

Well, why don't we break one down? So remember, we're gonna go off off. Yeah, yeah, but no remember so we had that one client where he was going to purchase a condo downtown. Yeah. And it was supposed to be turnkey.


Ryan Dash  6:21  

Yeah, that's right. The whole point of it. Yeah. turnkey, move in and live.


Unknown Speaker  6:25  

That's it and well, it was an absolute disaster. The electrical panel had melted wires, the guy who installed the floors it was Uncle Bob, definitely not a professional in the dark. And you know, this is like a 30 story high building and all the windows were wide open and you could sit on a ledge and hang out over the city of Vancouver just safety concerns everywhere. It's probably 30 stories up. They took the the electrical for the washer dryer and it has to be on its own dedicated circuit and they tied it into like the fridge and the microwave. And


Ryan Dash  6:56  

that means every time you do your laundry, you blow the circuit in your property.


Unknown Speaker  7:00  

Just a disaster. And, you know, we realized, once we got to that point that, you know, the the guy probably only had so much money for his deposit. And you know, because it was turnkey. And we realized, you know, he's gonna have to put a lot of money into it. And then at that point, it was good to have that conversation.


Ryan Dash  7:14  

Well, we brought him down, right. And, you know, it's funny, because even the realtor on the other side was sort of like, yeah, I'm sure it went well, right. It sure it went well. And it was sort of like, dude, it did not. And, you know, we were downstairs for a while afterwards, actually just coaching him about the things we had found. You know, we never took the position of saying, Hey, you know, until he asked us, of course, right, until he's like, well, what should I do guys, right and when we both told him to run, right, and ultimately, you know, carry on with the process and we'll find you the right place


Unknown Speaker  7:44  

for the record. You told him to run. I just educated him. Fair enough.


Ryan Dash  7:50  

Anyways, so why don't we get on to a little bit more some some more tactical stuff here. Tyler, what do you cost to do a home inspection? I mean, I'm sure it varies based on The size, you know, if I'm doing an apartment or I'm doing a 5000 square foot house, you know, how does that change in terms of cost?


Unknown Speaker  8:07  

You know, I think anytime a client usually asks a realtor How much does an inspection cost? The average answer is around 500 bucks and you know, that's just a simple truth. If it's a condo under 1000 square feet, excuse me, the price will go down a little bit just because it's a quicker inspection. But you know, when you get all the way up to like a 15,000 square foot house you're looking at a couple thousand dollars right and then there's different you know, different levels of packages you can pick depending on you know, what your concerns are if there's been moisture related issues etc etc We can we can do different types of testing as well. But yeah, your average price is around 500 bucks for standard you know, house basically Yeah. And then you know, if it's older 50 years or older you know, there's some are incurred costs there as well just simply because, you know, there's a lot more to look out for truthfully, it's gonna take longer,


Ryan Dash  8:54  

so not a bad way to protect a million bucks,


Unknown Speaker  8:57  

and not a bad way to protect a million bucks. Yeah, and you know, It's It's funny, like, you get the question all the time, you know, on buying a brand new house shy, inspected? Absolutely, you should inspect it. Some of the newer houses are the worst ones truthfully. And, you know, on that note, you know, kind of as part of my service that I do, you know, for a new build, I actually do kind of a deficiency check as well, because in looking at this house, it should be brand new. So, you know, there shouldn't be big scuffs in the drywall, there shouldn't be, you know, poor painting everywhere, you know, they're little things, and we don't put those in the report. But I'll kind of go around with my roll of blue tape and, you know, put spots everywhere and just, you know, it should be brand new. And I honestly, I found thousands and thousands of dollars of just deficiencies that it's going to take the developer half a day to fix but it would take your client, it's going to be expensive, and it's going to look terrible. So it's best to just stick it back because it is a new build. So honestly inspect everything you never know.


Ryan Dash  9:51  

And the developers deep into it, so he'll spend a couple grand make sure you're happy. Oh, yeah.


