What if your dream home had a hidden flaw—and no one told you until it was too late?

Randy Berry thought he was getting a clean bill of health on his new house... until he realized the inspection was too perfect. That moment launched a mission to fix what’s broken in the home inspection industry.

Why do some builders welcome inspectors—and others dread them?

What should you look for before you ever set foot inside a model home?

And could a messy construction site predict how well your home is built?

Let’s talk about what’s really behind the walls.

Episode 085 - Randy Berry - Advanced Quality Inspections

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Our guest is Randy Berry of Advanced Quality Inspections, a home inspection company in Clayton, North Carolina. We talked to Randy about why he became a home inspector, the requirements that are needed to become a home inspector. What separates his home inspection company from the others? Namely, he does same day reports using a special software.

So listen in. I think you'll find it interesting and fascinating, and learn a little bit more about this small business that's doing a lot right here in Johnston County.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden, and on today's episode we have Randy Berry of Advanced Quality Inspections in Clayton, North Carolina, and he's here to talk to us a little bit about his home inspection business.

So it depends on which side you're on. But before we get to that. I would like to invite you to like, follow, to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're seeing it, whether it be on Apple, Spotify YouTube, TikTok X Instagram, or any of the other social media channels of The Best of Johnston County Podcast.

The Best of Johnston County Podcast comes out every single Monday and has now for over 18 months, so go back and listen to some of our previous episodes. We've had a lot of great guests. Over the years. We're well over 80 episodes now and I think you will find it interesting and fascinating. And if you love Johnston County as much as I do and as much as Randy does, this is the podcast for you.

Welcome Randy.

Randy Berry: Welcome and thank you for having me on the show today. I certainly appreciate it.

Jonathan Breeden: Hey, no problem. No problem. So tell the people that are not familiar with your business, who you are, what you do.

Randy Berry: Yeah, so we are a QI advanced quality inspections. We perform residential and commercial inspections in Johnston County and surrounding areas.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, one of the ones you do that you don't really think about is you do drone inspections.

Randy Berry: Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: So talk about why you do drone inspections and why you know, I've been looking at buying and building a property in the mountains, and drone inspections are crucial because sometimes you can't get to the roof.

Randy Berry: Yeah, absolutely. Even townhouses, you know, stuff like that. Number one is safety. So the safety of our inspectors is very important. We definitely want to keep the industry safe and a lot of inspectors are turning towards drone inspections. They're getting their part 1 0 7 license, so they can operate that.

Or if you're walking on it, you might not wanna reach all the way out on the edge to take a look at the drip edge with a drone you can fly right up to it, provide great pictures and videos for our clients. So definitely adds value.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and that's that's a, a new technology

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm

Jonathan Breeden: for sure. So, when and why did you get into home inspections?

Jonathan Breeden: Alright. And what I know there's, there's at least one test you have to take to be a home inspector.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: it's not quite as onerous as being a general contractor, but it's similar.

Randy Berry: It is.

Jonathan Breeden: So what is, what is involved in becoming a home inspector?

Randy Berry: With the general contract, it's all through department of insurance. So they hold the licensure board. So your home inspection licensure board is who holds the license In North Carolina, you must be licensed.

You can't just go out there and say you're a home inspector like you can in some states, which is a little scary. But you must first start with your education. So you gotta have 120 hours of online training, then you have to do 80 hours of field training in order to qualify for the state exam. Once you qualify for the exam, you go to Department of Insurance, everybody in the whole state has to come right here to Raleigh to take it.

He says that people who are licensed are barely not criminal because that's the bare minimum. So our goal was to get that bare minimum that everyone must have and then set ourself apart by getting extra education.

So that's why we are  InterNACHI, we have certified professional inspectors. And I'm actually a certified master inspector as well.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Alright. And so, so you started the business in COVID?

Randy Berry: We did, yeah. We.

Jonathan Breeden: That's an interesting time to start a business.

