The Land of The Shiny Wheels

Posted on | July 17, 2007 | No Comments

Yesterday and today I worked areas I have nicknamed “The Land of The Shiny Wheels”. I love working these areas, it’s so easy to do a high number of inspections. Yesterday’s secret code is (46â€¢6.50) and today’s secret code is (3â€¢25)+(36â€¢6.50)

I’ve had a lot of calls lately from reps asking about the variety of work that is available. I have spent quite a bit of time going over a lot of it with them and I thought you might be interested in some info on the subject. Here is an excerpt from one of the chapters in my manual:

One of the many decisions you have to make in this business is what type of inspections you want to do. It really will not be an easy decision.

I know there has to be many people doing some type of field services work that I don’t yet know about. However, as I have mentioned before, the need for field service reps is practically everywhere.

The Field Services Business offers a huge assortment of services. Basically, any type of service which involves being on location to use your five senses – see, hear, feel, smell, taste – and report what you find can be called a field service.

Field services, also called field inspections, can be performed for:

Mortgage bankers

Commercial bankers

Vehicle and equipment leasing firms

Other field service firms

Banks and financial firms that provide debit and credit cards

Merchant credit card accounts

Mystery shopper organizations

Insurance underwriters

Software companies

Medical equipment leasing

Floor planning creditors

Real estate investors

Practically any other type of business

If you would like to narrow the definition of the field services business you could pretty much narrow it down as you please since there are no hard and fast rules or central authority to dictate the definitions. There are however, some commonly accepted defining terms that those in the business understand. The two categories here are where I spend most of my time:

Financial Field Service Companies provide inspections and other field services for mortgage companies, banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, insurance companies, consumer finance and many other types of real estate lenders and non-real estate lenders.

Mortgage Field Service Companies provide services primarily to mortgage companies, banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions and other real estate lenders.

You will notice the only difference between the two categories is the inclusion of services for insurance companies and consumer finance under the Financial Field Service Companies.

The Mortgage Field Service Companies category is actually a more narrowly defined sub-category of the Financial Field Services Companies. Let’s say you elect to do services only for insurance companies. In that case you could properly identify your business as an Insurance Field Service Company which in reality is another sub-category of the Financial Field Services Companies.

You will be acting as an independent field inspector or independent contractor, serving as the eyes and ears of the company requesting the inspection. The services you offer are called field services or field inspections both of which are a visual inspection of property or other collateral such as boats, motorcycles, computers, etc. The service may include interviewing people and taking pictures and normally will always include a written report or uploading your results on a website form.

Independent contractors (independent field inspectors) are sent to do the task for any number of reasons depending on the circumstances and the type of inspection. Field Inspectors are required primarily because the interested party has a need for information about their collateral which can be property, vehicles, etc.

As a small business owner of a local field service company, you will find other income producing business opportunities to perform along with the field inspection assignments. Businesses in every city have needs that require someone from their office going “out in the field”. They may prefer to keep their people “in-house” and let you do the field work.

I have broken the mortgage field services business into five main areas with the various service types falling under one of these five main areas. The five areas and the services falling under each of the five main areas were determined from my own experience but follow a generally accepted view of the industry services. You will notice that some types of services are performed under more than one of the main areas. The definitions of each service are quite simple but they are logical and work for me as well as others.

The five main areas I have identified are:

1. Residential Inspections – any type of inspection of property used as a residence. This normally includes mobile home inspections even though in most states mobile homes are classified as personal property instead of real property.

Bankruptcy inspections

Construction funding reports

Delinquency inspections

Face-to-face interviews

Flood hazard inspection

Foreclosure inspection

Insurance loss inspection

Neighborhood information

Occupancy inspections

Sale date inspections

2. Commercial Inspections – any type of inspection of property used to produce income. This includes apartment buildings.

Construction funding

Construction progress

Dealer inspections

Delinquency inspections

Face-to-face interviews

Flood hazard inspection

Floor plan inventory inspection

Income property inspection

Insurance loss inspection

Merchant site inspection

Neighborhood information

Occupancy inspections

Retail outlet verification

3. Miscellaneous Inspections – any inspection that may fall into residential or commercial or be unique. Examples are:

Boat inspections

Leased equipment inspections

Home improvement inspections

Dealer inspections

Delinquency inspections

Face-to-face interviews

Floor plan inventory inspection

Insurance loss inspection

Mystery shopper survey

Neighborhood information

4. Property Preservation – action taken at any property to protect, preserve or alleviate any damaging condition that may exist. Property Preservation is not an inspection type but it closely tied to the inspection process. Many Mortgage Field Services businesses do both inspections and property preservation. Field inspectors are often asked to report on the quality of the work performed by property preservation companies.

5. Real Estate Services – these services fall outside the category of inspection types most field inspectors will perform. These services are normally performed by licensed real estate brokers, therefore when I have a request for these services I hand them off to real estate broker friends.

Broker opinion of value
Broker price opinion
Comparative market analysis
Estimated market value
Flood hazard inspection

If you have any questions about the info, give me a call. I will be on the road at daylight tomorrow. I have a telephone training session that I must attend to so I have to back home by 10:00 am. Feel free to call before 10 or after about 1:00 central time.

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Category: Mortgage Field Services

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