Why Home Inspections Matter More Than Ever with Kenji Vendetta

This week on the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show, we interview Kenji Vendetta of Pillar to Post, one of our trusted Experts We Trust. Kenji draws from inspecting over 1,000 homes to explain why consistency and objectivity matter in home inspections. He highlights advanced tools like infrared and 360-degree imaging, shares practical tips for buyers and sellers, and walks listeners through how to choose a reputable, properly certified inspection company.

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE: 
Welcome. Back, and thanks for listening to the team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio, and if you have any questions, just give us a call at 799, 9596 or check us out online at Team lally.com our

ATTILIO: 
guest today grew up in Waianae and attended Maili Bible High School, driven by a passion for personal growth business savvy. He is someone who consistently sharpens his skills, spending his free time learning from top financial and marketing voices through podcasts and books

ADRIENNE: 
as the lead home inspector at Pillar to Post. He first joined the team when rising demand called for her for his expertise. After a change in ownership in 2018 he was retained to oversee daily operations and need inspections and sharing homeowners received clear, accurate and trustworthy information. Please welcome back today’s guest, Kenji Vendetta,

KENJI: 
thank you. Thank you for having me on the show. We’re

ADRIENNE: 
excited to have you back. I know you are a busy guy. You are out looking at homes, inspecting homes, so we’re happy that we were able to have you in and talk about these findings, some best practices for our listeners.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, we did it in the intro and stuff like that. But what was your or what did you do before home inspections. And so what made you transition from whatever it is you were doing before to now, this is your one thing.

KENJI: 
I was actually working at a warehouse for southern glacial one in spirits, and when the previous owner needed help over the summer, I came by, he jumped on board and was like, let’s give it a shot, and it was going to be there be a police officer, because I took the testing then, and that’s yeah, and the same day for the follow up interview is the same day I flew I supposed to fly out to be the inspector. So you know, many years later, here I am.

ATTILIO: 
Kind of sounds like my story. I was going to be on Chip and Dale dancer, but I eat too much of the cookies of the chocolate chip cookies, so I was instead. I became a spokesperson for chipsou hoy cookies, instead of a Chippendale dancer. But yeah, it’s weird how we do those transitions. And now, how many years now have you been doing the home inspections.

KENJI: 
I think we’re going on eight years, definitely years.

ATTILIO:
Yeah. How many homes do you think you’ve been on the inside of? Besides your relatives,

KENJI: 
more than 1000 I think our records show at least 3000 as far as the numbers go. So yeah, it’s been a lot of homes.

ADRIENNE: 
So, so, Kenzie, you are part of pillar to post. It’s a national franchise, yeah. And like, Why? Why is this important for you and your company to be, you know, tied all this national why is it

ATTILIO: 
important to the consumer to know this?

KENJI: 
Because, well, first of all, with a franchise, you can pretty much get the same standard from one location to the next location. Consistency, exactly. Consistency. Look at McDonald’s. You can go to Florida, go to McDonald’s, you get the same burger that you’ll get out here in Hawaii. Yeah. So because of consistency, the standard of practice our SLPs, they’re basically the same all across the board. So gotcha, you’re when it comes to clients that are familiar with pillar to post, on how we do our inspections and what to expect, they’re not going to get anything different. They’re all going to be the same when it comes to regard for the home inspection and quality of home inspections that they’ll get.

ADRIENNE: 
So with pillar to post, where all is it located? Is it just in the United States, or is there other countries that it operates from

KENJI: 
as over now we’re basically in Canada, Canada and northern hemisphere. So northern North America is where we’ll be. We’re not in Mexico, even though that would be part of it. But just how many United States and Canada?

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, kind of tricky too, because I’ve seen some of the construction in Mexico, and you were like, I think your home inspection report, if you went to Mexico, would be about 500 pages, because, like, they just do whatever down there, or one it needs to go down or be like, one page and it’s just gonna have on box. Buy this house. Don’t buy this house Exactly. Knock this house down like, No, see, that’s it doesn’t only be on their inspection report, see or No, with the home. Have you? I was just curious. Have you ever did a home inspection on a tiny home?

KENJI: 
Well, more so adu style, so you already got your regular, yeah, like a tiny one bed, like 200 square foot attachment onto a main house. So, but we haven’t done any, or haven’t come across this tiny home in a one small property,

ATTILIO:
I think she make like one report, like

ADRIENNE: 
one tiny, one tiny report for the tiny, tiny home.