Unknown Speaker  9:55  

Honestly, when it comes to just drywall and paint, it's nothing he'll laugh if that's the only thing you have. effects. That's a dream scenario for him. He just sends a guy in there tightens it up and we move on and everybody's happy. Yeah, I


Dan Wurtele  10:06  

think as a side note for people to recognize, Ryan and I, we have inspectors come through for every single client for every single property. There's never a time when we say no, we're good. You know, don't worry about that. 500 bucks. It's only, you know, a million dollar risk here.


Ryan Dash  10:20  

Yeah, we'll even even if you know, we're going into a multiple offer, we'll get Tyler in there before we make the offer. So he can inspect the home that way. It doesn't necessarily have to hit the contract. But at the end of the day, the client still feels safe.


Unknown Speaker  10:32  

Well, it's like what happened in 2016. with you guys, you must have had some situations where nobody and you couldn't fit an inspection in or 2016 was a rough year where everyone was buying without inspections. And it was interesting because I actually did a follow up and a guy purchased a place in New Westminster, an older house, and he had to buy it without an inspection. And then I came in a year later because he was you know, there were some oddities in the house and I checked it out for him. And sure enough, honestly, there was probably $200,000 in issues. It was a disaster. You know, he was well off. So, you know, I think he's gonna be you know, I don't think he's gonna be broke from it but still this is he could have avoided that, you know don't buy without inspection yeah and we


Dan Wurtele  11:11  

in the craziness of 2016 2017 basically the way that we navigated that was if the home hit the market on the Monday or Tuesday and we had a client for it, we got them through as soon as possible so that if they wanted to get an inspection done there was still time because as Tyler just mentioned, there's just nightmare stories that came out of it for those that didn't and No, I don't think we ever skipped a beat there with having an inspection ever missed for clients that were looking to do a pre inspection prior to going multiples and it reminds me of one time walked into a one bedroom condo, and this was during the height so there was you know, probably 30 groups in this one bedroom condo, there were three pre inspections going on simultaneously. Just Just madness, you can imagine what that look like. So So Tyler for our for our listeners who just have not experienced a home inspection give us a bit of an idea of the walkthrough. What are you looking for? And what do you do to inspect a home? What am


Unknown Speaker  12:07  

I looking for everything everything so essentially a home inspection, you know its foundation in and everything attached that's the way I look at it. And one of those odd ones is you know, believe it or not and this is one of those weird parts about an inspection we're actually not required to test appliances which blows my mind because I would hate for a client to move into a place and have a stove not work that's $1,000 fix so we do test apply what I test appliances not all do because we aren't required and some people follow you know what's called our standards of practice very tightly and hey, that's fair. That's what it's for. As long as he lets the buyer know in advance but inspection, you know, we really, really pay close attention to the big ticket items for sure. But everything does get checked. So you know, its foundation, flow of water, electrical, the H HVAC systems, the roof, the siding, the attic, the windows. And you know, I take pictures of everything, you know, a standard house, I'm easily taking 200 photos, and I like to sit down at the very end With the client, and we go through all those photos, not just bad ones, but good ones, neutral ones, we talk about the house because, you know, even if something's not an issue, and it doesn't need to be fixed right away, it may need to be fixed in two years. And so we're going to talk about what to keep your eye on, you know, be aware of and, you know, you know, where you should poke your head into check something out once in a while just to make sure things are attached and connected properly. But, you know, the ultimate goal is, you know, if I can catch everything that's 100 bucks and above, we did a darn good job. That's the nature of it.


Ryan Dash  13:27  

Yeah, I mean, just anecdotally, I've had instances where, you know, Tyler's gone through a home and we've found thousands of dollars of stuff that needed to be fixed, right? And At which point, you know, if we've got an inspection clause in our contract, then it gives us an opportunity to actually go back to the seller and say, hey, look, you know, we've got X, Y and Z, that's a bit of an issue here, right? And we need it fixed. And in doing so, you know, you spend $500 to maybe save when, you know, five grand when getting the seller to do that work, right. So it's invaluable work as far as I'm concerned.