Randy Berry: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: I was trying to keep my doors open.

Randy Berry: Yeah, right.

Jonathan Breeden: You decided to start a business,

And then the appraisal was like three weeks out and I was like. Should be a lot quicker. Then I started talking to other folks in the industry, and apparently that was holding up a lot of real estate deals, you know, waiting on the appraiser, waiting on the inspector. I said, well, if we can, you know, jump in the market's here, the, the opportunity for work is definitely here in this industry.

And we all know what's happening in Johnston County

Jonathan Breeden: oh yeah

Randy Berry: with the growth, so,

Jonathan Breeden: oh, there's no doubt about that. And so your inspections, I mean, you turn these around in two or three days.

Randy Berry: Same day. Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Same day.

Randy Berry: Yeah. So we, we'll come inspect your house, say at 1:00 PM and by 5:00 PM you've got a, a digital report in your hand that you can use for negotiations with the seller.

So yeah, we do same day reporting.

Jonathan Breeden: So how are you able to do that?

But it's color coded. We can add videos, annotated images. Everything is broken down into categories. There's a repair request builder you can generate from there. So a lot of good features that help save real estate agents time, which is most important for them and for us, is we want them to go get busy on that next buyer so that we have another inspection to do.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So your business comes from referrals, I guess. Largely.

Randy Berry: Largely.

Jonathan Breeden: Is it from realtors? Is it from builders? Or where do you get your referrals from?

The real estate agent also on the seller side. Some folks are not aware that, you know, we do pre-listing inspections. So you mentioned how, you know the sellers usually don't like home inspectors. Well, the seller can like a home inspector if you get your home inspection done before you list your house.

So the big benefit of a pre-listing inspection is that you get a list of things that a buyer's inspector's gonna find. 'cause we're all trained the same. We all should have about the same base knowledge. So during that short due diligence period, after you're under contract, you're not you know, with your back against the wall trying to hustle and, and get a plumber to come out and replace the water heater because now he's gonna charge you premium rates.

So if you get everything inspected and repaired before you list it, you've got the upper hand and can save money.

Jonathan Breeden: And I actually did that. I mean, I had a house out here in the Cleveland community. The first house I ever bought, and it was on a hill.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: It's somewhere in there. And I wasn't sure, and of course, you know, people come around wanna sell me $20,000 vapor system underneath it. But I wasn't sure how wet it was. Would it pass? So I actually did get a home inspector who happened to be a neighbor to come over and sort of pre inspect that basement and tell me whether it was gonna pass or not, and it was kind of on the edge, and so I ended up putting in a french drain across the entire front of the house.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: I had a contractor come in and so that was diverting a lot of the water and then it was fine. But if I'd have tried to do that while I was in due diligence, I mean, to find somebody to come in, put the French drain, I mean, like, it, it, it wouldn't have, it wouldn't have worked so.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Randy Berry: Spot on. Yes sir.

Jonathan Breeden: So what percentage of y'all's inspections are pre-inspections? Like where somebody's calling saying, I just wanna know what I'm facing.

Randy Berry: Yeah, very small. A lot of times folks are maybe not wanting to spend the money or something like that. So we, we, we try and market it as much as possible. And when you do that pre-inspection, now you have a report that is your property.

And you can then sell that to any potential buyer. So say you've got a showing day and 10 folks come in, you can put a sign out, says, Hey. Scan this code and people pay you 50 bucks to view your report and maybe now they don't have to get an inspection kind of deal. So there's potential for that as well.

You can, you can recoup some of that cost.

Jonathan Breeden: I didn't know that. Okay.

Randy Berry: It is a, it is a very, a very small percentage of, of our inspections.

Jonathan Breeden: I gotcha. One of the other

Randy Berry: 'cause of the larger percentage of our inspections is new construction right now around the area.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that would make sense. Right? Well, so with new construction.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: Are you familiar with the county building codes and do you know where these track builders like to try to cut corners and maybe you can catch 'em?