KENJI: 
And I’ll give it the my sideline glass too, while we’re at it.

ADRIENNE: 
And so So Kenji with home inspectors, I think this is important for our listeners, know and realtors as well. They may not realize this, but you know, as far as this being a regulated industry, you know, tell us a little bit more about that, like, how does that work without the industry?

KENJI: 
Industry, there’s a national standard that that you can be a part of, Ashi or InterNACHI. Those are two common standards that most inspectors will get their certificates from or through. When it comes to state of Hawaii, we don’t necessarily have a state testing if you were to go to Washington, California, Texas, those states have their own independent regulation systems with where you have to take the state test. Hoy, we, as of right now, they haven’t pushed anything towards it being true, a state testing. So you’re careful out there. You know, every time I get a question, oh, we got somebody cheaper. Oh, so, so and so’s uncle’s gonna do it. You know, it’s not always the best when it

ATTILIO: 
comes to, yeah, big red flag is if they take payment in Heineken, if they’re paying, if they wanted our payment, if it says Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Heineken, that’s a red flag.

ADRIENNE: 
So Kenji. So really, all you need to do is get your G, E, T, tax license and boom, you can make a card and say, home inspector,

KENJI: 
yeah, correct when it comes to state of Hawaii, yes.

ADRIENNE: 
Oh, that’s kind of like kind of scary. I

ATTILIO: 
think one of the things, one of the certifications that you have is on our team Lally website, there’s a there’s a resource tab, and it says, experts we trust, and we have nine different home inspectors on there. No, we do not have nine different homes. Inspector. We have Kenji. We have Kenji, and we got Kenji. That’s it. Pillar to post. Pillar to post is a whole new home inspection company that we recommend for our friends, for our family. So you know, if we were good housekeeping, he would have our stamp of approval. And Kenji, our experience of you over the years, has been very thorough, very detailed. You know, the good thing too, is that realtors, what they’re looking for is somebody with a bedside manner, like, I’ve been at home inspections, and I never see you come out of the house going, Oh my goodness. What the heck were you guys thinking? I’ve never seen you do that. No, you just say, Oh, we have some things

KENJI: 
to go over yes question, if it’s a really bad house, I was like, question, what do you guys plan on doing that way? I can curb this presentation a lot easier. We can make it more to their knees if they’re very if they’re demoing everything, new floors, new kitchen, new bathrooms, all right, so that’s not the problem mirrors. Let’s check your water. Let’s test your electrical, check the roof, check for structure, and we’ll explain it in that sense, because everything else, if I’m nitpicking the window screens, the alpha will be gone. It’s going to be gone anyway. So why nitpick that when you know that the client’s going

ATTILIO: 
to get rid of it? So yeah, you’re like, here’s a detailed report of all the stuff you’re gonna rip out and throw away. Yeah, exactly, you know, yeah.

ADRIENNE:
So So Kenji, I want to go back to the licensing side of things, and the certifications that you had to go through to become like, affiliated with pillar to post, plus the ongoing trade. That’s the one I was gonna say that pillar to post has you guys, you know,

ATTILIO: 
doing they’re not like one and done and then, oh, wow, you know, I have, I’m up to speed on the code from 1973 no pillow pulse is probably as part of their franchise agreement requiring you to

ADRIENNE: 
be like a continuing education, yeah, talk about all of those certifications. Okay?

KENJI: 
So at the very start, when you become an inspector for politicals. There is a course that has to be taken roughly. It lasts about two weeks. And then from there, you get shadowed on the road, training on Hands, hands on training. And that can last training from three to six months, depending on how adept the inspector is. And after that, then they’ll give you the green light, because we’ll give it green light to do the inspections. And as far as continuing education and credits, we have our own website, our own back page, where we actually go in there watch these update these videos, and just learn either the nuances of the of what’s updated, being updated with the standards of procedures, or just how building codes are, just so that way we can be aware of them, make note of that, and then go from there.

ATTILIO: 
Gotcha now, the A lot of times, people will be thinking, Oh, my uncle is general contractor. He was, he’s been building houses 20 years, and he’s gonna I don’t even have to give him one full six pack Heineken. I can give him only three bottles, and they don’t even have to be cold. What would be like? What is going to be the main difference between uncle, who’s general contractor, and you as a home inspector. Help people understand that.

