Homeminders and Pillar-to-Post Form an Alliance

[hausdok]

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)

Ethix Media announces today that its flagship product Homeminders will be included in Pillar To Post’s new Home Alliance Program (HAP), designed to benefit real estate agents and home buyers and sellers. Pillar To Post, North America’s leading home inspection service, recently launched HAP nationally to help estate agents help their clients, and to guide consumers in choosing trusted service providers.

HAP offers a broad array of homeowner settling-in and ownership services and is now complemented by Homeminders’ personalized home management solution. As part of HAP, Homeminders subscriptions will be provided to home inspection customers contemplating buying or selling a home.

“HAP is groundbreaking in our industry, and Homeminders exponentially increases the value of this program, both to real estate agents and to home buyers and sellers,â€

[Les]

what can I say?

[Inspectorjoe]

From the fine print:

Choice/Opt-out

While Homeminders does not give You the opportunity to remove Your information from our database, You may elect not to receive future communications or certain types of communications, or You may elect to discontinue use of our service. The elections can be made by selecting the corresponding preferences within the site. Other companies to whom we have provided Your Data may independently send You communications. Please contact those companies directly if You do not wish to receive communications from them.

[kurt]

"Centered on the alleviating the stresses of Homeownship"..........

"The Home Ownership Lifecycle".......?

You know, I never thought owning a home was all that complicated. It's these morons that complicate the process by substituting their product for real education.

[hausdok]

LOL,

I'm opening a new Caulk n' Sell franchise next week. Anybody want in?

OT - OF!!!

M.

[Bain]

We had a couple of Pillar-To-Post franchises around for a few years. They've both bitten the dust.

One of their marketing strategies was to approach realty companies and arrange to hand out raffle tickets to realtors for every inspection referral that was generated. The winner of the raffle received a weekend getaway to . . . wherever, I forget.

What else can you say about them?

John

[Terence McCann]

Originally posted by Bain

We had a couple of Pillar-To-Post franchises around for a few years. They've both bitten the dust.

One of their marketing strategies was to approach realty companies and arrange to hand out raffle tickets to realtors for every inspection referral that was generated. The winner of the raffle received a weekend getaway to . . . wherever, I forget.

What else can you say about them?

John

They were doing that around here as well.

[kurt]

Originally posted by Bain

We had a couple of Pillar-To-Post franchises around for a few years. They've both bitten the dust.

One of their marketing strategies was to approach realty companies and arrange to hand out raffle tickets to realtors for every inspection referral that was generated. The winner of the raffle received a weekend getaway to . . . wherever, I forget.

What else can you say about them?

John

It was about big ass wide screen TV's; whoever referred Joe Inspector the most won the big TV. P to P's websites had an entire page devoted to Betty Big Hair's jumping up and down excitedly after they won the TV.

The entire P to P business model is built around realtor referrals.

[Mark P]

I had a two realtors tell me last week that P2P was handing out coupons for FREE inspections and 75% off inspections. I just said that if they want to give their work away for free I can't compete, but if they want quality, they won't get it for free.

[inspector57]

It sounds unethical if not illegal to me. I don't refer anyone to do work on my clients house just to avoid the APPEARANCE of impropriety. If I owned or participated in a company that does repair work on a property that I inspect it would be illegal (in Texas) Of course if you pay for referrals and don't disclose it to your clients it is also illegal (in Texas).

I guess you can tell I don't work for P2P!

[Jack Ahern]

This ASHI inspector will not recommend a contractor unless he/she has worked in my house. I usually give these contractors a key to all my doors. My plumber and electrician can expect about a dozen referral$ a year. I will not accept any finders fee for the above. I could even share my Guinness with them.[8D]

[Brian G]

Originally posted by Jack Ahern

This ASHI inspector will not recommend a contractor unless he/she has worked in my house.

That's me too. If I haven't used them and been happy, I don't recommend them to clients.

Brian G.

A Very Short List []

[paul burrell]

I met two inspectors at an ASHI meeting awhile back and they were hang dog looking and trying to sell their Pillar To Post franchise at a big discount. I would not touch a franchise with a ten foot pole. Costs to much to make them a living. The non compete agreement is a killer and makes it hard to get away from them.

No disrespect to anyone but there is one born everyday.

Paul B.

[Kyle Kubs]

Originally posted by Bain

We had a couple of Pillar-To-Post franchises around for a few years. They've both bitten the dust.

One of their marketing strategies was to approach realty companies and arrange to hand out raffle tickets to realtors for every inspection referral that was generated. The winner of the raffle received a weekend getaway to . . . wherever, I forget.

What else can you say about them?

John

Years ago I started out working for a guy that bought the Pillar to Post franchise rights to the County where I live. Took a couple weeks to realize that even after doing inspections for over 3 years at that point, the things this guy didn't know about the major systems in a home were truly frightening. He & his flunkies have been sued almost a dozen times over the last several years. I looked around at the operation and decided, the more distance between me and that company the better...

I'll tell you this though, if there is anyone at all that is fully trained in the art of pandering to RE agents, its a pillar to post guy. I think the franchise trains their people more in marketing their business and covering their tales (misspelled on purpose) then it does in actual inspection. And the agents around here soak em up! "He's not alarmist..."

Oddly enough when licensing became mandatory in this State it took him four tries to pass the easiest test I've ever seen.

"Big Hair Betty's..." Ha![:-bigmout[:-bigmout[:-bigmout

[n/a30]

Many years ago I went to an inspectors association meeting were many inspectors were standing around in a circle. One inspector was left out of discussions. He wore a P 2 P shirt. Being naive at the time I wondered why they shunned him. It was not until the P2P guy spoke his mind that I understood why they threated him like an untouchable. The entire P 2 P business model is built around Realtor referrals, not quality service to the public.

In these days of centralization and prepackaged dirty deals with entangling alliances, grouped entities serve the needs of those who want to make any deal happen, where profits for tainted entities are maximized and the details of kickbacks / quid pro quo relationships are kept secret.

Consolidated bundeling of servces trough a marketing funnel only serves financial benefits of the gatekeeping bundler. It is what the public does NOT know is the associaions are often questionable.

[Erby]

Yeah, Hometeam looks like he might survive it but he's great a marketing as that's his background.

The new Housemaster and Brickerkicker's are struggling.

The P2P's lasted about a year. Ed went back to being a helicopter pilot and the two ladies just kinda disappeared when licensing came along.

It's a tough world out here. There's about 82 inspectors in the Lexington area. Lot's of those are new strugglers. Some will make it. Some won't. Quite a few more are just part-timers. Quite a drop from 2001-2002 when there were over 200.