Randy Berry: Yeah, there are some as far as the codes, we are not code inspectors. But we do have good resources and friends in low places in our back pocket. So, I happen to know some folks that can always verify things for us. Shout out to Robert Klein Bell. And so, as far as cutting corners, they'll do it until we get back for the third or fourth home in that subdivision.

And then we actually kind of help their process 'cause if we're able to come in and identify an issue. You know, they're an ethical builder. They can do the correct approach and maybe fix it so that would save them time down the road as well. 'cause if a code inspector comes in and bust them, they'll write it up.

And improve their building processes, then we can help the builders as well. So,

Jonathan Breeden: okay.

Randy Berry: A lot of builders do appreciate us coming out there. It's almost a pre-inspection for them before the code guy comes.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well that's interesting. I really thought about it that way,

Randy Berry: Uhhuh.

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Jonathan Breeden: So what are the most common problems in the new construction, particularly track building that we have out here? That you see most commonly?

We're just there to, you know, provide our expertise from our experiences. Some common things that you're gonna find are really simple cosmetic stuff. You know, we do write up, you know, nail pops and corner cracks and things like this. You have broken glass in homes. One of the bigger ones that might kind of hold things up is gonna be any damage to your engineer trusses.

So up the attic area, if any of those trusses that any of the wooden members are cracked or split, or the mending plates that hold it together are not in place, and that turns into something major because they have to have a structural engineer evaluate that and then provide them with a letter of repair, and then they have to have that repair done.

So that's one of the most important things that we do find is and that's just based on the building process.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Randy Berry: So that's one area that we really focus on as inspectors to make sure all that's good. 'cause we don't want our buyers to move in. Five years down the road, they go to sell their house, they bring in another inspector and then see that and say, oh, well Randy with a AQI didn't tell us about that crack trust.

So, we wanna give 'em as much information as possible.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well that's cool. That's cool. So, what about the sightings, you know?

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: We have Hardy Plank now. We got the stucco stuff. You know? What has been your experience with the different types of sightings? What are the problems with some of these sightings that you've seen?

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: And what suggestions would you have depending on what kind of siding of a house somebody's buying.

Randy Berry: Yeah, so we see a lot of vinyl. Vinyl is kind of the inexpensive I'm not gonna say it's less maintenance than anything else. So that's kinda what we see a lot of. You'll see it installed too tight where it can't expand and contract, so it'll start to warp.

So we kind of have to keep up with manufacturer's requirements on, on how they install the material. And you know, if it's an 18-year-old house with fiber cement siding, then you're gonna see caulked seams on it, where the new ones, they don't caulk the seams, they put flashing behind it. So there's a lot of little nuances that come into it, but if I had my choice, I would swap out my vinyl for hardie board right now.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Well, yeah, that's true. That's true. And I was fortunate that the house I live in now is a brick house, so,

Randy Berry: okay.

Randy Berry: Yeah. In general. It really comes down to the project management at the sites. You know, you can, you drive it. Here's my advice to people. 'cause we get asked every day, oh, what, what do you think about this builder or this builder? I said all the builders are essentially the same. 'cause they're using the same subcontractors, the same crew that did your framing on your house was probably working for a different company last month.

And they'll be at a different company next month 'cause they'll get paid 10 cents more per hour, you know. So, it all depends on the construction manager and how well they're managing the project. When you drive into a subdivision, if you see trash everywhere and you see it just looks like a messy job site.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. I mean, that's a thought. I mean, I've never really thought about that.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: But I'll have to, and believe me, there's tons of construction subdivisions here in Johnston County.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: I know that you're big with, veterans And you give discounts to veterans, I think is that right?