KENJI: 
Well, General Contractor, they’re pretty much there to big picture, big money, that’s what they want. You know, we’re there as the third party vendor. We have no saying who you go with, why you want to which avenue you want to go down, whether you want handyman or contractor to go through it. Our job is just to point things out and have you as a client deal with the what vendors do I want to bring in? So we’re not looking at it on the aspect of like, oh, let’s, you know, inflate our pockets, because it may cost $10,000 for flooring or maybe a $5,000 job for one room. So we’re not there to inflate the pricing. We’re just there to find all these minute little things and then have your guys clients. Do you pick the vendor that they want so

ADRIENNE: 
and they can go out and get their own Europe independent quotes.

ATTILIO: 
The thing is, you’re you’re like a third party, arms length, completely objective, even though night, you know you’re hired most of the time, you’re hired by the buyer that home inspection is going to most likely be viewed by the seller. So you want to make sure you’re as objective as possible. Um, and then, oh, now I just want to segue real quick. What would be a good like, we have recommendations on our certified pre owned that people should, sellers should do a home inspection. Where have you? What’s been your experience with doing seller home inspections.

KENJI: 
They feel pretty good. A lot of those, again, we’ll go out there, we’ll do the inspection, and they’ll end up with a larger list of items to do. And a lot of those times unless it is vital, important or like needs to be addressing, when it comes down to like, whether it’s electric or plum. Mean, if it’s outside of those realms, they’re just given the credit. It’s easier to give them the credit and get a brighter price point, instead of trying to cough it up out of pocket, try to fix everything and get a higher price. So the credit is just the best way to go.

ATTILIO: 
We’re looking at your website right now. Can you see it?

KENJI: 
Yes, I can see this. What you’re looking at is our political homepage. So this is what your clients will be looking at when it comes to their home inspection, because every client gets their own web page, and you can view the floor plan. Oh, since it’s floor the the report, all of that.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, so I like that. 360 days. 360 degree, yes, Home Tour, because that’s pretty cool. You got the floor plan, you can go look inside and and do all of that. And like, if there’s issues, you’re actually seeing it like, real time the oh so extra like, talk about what is covered. It like, talk about the specialized things that are not covered in the basic home inspection. Because I think people have a perception, like you doing everything, yes, but what are some? What are some things that major parts of the house or situate like, for example, pools, you know, talk about that and solar panels and the things that are not included in your basic home inspection.

KENJI: 
So pools, we will take a look at them from a structural standpoint. If we see a leak, if we see a leak at the pumps, we’ll notate the leak. If there’s a crack in a pool, we’ll notate the crack. But we’re not going to go in and do like the pH level test, yeah, we’re not going to turn the pumps on and test every single one of the different filter options. You know, we’re not going to do that. But if it’s a if it looks damaged, we’ll notate it solar panels. Majority time, the solar panels are good, unless you live next to a golf course, then we’ll, then we’ll notate golf ball damages or broken, you know, panels. But mine in particular, has a broken panel from a golf ball so

ATTILIO: 
or golf or next to a golf course where the terrible golfers, yes, yeah, and they never run over and go, Oh, you know, I went shank is driving. I totally went whack your house. I just want to let you know, here’s my number. Call me. Yeah.

ADRIENNE:
So Kenji, do you look out like if there’s, um, evidence or a potential that there might be mold in the house, is that something that you guys can test on, or is that something that’s outsourced to someone else,

KENJI: 
we will, we will test for mold. We will do all the testing asbestos lead in a mold, and we’ll outsource that to a lab to get that analyzed results. Yeah, and then once we get the results, we’ll share with your clients, we’ll let them know whether they’re as present as positive or in what kind of remediation is necessary. So I just did one for mold testing yesterday or two days ago, and there’s cross space. There’s no ventilation in the cross space or air flow across space. Yeah. So you know recommendation is, hey, get a fan in there. Move some air around. Clear out that old stagnant air that we it’s not less humid sub you know, transfer mold to grow is very minimized. But we won’t declare mold until we get them tested. We’ll just call them hours, yeah, we’ll just call them spores for

ADRIENNE: 
now, I I like, how you give like, it’s like, Okay, here’s the problem and here’s some potential solutions and things that you can do to address these issues.