Dan Wurtele  13:58  

That's on the buyer side. Tyler, do you ever work with sellers in doing an inspection?


Unknown Speaker  14:03  

Yeah, actually, you know, obviously, the buyers are probably, you know, the bigger percentage for sure. But we do have odd situations where Yeah, you know, I just I had a online lead request through my website. And basically the comment said, Hey, you know, my father passed away. But I'm going to move into the house, but I know absolutely nothing about the house. I don't know what he's fixed. But he's It was a heritage house over by UBC kind of area. And so she wanted me to go in there and do a full inspection and kind of educate her on the property. And so there's situations like that. And then there's also the situations where sometimes realtors on the selling side are actually having an inspector come in and do a pre inspection or, you know, a pre, what do you call it?


Dan Wurtele  14:47  

Yeah, like a pre listing inspection.


Unknown Speaker  14:49  

We Yeah, so essentially, we'll go in and you know, we'll provide a report and, you know, if the report ends up being pretty well, usually it'll be presented out at the open houses and so people will go through and They'll be able to look at it and see you know exactly what's going on with the house.


Ryan Dash  15:03  

Yeah, I think the point to this is to you know, if you've got buyers that are coming through maybe it's an older home right maybe it's a condo that's 20 years old or something like that and you want to create a level of confidence or maybe as a seller you're trying to fix these problems before they actually go to market with it right? At which point when you do get an inspection done you know it's not a problem. So that's one side of it. The other side of it is is I think it brings a tremendous amount of confidence to protect a potential buyer when they walk through and say hey look, you know, even my seller has has inspected this place so you can use the inspection if you want and check it out. And and it really really helps bring ease I think to buyers


Unknown Speaker  15:40  

well it's it's one of those parts and no one for agents truthfully it's you know, if you're gonna list a house sets, let's say it's 1960 and let's say your client has put a brand new roof on it two years ago, he's put brand new furnace in the attic insulation has been topped up, you know, the siding has been replaced. It's like reward him for his efforts, you know, because he's put a lot of money into this place, you know, and if you think that report, you know, inspections gonna go pretty smooth, you know what, have confidence in it, because if they've put, you know, half a million dollars into it, it's gonna cost you guys around 500 bucks to show, you know, his hard earned money and you know, that can help the process and help speed up the process on the back end.


Dan Wurtele  16:17  

That's just it as a seller, you know, you may be sitting on a million plus dollars worth of equity here. And by doing a pre inspection, getting ahead of any potential issues that a buyer might find, not only can you fix those and add a bit of value to your home, but you're really kind of protecting yourself when it comes down to negotiation time, because you've kind of already preemptively blocked them from finding any issues, which is great. And so you're going to truly maximize the sale price and sale value of that home that you've lived in for so long.


Unknown Speaker  16:41  

Yep. And it can be a tricky one, because sometimes he will say, Oh, you know, well, who should pay for it? That's a big question. You know, should the seller pay for it? So they can you know, or should the agent pay for it? And that's a tricky one. Do you guys have any input on that one? I'm putting it back on you.


Ryan Dash  16:55  

Yeah, I mean, I think if it's going to help my sale, I will absolutely get involved with it. Right. I think at the end of the day here, there's, you know, we're not, we know that there's costs involved when it comes to properly selling a home. And if you're going to maximize sort of the value for your client for 500 bucks, as far as I'm concerned, there's there's a way to do that right. 100%


Unknown Speaker  17:15  

great answer. Yeah, for


Dan Wurtele  17:17  

sure. It's always it's interesting. It can be case by case too, because in a heated market, you know, I've had a client who found minor issues and said, Hey, I think we should really push back on this. I'm like, great, but there's two backup offers. And they may just say, look, no, we don't want to do any work. We don't want to come down in price because we've got a guy right behind you with a very close offer as well. So again, is it worth putting in a new new boiler or a new hot water tank? Just to save a deal? Potentially, right, and of course, you decide who pays for it at that point as well? Yeah. So I guess I mean, you've probably seen a lot of homes. Do you have any idea how many properties you've been through to date?


