Home Advantage Inspection, LLC. Is Thriving As It Grows

Back in the early 2000s, right before the housing bubble burst, Leon Mann saw the writing on the wall. At the time, he was in the construction business.
"What do you do when something really goes terrible like that? You open up a home inspection company,” Mann said,
And that was how Home Advantage Inspections LLC was born.
Today, the company has eight inspectors.
So how does a home inspection company survive not only housing bubbles but a pandemic?
Surprisingly, the company grew.
“That was really wild; I was very scared,” Mann said. “Everything bottomed out and I thought ‘what are we gonna do?”
But then the worst-case scenario did not come to fruition.
“The opposite happened. It went crazy. I almost couldn’t keep up.”
Mann’s path to owning a home inspection business began in the service industry. In his 20s, he was working in restaurants and while it does not seem like the two industries would have anything in common, Mann said there are things he learned then that he uses now.
“I really learned a lot of stuff as far as customer service,” he said. “When I wanted to get out of the restaurant business, I got out of that and went into construction.”
It was a field that Mann really enjoyed.
“We were building up and I was learning a ton over the years,” he said.
And then the early 2000’s housing bubble burst.
Mann has found that his best housing inspectors have a background in construction, as does he.
“You need things like building sciences,” he said. “You have to have some background in construction.”
As a home inspection company, Mann values looking at everything in a home to give a full report.
“We will take off the electrical panel,” he said. “We want to do moisture checks.”
Mann said the report gives the customer information on what is going on with the house right now.
During the pandemic, homeowners were moving out of more crowded areas. Buying and selling houses increased.
In the years since the pandemic, homeowners initially focused on adding home offices and weight rooms. Now there is another shift. But the values of home inspection stay the same
Mann approaches inspections as though it were his own house.
“The average inspection for us is about three hours,” Mann said. “We want to take our time, we want to do it right.
“We have to write up a report late that night; our reports are about 80 pages.”
Home Advantage Inspections LLC does both residential and commercial properties and is hired by both buyers for a pre-inspection and sellers.
In the years he has been inspecting houses, Mann has developed a knack for what he can expect inside a house by looking at the outside of the house.
“It’s kind of like, that’s kind of my medium,” he said. “I can almost see from the outside what it is going to be on the inside.”

But, does not follow logic that higher priced houses are better built or better maintained.
Mann remembers a house that was worth almost $10 million.
The house was so badly constructed that they had to call the city. Nothing was tied in correctly, the stairs were uneven and Mann called it one of the worst houses he had ever inspected.
Conversely, the company has inspected beautiful houses that were bordering on works of art, including one of the biggest homes in Chicago that was on multiple lots and included an underground pool.
Home Advantage Inspections LLC limits its inspectors to about two inspections per day to make sure that they are giving each inspection the time and detail that is needed. They currently inspect both residential and commercial properties in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties and are ever expanding their areas. They are also expanding to about an hour and 45 minutes west of the city since one of the company’s inspectors is moving out there.
“Let’s build a market out there,” was Mann’s philosophy on the move.
Home Advantage Inspections LLC lists all its available services, team members and contact information on its website, haipro.com.