ATTILIO: 
Now, I was noticing too You had mentioned it on past shows you’ve been on that now there’s on the home inspection you give like,

KENJI: 
is like a cost, like an estimate for things, yes, so it’s a cost estimate or PTP estimates that’ll be on the website. It’ll be a little button that you can click, and that’s that’s generated from a third party. So everything that is within the summary of your inspection report will be on there, so right there that the view estimates.

ADRIENNE:
So now I know we’ve talked about this before, and I know Hawaii is typically a slightly different number than the mainland numbers. Yes, has it? Does it? You have to, like, self adjust, or you add 30% more, or, like, you have those numbers up,

ATTILIO:
maybe mainland combray

KENJI: 
scene, yeah, so east coast to west coast. That’s our basic that’s where we get all the information from. So fortunately, because we’re a franchise, we’re able to pull that number, but they don’t account for Hawaii, so we gotta add in about 30% onto that price point, just to be in a ballpark generally, of how much things will cost. There are instances in the estimates where you actually have to add or adjust for linear footage that we don’t have. So that’s something that you the agent, the whole the buyer or the client, or maybe a contractor, will have to fill in and fill in those gaps, just so that way they can be a little bit more accurate.

ADRIENNE: 
Okay, and that’s good to know. So Kenji, maybe you can share some stories, some examples of people that, like, you know, like you came in and did the home inspection, and either, like, it reaffirmed, and, you know, then they, like, had a plan and or maybe someone that was like, Oh, wow. Like, this is a lot more than I had anticipated. But just like, I mean, it is really important, I think, to have this home inspection, and we could provide a story, okay, around it that our listeners can relate to.

KENJI: 
Yeah, I do have one happened last week. They went to do the inspection first thing in the morning, it is a multiplex com three Plex unit out in Kalihi. And two of them were rent. Three of them were rented at the time when the viewing, when their clients were showing it, yeah. Then the tenant was a they evicted. One of the tenants finally got keys the night before the inspection. Went in there, the day of the inspection, and they had a dog, so there was dog feces all over the place, or was, yes, there was roaches all over very It wasn’t cleared out. So it’s not like they did a professional cleaning, like you lost your deposit, kind of a deal? Yeah? Client walked into the kitchen, she turned around and she said no, and they canceled the inspection. Oh, wow, and it was just due to the fact that they couldn’t get in previous days. Yeah, they didn’t have access to that third unit, because there’ll still tenant occupied to the day before, the night before the inspection. So if they were have access, I think we they would have canceled the count, canceled the inspection right away. It would have left, dropped ero and went with another one. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. So, yeah, that happened. And, you know, I was left there like, Okay, what do you want to do with the report? Like, I still have everything ready to go, just email it.

ADRIENNE: 
So you did two of the three, and when you got to the third one, it was like, oh, yeah, this is just, like, just too

KENJI: 
much, too much. Yeah, too much. Too much for the client. The clients only they’ve seen, you know, when they’re viewing their property, they will only had access to the other two. So they’re okay with those two units. It was a third one that they didn’t have. And when they finally got into it, they’re like, this isn’t for us. No, we’re this is a multiplex unit, and we’re gonna have to put 50, maybe 75k into it. We gotta demo the kitchen, demo the bathrooms,

ADRIENNE: 
redo the floor, more than they had anticipated, exactly. So now

ATTILIO: 
that just blew up in there. It didn’t blow up. It was just they walked in said, no purpose, and that was it. Purpose of the home inspection, yeah, and the due diligence of that. Yeah, a lot of times stupid people are just telling problems equals opportunities. And that is, you know, another option is renegotiate, like, hey, like, we didn’t, whoa, whoa, whoa, because they didn’t know either, right? Yeah, nobody knew. And they’re like, What the heck. And so that might be an opportunity to renegotiate. And I would have finished, I would say, give me the DEF CON 11 home inspection, and then, you know, I’m so sorry, here’s one respirator. Handle the smell. Yeah, that’s a good story. What about anything, any kind of funny things you see in people’s houses, and change the names to protect the innocent,

ADRIENNE: 
unique or unique,

KENJI:
this past week was the first time I have to sign an NDA. Oh, wow, yeah. Um, high profile.