Unknown Speaker  17:53  

Yeah, actually pretty close to keep pretty close tabs on it cuz I'm coming up to the the trainer level at this point. So just I'm creeping up on the thousand inspection Mark Yeah housing Wow. creeping up in five years the first three years slower as it builds up in the last two years just hit a different level for sure. But yeah, I'm almost at certified trainer level if I want it to be which I don't want to be


Dan Wurtele  18:14  

incredible congrats on the experience. You definitely seen all walks of life I could imagine and can you share a bit of a story about one of the maybe the coolest or the most beautiful homes you've ever seen? Oh, coolest.


Unknown Speaker  18:28  

Oh, okay. Well,


Unknown Speaker  18:31  

okay, cool. Okay.


Unknown Speaker  18:34  

I had this one house actually in this is actually when I was doing my training. So five years ago, I was out with an inspector and you know, we kind of follow them around that's part of your training and you know, it's part of getting your hours and to become an inspector and so we went to this Abbotsford house up on the hill pool beautiful. It was just gorgeous. And as soon as you walk in the front door to the left, you have this just flawless looking library with wood paneling everywhere dark wood. It's awesome. And we go in. There's a sticky note up on the bookshelf and it says push here. So I'm a new Inspector, I'm pushing it. So I push and the door opens up.


Ryan Dash  19:13  

Please tell me there's a Batcave


Unknown Speaker  19:14  

there was a sex dungeon


Ryan Dash  19:20  

almost as good


Unknown Speaker  19:21  

as it was a blacked out room with weird lights, swings, whips, ropes, in sane and here's the gets weirder. So once I get out of the room, and we just kind of do our inspection I start noticing the pictures on the wall. The people that live there 70 this is facts. I was blown away and I was like and this is probably like my fifth or sixth inspection I'm like Alright, man, this is interesting gig I picked.


Ryan Dash  19:52  

Certainly not boring, that's


Unknown Speaker  19:53  

for sure. No, but that was the weirdest one for sure. But it was it was funny, but yeah, yeah. The coolest house that I actually ended up inspecting was a place in Surrey actually called Villa de fante. And it was a 14,000 square foot $28 million house with a pond and a pool and it had like 95 electrical panels everywhere. It was intense. But what what an inspection that was that this place had five full times groundskeepers. Just Yeah. They had their own little outbuilding and outdoor showers and yeah, it was it was spectacular. So that that inspection basically took me a day to do it took me about 12 hours to do the inspection. Realistically, I was early on my inspecting is probably only like my 200th inspection. I probably should have had somebody with me and done a tandem inspection but I just decided to do it myself. Take it on


Ryan Dash  20:49  

that one wasn't 500 bucks was it?


Unknown Speaker  20:54  

It was about three grand I think for that one, but the inspection took a day. And then the report basically took that Next day, so it was a two day job, essentially. My clients didn't end up buying it for no reason other than it just didn't suit them. I guess in the end, I was pretty happy about that for the record. But yeah, that was the coolest inspection I've ever done. That was really neat. Yeah, it was a big learning curve early on in my career, that's for sure about, you know, don't be afraid to call in another inspector to help you out when something is that big. It's the best for everybody. If you got four sets of eyes, and it's just that big of a property. I think the same thing can be said, you know, for for Dan and I, when we're working on a really, really big deal. We try and get more eyeballs on it, right? Just because it really seems to you just protect each other. Right. And you protect the client ultimately, which is which is what you're trying to do. And exactly hundred percent. Yeah.


