Move In Certified Testimonials

Mr. Ramsey,

I have received your Inspection Report on the house I am selling in Horseshoe Bay. In my history of buying approximately 12 homes over the past thirty years, it is by far the most complete report I have seen. As a buyer it would have saved me numerous headaches and substantial expense if I had been represented by you and your firm, 1st Choice Inspections. Thank you for such a complete report done in such a timely manner. We are in the process of making all both needed and suggested repairs which should make future buyer negotiations much smoother.

--John Wagner

I would like to share just a few words about Ralph Ramsey and his Move-in-Certified program, but first a little history. When I met Ralph about a year ago, I was a Texas licensed professional home inspector with a successful business in the beautiful Highland Lakes area. My wife and I made the decision to move back to my home state of Minnesota to be closer to our children and soon to be coming grand children. We were in the process of remodeling our home in Kingsland at the time, however due to a job opportunity and the difficulty of remodeling a home full of furniture, we decided to move my wife and the majority of our “stuff” to Minnesota, except for my shop and the bare necessities, to facilitate the completion of the remodeling project, much of which I was doing myself. At that time I had not decided what to do with my business, as I needed to continue working to finance the remodel. I believe it was providence that I met Ralph through a random phone call he made while fishing for information about my inspection business, a fairly common practice businesses use to evaluate the competition and remain competitive. Once I mentioned that I was in the process of relocating to Minnesota, the conversation quickly turned to answering the question “why on earth would you want to do move back to the frozen tundra?”, and what was I going to do with my business? Being close to our children and future grandchildren outweighs the cold of winter. As a perfectionist with high standards regarding the level of detail I believe that my customers deserved, I told him that I would rather walk away from my business than to entrust it to someone that I did not know or trust to meet my high standards. Our conversation lasted about 2 hours if I recall correctly.

After far too many months, my home was ready to put on the market, but unfortunately it was in December, which is the slowest time in the real estate market, not to mention the rapidly declining economy and dropping home values. During those many months, I came to know Ralph as a hard working business man of integrity and ethics. I tagged along with him to assess how he did his inspections and he went with me to see how I did mine. As usual, we both learned about what we did that was the same and what we did that was different, things we both could mutually apply to strengthen our businesses. With all that said, we discussed Ralph’s Move in Certified program that he was developing, and though I was familiar with and also promoted pre-listing inspections because of the marketing advantages it affords to home sellers by providing the opportunity to make repairs prior to listing and or being transparent and fully disclosing the condition of their home through a thorough home inspection, Ralph’s program goes beyond that and also provides the distinguishing benefit of having a Move-in-Certified sign in front of home and the added marketing visibility of the home being listed on his Move-in-Certified web site with a contact link to the listing agent, not to mention sending out a notice of the listing to every agent on his contact list, which he told me is about 2000 and growing.

It is for that very reason that I hired Ralph to independently and objectively inspect my home to place it on his Move-in-Certified program. I was pleased that Ralph observed a couple of minor issues that I had missed in the forest of details, along with a couple of things that I had decided to let go. I made those minor repairs to eliminate any potential issues that may or may not have raised a question or concern by a prospective buyer. Ralph updated the report to remove those particular issues, which I then made available to my agent and left a copy on the counter of the kitchen for the prospective buyers to look at during the showings. The couple that ended up purchasing my home waved having an inspection done because of the recent inspection report, which gave them piece of mind and saved them the cost of paying for another inspection. I also know that the Move-in-Certified sign in the front yard also set my home apart from others in the community.

This is an excellent program that really puts Ralph above his competition, which would be me if I were still there. It is also just another reason why I chose to pass my business on to Ralph.

Thank you Ralph for your help in making my home sale easier, for taking care of my valued customers, and for our new found friendship.

Sincerely

Randy Hagemo – Owner/ Inspector
Omega-H Real Estate Inspection Service
Plymouth, MN
612-558-0672
rhagemo@hotmail.com
www.omega-hinspections.com