Randy Berry: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So we are locally owned and a majority of our inspectors that we employ are veterans. So we have four veterans that work for us. We are proud patriots. We do offer a 10% military discount for veterans. We also offer a 5% discount for first responders. And then we honor our return clients with a little discount as well.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay, cool. And I know one of the things you do and I did this, and I think this is important, is you do 11 month inspections. Talk about why that is so important and why people should do it. It is crucial, in my opinion, that everybody should get 11 month inspection.

it's so important because a home's gonna settle when you buy a brand new home. You think you see everything when you first walk in after it's. The punch list is complete and the blue tape's all, all fancied up. Then you're like, all right, this is gonna last forever. Well, within that first year, a lot of things move and creek and expand and contract, so you're gonna have a, a lot of little nail pops and cracks.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and that's exactly what I did. And I'd had a house that, that settled and there was some cracks, nothing major, but it had settled a little bit.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: And, and the builder I used, down of contracting came back and they, they fixed it. And, and you know, I really appreciate that. 'cause not all builders are as responsive as other builders.

Randy Berry: That's right.

Jonathan Breeden: You know, I'm just being honest. So anyway, not as responsive as other builders. See you we're in a rotary pen.

Randy Berry: Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So are you in the rotary?

Randy Berry: I'm actually the president of the Clayton Rotary Club.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, awesome, awesome.

Randy Berry: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: So talk a little bit about Rotary. I, I've got the four way test hanging in my office.

Randy Berry: Oh, you do?

Jonathan Breeden: My grand. My grandfather, I'm not in rotary. My grandfather gave me. The a, a picture frame with the four way test in it when I was in college.

Randy Berry: Oh, wow.

Jonathan Breeden: And I have kept it, and I keep it in my office because I always want to ask people, particularly in the divorce law business. Is it the truth?

Randy Berry: Well, yeah. Is it fair at all concerned.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So anyway, so talk a little bit about Rotary.

But we've got a really strong club. We just celebrated literally last week, the 100th anniversary of our club. So, had a big old party over at the farm. And we also set a, a goal by our 100th birthday of the club to have over a hundred members. So we have 104 members in our club right now.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's awesome. Awesome.

Randy Berry: So yeah, we, we've been growing. We still meet at Rainbow Lanes.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's awesome.

Randy Berry: You can come on down for some free breakfast on Thursday mornings.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, yeah.

Randy Berry: You done at eight o'clock And continue about your day.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. 'cause y'all meet at like 7:00 AM right?

Randy Berry: Yeah. Yeah. It's good networking.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, man.

Randy Berry: And you'd be surprised, you walk in rainbow lanes, there's. 60, 75 people in there. You're like, wow, everybody is awake.

Jonathan Breeden: Man, that's early. I, I know. I mean there used to be two rotary clubs in Clayton.

Randy Berry: There was.

Jonathan Breeden: There was a midday.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

So maybe, which one would yours go from midday to the, or to the breakfast or were you the evening one that went to the breakfast?

Randy Berry: So it used to be evening and my sponsor Lee Hudson.

Jonathan Breeden: Lee hudson just passed away.

Randy Berry: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Great man.

Randy Berry: Yep. Absolutely. He was my sponsor and he's the one that came up with the bright idea to do the morning thing.

Because they were losing interest and you know, as they were, they were trying to get a younger club and it was tough for them to get a younger club and remain in the evenings because, you know, now sports were starting, you know, soccer, all that stuff back in eighties was starting to, you know, really kick off and, you know, families are just so busy.

So that's when they came up with the morning deal and they had midday midday club is no longer around. They had, they had dissolved, so we're. We're standing strong. Now we also have the Cleveland.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, the Cleveland Rotary Club.

Randy Berry: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: I don't know when it meets. I know it meets the Cleveland Draft House, or at least it did.

Randy Berry: Yep, they do. They do. So I was actually hanging out with Russell Camper. He's their, their president over there. We, we were just in Dominican Republic last week.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh man. Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, he's a builder.

Randy Berry: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: I mean he, rose Camp was a very good builder.

Randy Berry: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: So that's, that's awesome.