Dan Wurtele  21:44  

Cool. Well, on the opposite side of that, I bet you've seen some pretty challenging places and some pretty nasty things. Is there any story that jumps out to mind? I heard that laugh in your voice.


Unknown Speaker  21:55  

Yeah, we were talking about none of ours though. We just were talking about two days ago.


Dan Wurtele  21:59  

We start Again Yeah, that was a surprise to to both parties. Let's just say that. I mean, we


Unknown Speaker  22:04  

got kind of warned that it wasn't the greatest situation but then it ended up being worse than not the greatest situation. So, yeah. condo beautiful. Somewhere not in Vancouver. Basically 360 views of everything penthouse probably a million bucks if not more, something like that. And we kind of got warned that there's some people there who've been living a little, you know, a little unhealthy. And so when we walk in, I just as soon as I walked in, I went, Oh, here we go. You can see the trash everywhere piled up, walk into the, you know, the kid's bedroom, and there's just stuff everywhere. It was real hoarding situation. It was actually like, it was really sad. And these situations do happen, unfortunately. But, you know, once I got in there and realized, you know, like, I can't, I can't test the toilets. I can't run water because there's stuff in all the tubs. I can't see the walls. I can't test the appliances because there's just stuff everywhere. Uh, you know, those situations, I just kind of, you know, I had a, you know, a come to Jesus meeting with the clients and I pulled them up and we went out in the balcony, I said, Hey, guys, I can't deliver you a good inspection right now, because I can't test the majority of the stuff here. So I'm gonna have to unfortunately, you know, cancel this inspection even though I'm here. But why don't I take you guys around and let's just talk about this place. And let's talk about what you're going to do and just so you know, that talks basically gonna say that it's a full gut job, everything needs to be pulled out. But yeah, it was, you know, for such a beautiful view and deck and building. It was a really sad situation when you


Ryan Dash  23:34  

walked around with the clients and you're having your discussion with them. Did they still find value? Obviously our own I don't know. I mean, I wasn't there. So I just want to know kind of how to how did the client react when you said hey, look like, you know, this inspection? I can't do my inspection the way I want to do it here. So but as a you know, as a value add, this is what we're going to do. Did they appreciate that?


Unknown Speaker  23:58  

I believe they did. You know, I mean, it You know, I spent probably still an extra half an hour there, even though it was kind of a buyer biohazard scene. But, you know, for me, they, they kind of realized already that they were gonna have to do a big, big job here, obviously. So for me, I wanted to make sure that anything that was maybe strata related was intact, I wanted to make sure there were no broken windows, because even though you know, Stratus typically cover windows, you know, if a current tenant has broken a window, they could put it back on on the current owner, so we wanted to just look for broken windows, you know, make sure that the exterior siding on the deck was good, and it was spray painted, oddly enough, but, you know, we just want to make sure we covered them in that sense, can strata come back at them and say, Hey, you know, like, these are issues that, you know, the last people caused an unfortunate that's gonna fall on you now. So we also look for signs of leaks, anything that could cause, you know, additional damage to their moving date,


Ryan Dash  24:49  

or their rent to add to their budget rental or whatever it is they're planning to do there.


Unknown Speaker  24:52  

Yeah, or exactly right. So yeah, you know, just we wanted to, you know, and who knows what can happen in the next month from the people that are living there too, in the client's potentially move in, but we did our best to try to you know, let them know, you know, what potentially could cause more damage. And realistically, it's just their lifestyle that that could cause more damage at this point. So hopefully everything stays stays good and they're safe and healthy.


Ryan Dash  25:14  

How old was that apartment? Just out of curiosity? 789 Yeah, something like that. And would you say it look like it was 30 years old inside. I was


Unknown Speaker  25:23  

bad man. It's terrible. It was really bad. It was sad. They all the what breaking point for me, uh, truthfully, was when I walked in the child's bedroom and there's like, feces kind of smeared on the window cell. And I was just calling I got I got a little angry. I kept it to myself because you have to as part of it, but


Unknown Speaker  25:44  

I was frustrated.


