Reuben is a second-generation home inspector with a passion for his work. He grew up remodeling homes and learning about carpentry since he was old enough to hold a hammer. Reuben has worked for Structure Tech since it was purchased in 1997 and is now the owner and President of the company.
Reuben grew up thinking he was going to be a school teacher because he enjoyed teaching others so much. In a sense, that’s a lot of what home inspections are about, so Reuben truly does what he loves. Reuben teaches continuing education classes to real estate agents throughout the Twin Cities, and rarely does home inspections alone anymore; almost every home inspection is conducted with an apprentice home inspector by his side.
Reuben has an A.A. degree in liberal arts and has attended most of the Building Inspection Technology classes at North Hennepin Community College.
Reuben and his wife are the proud parents of two young children, Cy Alexander and Lucy Nicole. With two young children, Reuben doesn’t have much free time but he still tries to play disc golf as often as possible during the summer.
We give real estate investors and contractors access to powerful tools within Matterport. These tools allow you to measure any window, wall, door, cabinet, or appliance you see. Save yourself countless hours visiting your project properties for a measurement you forgot to take.
We offer:
– Certified Home Inspections
– Mold Inspections and Testing
– Wood Dry Rot Evaluation and Testing
– VOC/Chemical Testing
History
Established in 2015.
Coastline Home Services was founded to provide leading home inspection and testing services, providing our clients with far more than “a great home inspection.”
Our experience going through the home buying process over the years left a lot to be desired. By introducing unique products and services to our clients, we are closing that gap and adding tremendous value to the process–as we designed it specifically the way we would want it to be.
PEACE OF MIND INSPECTION SERVICE mission is to provide professional home inspection services to the highest-quality industry standards. We succeed at this because we utilize cutting edge technologies that assist in providing non-invasive and non-destructive means of monitoring and diagnosing conditions that go far beyond the naked eye that conventional or digital photography cannot provide. We do this to provide the client with an unbiased, informed and an in-depth report that provides the knowledge needed to make an educated decision. To best serve our community and industry we maintain the highest integrity of our inspectors and support staff, and our commitment to being respectful. We are considerate of our community, clients and each other needs, and finally our passion for Continuing Education for learning the newest innovations of our industry. Claude Hardy is being interviewed by Preston Sandlin of Home Inspection Carolina and Ask the Charlotte Inspector.
For more than two years, Huntress worked nights and weekends to research and develop his business and product. After raising a small amount of funding through friends and family, Huntress was able to dig in full-time this year and formally launch HomeBinder, “a homeowner’s best friend.”
In the simplest terms, HomeBinder is an electronic records management system for all things relevant to your home. And it goes much deeper than one would think. From contractors (plumbers, electricians, roofers) to appliance purchase and warranty documents, to paint colors – anything relevant to your home, HomeBinder stores.
“Homebuyers today get the keys to the front door, but they simply don’t know how to drive the shiny new object they got.” Huntress said. “It’s almost strange that for the single largest asset for people there isn’t an established records management system to help them with the process.”
Before HomeBinder Huntress, a Massachusetts native and graduate of Boston College, spent the bulk of his career in environmental sciences. In 2001 he co-founded PARCEL, a property due diligence reporting company, which gave him great insight into real estate and property management. PARCEL was acquired by Environmental Data Resources in 2007 and Huntress remained with the new parent company in several roles, most recently EVP Business Development, before leaving to start HomeBinder.
As with many startups, an idea is born from a personal experience. No different here.
“When we moved into my current home, the previous owners left us a stack of information. It was so helpful and got me thinking, ‘this should be the norm.’”
The experience wouldn’t leave Huntress’ mind and couple that with his commercial real estate background, it was only a matter of time before his next venture was born.
Now, Huntress, who is actively fundraising in order to add to his team of 3 full-timers (8 total), increase marketing efforts and continue improving his product, has entered into a market that is seeing more competition. That market, Huntress tells me consists of 114 million housing units in the U.S. with 5 million transactions per year.
HomeBinder focuses on home transactions. It does work directly with homeowners, but its main business is partnering with brokers, who often use HomeBinder as a closing gift. Although a marketing product, it is strategically priced at a one-time $24 fee (for brokers). This puts it under the IRS-levied gift threshold and such that the agent can still leave a bottle of wine on the counter. A HOMEOWNERS BEST FRIEND
HomeBinder is a full service home management system that focuses on home sales. Sellers can convey the value of their home in HomeBinder reports and buyers can get valuable details to help them manage their new home. As Huntress puts it,
“HomeBinder creates continuity in home management and leads to better experiences in home ownership.”
