Episode summary
Reggora’s Brian Zitin on launching a free home inspection platform
HousingWire Daily
· · 20 min · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Brian Zitin
Summary
Reggora CEO Brian Zitin said the company launched HomeInspector.com as free software for home inspectors, covering websites, booking, scheduling, mobile inspection workflows, report editing, payments, accounting, and agent management. He framed the move as the next step in Reggora’s effort to reduce appraisal cost and turn time by shifting property data collection earlier in the mortgage process.
Zitin said Reggora first built software connecting lenders with appraisers, then added its own appraisal management company, and later launched 24-hour appraisals by collecting property data before a lender formally ordered the appraisal. HomeInspector.com extends that model by using the person already going to the property on purchase deals—the home inspector—to collect the data needed for a hybrid appraisal, while keeping the actual inspection report private from the lender.
He argued the approach fits appraisal-independence rules because the data collector is a non-interested party, and he said the platform is free even if an inspector never does work for Reggora. Zitin also said the broader vision is to make appraisals faster, cheaper, and more uniform nationwide, especially as UAD 3.6 adds complexity and cost pressure. He expects home inspectors to help reduce uncertainty for buyers and make the mortgage transaction more efficient overall.
Key takeaways
- Brian Zitin said HomeInspector.com gives home inspectors free tools to run their businesses while creating a potential source of property-data collection for Reggora.
- He said Reggora’s strategy is to move property data collection earlier, which helped enable 24-hour appraisals and now could lower costs further by using inspectors already on site.
- Zitin said the home inspection report is not shared with the lender; only the property data set needed for the appraisal is passed through.
- He argued that using home inspectors is better than using untrained collectors because quality and efficiency directly affect turn time and transaction costs.
- Zitin said the long-term goal is uniform, nationwide 24-hour appraisals that are cheaper than today’s typical appraisal pricing, which he said can range from four to a,000 plus dollars.
Notable quotes
“we are providing free software to home inspectors to basically do everything that they need to complete and run their entire home inspection business”
“so our our northstar has always been how can we improve the experience for the appraisal in terms of turn time and cost”
“so, the home inspector is going to go and do their normal job like they would for a home inspection”
“the actual home inspection report itself is never shared with the lender. It's just the same exact property data set that an appraiser would get if it was a hybrid appraisal”
“It is one of those lower quality individuals. They go to a property and then they miss something and you have to send them back”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today for this sponsored episode is Brian Zatin, CEO of Regora to talk about why his appraisal technology company launched home inspector.com, a free software platform for home inspectors. It's a really interesting, innovative way to smooth out part of the mortgage transaction. So, let's dive in. Brian, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, Sarah.
Great to have you because we want to talk about the launch of Regora's home inspector.com, which I found to be really interesting. I have a ton of questions. So, um, let's start with what is home inspector.com?
So, homespector.com, we have a very very large vision for it, but the kind of first iteration of it is we are providing free software to home inspectors to basically do everything that they need to complete and run their entire home inspection business. So everything from setting up their own website for free to booking customers, scheduling inspections, actually doing the inspection with like a mobile app, editing the report, processing payments, accounting, managing real estate agent relationships, like everything that they would need completely for free.
Okay. So the first question is, as an appraisal technology company, why um you know, why wait into home inspections?
Yeah. No, this is this is the key question and this is this will be a little bit of a rant. Um, so just to give you and the viewers the the background context, right?
When when Regor first started, we were pure software. So we plug into lenders on one side and appraisers or appraisal management companies on the other side and appraisals are flowing through our platform. Um then we said we want to make like the appraisal experience even better and so we need more control over the actual outcome.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- home inspection software
- appraisal technology
- real estate software platforms
- housing industry tools
- mortgage industry
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Reggora
- HomeInspector.com
Watch the episode
Watch “Reggora’s Brian Zitin on launching a free home inspection platform” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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