Ryan Dash  25:45  

Yeah. Let's, let's move on. Yeah.


Unknown Speaker  25:49  

Fair enough. Not to doom and gloom, this podcast. Okay. You know, these are the realities of doing inspections. Sometimes though. It's the truth. They know it's not always positive. It's sometimes you have these situations. So


Dan Wurtele  25:59  

that's Right, and it's tired. I think one thing we should share as well. So when you create the report, and when you have the discussion with the potential buyers, you're not giving a pass fail, right? You're educating the buyers and they kind of can make that collective decision and talking with their agents and whatnot, is that that's kind of best way to put it


Unknown Speaker  26:18  

thousand percent, nothing passes, nothing fails. Every place has issues brand new hundred years old, there's gonna be issues, you know, and I'm not one to assume that somebody doesn't have $200,000 sitting in the bank ready to do rentals and nor do I want to know, I'm there strictly educate them on the property, and then they make their decisions with their agents guidance, basically, right now. And people always say, Would you buy this house? And it's like, well, no, I'm not in the market for an $8 million house in West Vancouver. So I would not buy this house. You know, this is not a question we'll answer. It's just all about education. And I find quite often where you know, when you go back in a situation, let's say that, you know, let's say we're inspecting a condo and there's, you know, big jobs coming up, and it's right there in front. You want to depreciate apart, there's probably going to be $40,000 in levies. And it's like you create so you can go back and potentially get $40,000 off the purchase price. But you still have to pay for those levees in the future. So the question the client is, do you have the money set aside because you can get all the money off the mortgage all you want, but if you don't have that money to pay for it, you're in some trouble coming up in a few years, right? And I find too many people like, let's get money out, let's get money off. It's like, no, let's sit back and figure out where you're gonna get this money from.


Ryan Dash  27:26  

Fair enough. So in going through these inspections, then I'm assuming that you know, you get pretty invasive or how invasive we get here. I mean, are you finding a specialist? Are you looking for that kind of stuff? Or are you you know, like you said, You're turning on appliances, even though that's not something you're supposed to do?


Unknown Speaker  27:44  

They're not supposed to it's just not required? Um, yeah, I mean, bestest, what a fun word.


Ryan Dash  27:53  

It's a big one for you. Wow, big one. Oh, I


Unknown Speaker  27:56  

mean, I you know, our our little comment, we put Every report basically says you know, WorkSafe bc says prior to 1990 is bestest was containing over 3000 Building Products. The simple truth about asbestos, I might get you guys to edit this one out. It's just the amount of exposure you need to specificed to actually cause a big issue is a lot more than you would ever get. You know, that's just the simple truth. You know, like, you know, a common type of material that does contain a fair amount of asbestos is called vermiculite and it's just old insulation used in attics. I mean, hey, you know, I've heard so many stories of people saying, I used to go up there and swim around and that stuff when I was growing up, I'd be up in the attic, throwing vermiculite everywhere. You know, these guys are still here. And obviously these are, you know, older real estate agents that are saying and dying from cancer, but that's the thing, you know, like, you know, yeah, and, you know, I've heard I've heard the old stories, it's actually the people who, you know, actually, you know, have health issues from asbestos are actually like the wives of the people who worked in the mines in Libby Montana, because they were the ones doing the laundry, you know, not they should husbands should do laundry. But that's the way it was back then. And so they were the ones shaking it out. And they were the ones that actually, you know, it was constant exposure over and over and over and over. And that's what's gonna cause the issues. But in terms of asbestos, if it is pre 90s, you do have to have it tested, if you're going to be doing, you know, any removal of walls, but if you're not going to be doing any removal of walls, and your house is perfect, you don't need to test it. You just got to assume it has it. And if you're going to be doing any renovations, have it tested? Because it does it is quite costly to remove. That's the simple truth of it. And if you're going to do it the right way, then, yeah, you got to have it looked at prior.