The product helps homeowners store all their home, property, project, and contractor information in one place. HomeBinder will provide reminders for maintenance items, offer up information on appliance recalls and enhance the process of selling a home when the time comes.
“With information in electronic format we can perform automatic recall checks on appliances, allow for capital expenditure summarization at the point of sale, or perform home inventory in the case of fire or theft.”
Depending on the scenario, the broker or homeowner is responsible for initial information gathering. Some data is automatically pulled into the binder through public records and MLS type data, but agents and homeowners are responsible for more granular information such maintenance scheduling (chimney, septic tank, etc.), appliance details, contractor records, etc.
Of course, HomeBinder makes this process simple. The product is built such that users can easily select and input information. It leads the homeowner in the right direction, ensuring all pertinent details are logged. “It’s a nudge strategy,” Huntress explained.
To date, more than 200 agents have generated roughly 2,000 binders.
“We realized we could offer tremendous value to agents. HomeBinder provides regular reminders to the owner, which serves as a drip campaign of sorts for the agents. Agents struggle with staying in touch and top of mind with clients and Homebinder, on top of providing an amazing and valuable gift, also offers added value from a business perspective as they work in a referral based industry.”
With roughly 5 million home transactions each year here in the U.S. there’s certainly room to make money. More importantly, there is clearly a pain point being solved with HomeBinder. Admittedly, though, Huntress realizes the need for some market education before home management software becomes a ‘need-to-have’ rather the a ‘nice-to-have.’ “We’re tremendously excited about the opportunity to be one of the companies leading the charge to figure this out,” Huntress said.
Bill has extensive experience in Sales and Marketing for McDonalds, representing their kid and adult merchandising agency. He brings extensive experience to the home inspection Industry in all aspects of sales and support to home inspectors. He is responsible for all sales initiatives and marketing strategies in aligning the ANDalyze water testing system to the Home Inspector as a service offering for their homeowner clients. Bill Goldsmith is being interviewed by Preston Sandlin of Home Inspection Carolina and Ask the Charlotte Inspector
Frank Lesh is currently the executive director of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). He is the founder of the Home Sweet Home Inspection Company, which was started in 1989. He has performed thousands of commercial and residential property inspections, and specialized in EIFS inspections. Frank has been a member of ASHI since 1990 and a member of the Great Lakes Chapter (GLC) of ASHI since 1991. He has held numerous volunteer positions in both organizations, including as president of the GLC from 1997-1998, Master Inspector by Review®, and the President of ASHI in 2007.
Frank won the John E. Cox Award for “Outstanding contributions to a Chapter” in 2004, and the 2012 Philip C. Monahon Award, ASHI’s highest award. Other professional affiliations include the Exterior Design Institute (EDI) since 1996. EDI is the premier organization involved in synthetic stucco (DRYVIT®). Frank was on the Board of Governors of EDI in 1999.
Simone Cartwright, has been experienced in the home services industry since the year 2000 and has personally performed over 2,100 home inspections. As a Public Insurance Adjuster, Simone aided families by identifying damages to their homes caused by unforeseen events, such as, storms, plumbing leaks and fires.
Simone’s knowledge and understanding of building structures, rebuilding, restoration and reconstruction costs gained as a Public Insurance Adjuster prompted her decision to expand into the home inspection business. Before becoming a Public Insurance Adjuster, Simone spent 20 years putting her degree in Business Administration to work in various management and supervisory roles in marketing, advertising and sales
WITH 20 YEARS OF MILITARY SERVICE AND 7 YEARS AS A CERTIFIED HOME INSPECTOR, SERVICE IS ALL I KNOW.
Choosing the right inspector can be difficult. Unlike most professionals you hire, you probably won’t meet me until our appointment. Furthermore,different inspectors have varying qualifications, equipment, and experience, reporting methods, pricing. Ultimately, a thorough home inspection depends heavily on the inspector’s own effort. If you will honor me by permitting me to inspect your new home, I guarantee to give you my very best effort. This is my promise to you.
Founder | Digital Marketing Specialist | Content Producer
Hi, I’m Kevin. When you join Spectora, I’ll be the guy you interact with for on-boarding, digital marketing solutions, and product support. I’m also the writer behind many of the articles found in our Resource Center.
Prior to founding Spectora, I worked as an SEO Specialist on the Search Engine Optimization Team at HomeAdvisor, where I did content creation, link building, on-page optimization, competitive research, partnership building, and rank tracking.
I have also been a Realtor for several years. After talking to dozens of home inspectors during real estate transactions, I learned of the pain points inspectors had with software, marketing, and business growth. My brother and I started building a platform to solve these problems.
I bring an analytical approach to marketing for Spectora clients, using data metrics and the latest in SEO knowledge to improve home inspection businesses. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with questions!