Randy Berry: So he was out there as a builder and I was at another site as, as the inspector. So everybody told me I had to have blinders on the whole week, which is a good thing I did. 'cause. Whew.

Jonathan Breeden: Well,

Randy Berry: construction's a little different there.

Jonathan Breeden: Their construction's a little different than American construction. There's no doubt about that. Well, that, that's great. The I actually spoke. To the  Clayton Rotary Club. a few years ago, when it was in the evening, I was invited by Ernest Blackley,

Randy Berry: okay.

Jonathan Breeden: Who passed away a couple of years ago to come and speak and, I had a really good time and, and I'll, I'll always remember that. It's been a while, but it was, it was a good time and I, I really enjoyed it and I appreciated him doing it. And I try to participate in the Rotary stuff. I just got some of the Flax for Heroes.

Randy Berry: Yeah,

Jonathan Breeden: I just, I just, I just saw your name on.

That's right. I just got a few of those. By the time this episode runs, the Flag Hill is probably over, but Flag Hill usually runs Memorial Day. To about July 4th. Is that right?

Randy Berry: Yes, sir. Mm-hmm. And so it's coming up.

And I think that's great, but I learned just the other night. It is for you can honor people that are alive because I thought it was only for people that had passed away.

Randy Berry: So are you the one that asked Stewart that question?

Jonathan Breeden: I did. I did.

Randy Berry: Okay. Stewart said, you hear me? Lemme okay. That was true. How funny. What a small world.

Jonathan Breeden: Right? Right. I was with Stewart and I was like, I didn't know you could do people that are alive. And he was like, oh yeah. So, so anyway,

Randy Berry: that's funny

Jonathan Breeden: you don't have to be dead to, we have a flag honoring you at the flags for heroes. That Clayton Rotary Club with the Cleveland Rotary Club and club, the murder clubs do.

And, and I think that's beautiful. I, I encourage everybody to go out there and I think it's neat. I think it's great that y'all do that. And I mean it's, I mean, it's moving. I mean, I don't know how many it was 150, 200 flags

Randy Berry: Yeah,

Jonathan Breeden: it's a lot.

Randy Berry: It started the, the Lee Hudson and at the time Michael Sims was president and they kind of were presented with this project and thought about it, and they were, they were shooting for 200.

I think it was something really heartfelt that brought the community back together during a really tough time for a lot of folks. It just kept growing and it's our biggest fundraiser throughout the year. All of our proceeds that we use for that goes to, you know, stop soldier suicide. The schools for all of our scholarships that we give.

Other projects that we do in the community as well. So that's, that's our biggest fundraiser for that.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's awesome. So how can people reach out to you at AQI?

Randy Berry: Yeah, so they can either, most importantly visit our website at AQInspect.com. You can read the bios about all of our amazing inspectors that we employ.

They are all our W2 employees. We don't contract anyone out. And you can call 9 1 9 6 0 7 0 2 8 8. I answer the phone as much as I can. That's the beauty, beautiful and downside of being a small business owner.

Randy Berry: Well, you kind of gotta take it back to the Rotary Club again. You know, I'm just so involved with it. The community is amazing. Once you see the folks in the, the, we love supporting local small businesses. You know, Lee Hudson had brought me into the Rotary Club and introduced me to a lot of local folks.

And so yeah, it's a really good feel here. We moved here from Colorado and don't plan on going back 'cause I can't stand shoveling snow.

Jonathan Breeden: I can understand that you're not the first person to move to Johnston County because of the weather, that's for sure. So anyway, we'd like to take Randy from AQI for coming and being on our podcast here today. If you learn anything of this podcast, give us a five star review down below with comments. We'll make sure that he gets those reach out to him and his team if you need any home inspections or any of the other services he talked about offering today. Also, as we mentioned earlier, please like follow, subscribe to this podcast wherever you're seeing it so you'll be aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnston County Podcast.

That's the end of today's episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.