u/ThePropertyNerd

Buyers often ask about things that aren't really part of a home inspection; flood/landslide risk, environmental hazards, crime, nearby development, etc.

There are also things that seem potentially useful to buyers but require looking beyond the inspection itself, for example, analyzing historical aerial imagery of a roof and comparing it with potentially damaging weather events over the years.

Why don't more inspectors offer something like this as an add-on, or have a trusted company they refer buyers to?

Is it mostly liability, lack of demand, or simply not worth the hassle?

Curious how inspectors think about this.

I've been thinking about this from the agent's perspective and would really like to hear from people actually working with buyers.

Buyers have access to listing data, disclosures, inspections, comps, and public records. But there is also a huge amount of property-specific information scattered across different sources that most buyers probably never look at.

For example, imagine having one property-specific report that pulls together:

1. crime and safety data around the property

2)nearby registered convicted criminals

3. environmental contamination and hazardous sites

4. flood risk from both official sources and insurance-carrier model

5. property history and public records

6. potentially damaging weather events, with dated aerial imagery matched to those events

7. whether solar might make financial sense for that particular property

8. other things worth investigating during due diligence

And rather than simply dumping data on the buyer, it turns the findings into practical questions and things they should check.

Would something like this actually make your service more valuable to buyers?

Or would it create the opposite problem, more questions, more second-guessing, more work for the agent, and potentially delay or kill otherwise good deals?

I'm particularly curious about this tradeoff:

Does giving buyers more independent property intelligence help you differentiate yourself from other agents, or does it just give buyers more reasons to hesitate?

And if you think it would be useful, where is the line between “helpful due diligence” and “too much information”?

Especially interested in hearing from agents who work with first-time buyers. Thanks! ❤️

do you know anybody how carved out a niche for him/herself and found an idea through shopify apps forum monitoring or as a Shopify consultant?