Dan Wurtele  29:35  

So for those that have never done an inspection before, you know, to kind of lean on that term, you don't know what you don't know, what are kind of the common misconceptions about the services provided by an inspector like yourself.


Unknown Speaker  29:48  

misconceptions. You know,


Unknown Speaker  29:52  

probably that we know how much every single thing in the world costs. Yeah, soon as I say, you know, show Veterans say, you know, this should be repaired. Oh, how much is it? I don't know how much it is, you know? And it's


Ryan Dash  30:06  

or how to repair it like are you often asked like, hey, like, how do we do this? Or, you know, can you provide me with a quote?


Unknown Speaker  30:12  

All right off the record, we can kind of give you the guidelines of what it's going to take to repair. But in terms of how much it costs, there's a lot of variables that go into that. And we're not allowed to provide that simply because we don't know the true answer, you know, if you're going to redo your entire shower enclosure, I don't know if you're going to use Home Depot tiles or you know, have a grandmaster from Italy come in and put up some fancy marble or something.


Ryan Dash  30:33  

It's a great point because you don't know what the client is intending to do. Right.


Unknown Speaker  30:38  

And quite often, you know, when repairs are underway, you know that you'll get an estimate for the job because as repairs you know, undertake that realistically there's going to be more expenses that come up during those repairs. So


Ryan Dash  30:49  

like Dan said, you don't know what you don't know you know, when you start pulling a wall apart, you don't know if there's, you know, 1940's insulation which is newspaper right also a shame fire hazard, right?


Unknown Speaker  31:01  

Well, that's one of the other big misconceptions you know about an inspection is I can only see what I can see. That's the truth I cannot see behind the walls I cannot see below the, you know, below the finishing materials anywhere. And so there's a lot during inspection unfortunately, that we just cannot see it's a visual inspection. That's what a home inspection is.


Ryan Dash  31:21  

But Tyler does have some fancy guns that can shoot well. Yeah, he can we


Unknown Speaker  31:28  

call that an infrared scanner?


Ryan Dash  31:31  

Well, it looks like a gun that you pointed things. I don't have guns for the record.


Unknown Speaker  31:37  

Weird. I have an infrared scan. Yes. See,


Ryan Dash  31:40  

this is this is what clients do. Clients are like, Hey, can you point that thing over here? Check this, and how much does that cost?


Dan Wurtele  31:48  

Yeah, so this has been incredibly informative. We really appreciate it. Tyler for those people that want to learn more about you or a pillar to post or to book your services. Where do they go to learn more Talk to your realtor.


Unknown Speaker  32:01  

No, I honestly, for me, I don't even carry business cards anymore. Honestly add me on Instagram, Tyler dot burly I'm sure there'll be a link somewhere in this video that these guys are posting. And if you don't have Instagram realistically I'm probably not suited for your clients and our agent


Ryan Dash  32:18  

called called Danner Ryan


Unknown Speaker  32:22  

called Anna Ryan.


Dan Wurtele  32:24  

Yeah. Okay, that's been incredibly valuable information. Tyler, thank you so much for your time. And to our listeners here, we'd like to actually offer you a free inspection. So if you are thinking about buying a home, or even if you're thinking about selling and you want to get a pre inspection done, just mentioned this podcast with Tyler burly and the inspection is on us the Vancouver life. Thank you once again for listening and we will see you on the next one.


Ryan Dash  32:49  

That wraps up this edition of the Vancouver life podcast.


Dan Wurtele  32:54  

For more information on this podcast and to access a ton of free downloads investment opportunity duties current market info and then homes for sale. You can find it all at WWW dot Vancouver life.com


Ryan Dash  33:09  

thanks and we look forward to bringing you more podcasts about Vancouver real estate




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