Brandon Nelson
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Tools of the Trade
Ask any Joe on the street what tools a Realtor carries with him into the “workplace” each day, and the answer will probably sound something like:
“Cell phone, bluetooth, and laptop.”
Yeah, those are heavy-use items in the sales trade, for sure. But having come from a home inspection backround and wanting to waste as little of my or my clients’ time as possible, I carry a few other simple things with me in the trunk of my car. I don’t pull them out with every home, but if something really ignites our curiosity…. why then it’s tool time!
Here are my top three most prized and oft-used secret weapons:
1) A moisture meter. Even if I had X-ray vision, I might not be able to tell you if a stain on a ceiling was still wet, or if the flooring along a tub or around a toilet was hiding some un-welcome H2O. But with my handy-dandy, bright yellow gizmo, I can just scan and know. And sure, these moisture issues can be fixed, and they’ll get checked out during the home inspection. But during the “shopping” phase it’s often helpful to know this level of detail of a house. It helps establish the overall care or lack of it the owners have shown. 
2) A 20-million-candle-power spot light. I freekin’ LOVE this Big-A__ light. Two of the most telling areas of a house are the crawl space and the attic, and call me “a little off” if you will, but I like popping that hatch, sticking my head in there and pulling the trigger on the ol’, rechargeable “daylight cannon!” A lot can be learned by having a good look at these relatively exposed, un-conditioned spaces in a home, and the spotlight makes it easy.
3) A telescoping 13.5′ ladder. Now this thing is just COOl. Everybody digs it when I pull out the telescoper, extend that baby up onto a roof eave or into an attic hatch, and climb away. A single layer of dead roofing over solid sheathing might be X-thousand dollars to replace. A top layer over 2 other layers in need of a full tear-off, then installation of solid sheathing before new roofing, is X-thousand plus materially more. And sometimes the only way to tell that is to climb up to the eave.
The cell phone and laptop have their place in the Realtor’s toolkit, but so do these tried-and-true carry-over tools from my home inspection days. And if you’re really lucky, I might pull out my ultraphonic leak detector!!!