ATTILIO: 
If you tell, if you have to tell us where this house is and who is for it, we you would have to kill us.

ADRIENNE: 
So is that a famous perk thing? Yeah,

KENJI: 
I don’t know who the client is. All I know is they open the they open an LLC the last week, two weeks, last week or two weeks ago. That’s a client name, and signed the NDA, went out there, did the inspection, and they’re completely in arms reach. They have a representative on the island that’s reviewing everything. But yeah, that was the first time I’ve had to sign an NDA on a property,

ATTILIO: 
and I’m up on paparazzi showing up when it ending up on TMZ,

KENJI: 
yeah, exactly. So that was the first time, so kind of interesting.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, we had, we showed a property and had to sign an NDA was for somebody famous. And if I said their name, no, I can’t say their name, you would know it immediately. Lee, but cool. What are the questions we got? Or what anything else that you want to share with our viewers?

ADRIENNE: 
We’ve got about five, six minutes left, and I know that you know when I know you’re super busy with your your home inspection, so we don’t have you on with your tips of the week. And we always enjoyed your tips of the week. Yeah. So we’re excited to have you here right now. And you would always give us some kind of, like, a nugget, like a home maintenance like, something to like, to pay attention, like, as we end up the year, like people are, like, they have a little bit more something work on their homes. Give us some, something

ATTILIO: 
that about, like, what? Give them a to do list for the end of the year.

KENJI: 
To Do list for the end of the year, yeah, on if you got a cross base, look at the plumbing. $7 million house got three leaks because of the plumbing got, you know? Oh, yes.

ATTILIO: 
So when the ceiling falls in, yeah,

KENJI: 
yeah, check the plumbing. Run water, see if you got any leaks. Another one. Oh, here’s a good one. They just did it today. Showers, if you have a stand up shower or glass showers that are attached to the side wall, yeah, shoot the water at the in the corners, because it will bleed. If it does bleed, you have to recalc the shower. So that was one, again, that was today’s one was a multi million dollar property, and you have bad coffee on the showers. Go figure. There’s something always wrong with don’t matter price point. Whether it be $100,000 or a $15 million property, there’s something. Check everything, check the electrical, check the plumbing, and go from there.

ATTILIO: 
If people want to book a home inspection with you, it’s most likely going to be the agents or somebody working with the agents. What’s the process look like for that?

KENJI: 
It’s real simple. They’ll contact us, and then we’ll send over our quote unavailability. Also the client’s quote doesn’t lock you in with us. It’s just we want you to get the price point that way you can compare it to everybody else’s quotes. And if you like what you get, you like what you see, the price is good for you. It works. By all means, give us a com. We can book it that way.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, I’m going to give a tip out to pro tip to everybody out there, realtors and everybody don’t be shopping for price. Look for quality, reputation, credibility, the fact that they’re an expert we trust on Team lally.com and we’ve been doing business with you for many, many years, that

ADRIENNE: 
they also, they also carry some kind of insurance, right? You guys carry, you know, insurance? Yes, yeah. Like that is, you know, talk about that. What is that?

KENJI: 
Errors and omission? So if anything were to go wrong with the house after the inspection that was missed. For example, there’s a crack in a sewer line. We didn’t catch it during the inspection. You move in, it’s an issue. Our insurance will cover the repairs for that.

ADRIENNE: 
Gotcha All right. That is that’s a peace of mind. Whoops, insurance, because not all home inspectors have this Eno and not all home

ATTILIO: 
guy who just got the G, E, T, slept on a Holiday Inn and printed some cards down at office. Max, yeah. So again, a home inspection is critically important for the home buying, even for sellers, because it creates a due diligence and a buyer coming in fully aware of what they’re getting, and avoids any kind of coming back later on, saying, Hey, I didn’t know about this. No, it was in the home inspection. Sure you knew. So good job on that.

ADRIENNE: 
Yes, because the sellers, they do, the sellers disclosure, and most sellers are just lay people. They don’t necessarily know everything about the home yeah. So it’s always awesome to have Kenji in there doing the home inspection, going through that house with a fine tooth comb, and then the buyer knows everything.

ATTILIO:
Yeah, and I think it’s like all you need to know about what are the home inspection you know what? It’s an owner’s manual for your house with pictures, diagrams, all of this technology that you use. I think the main thing that’ll leave people with is that is that you have a lot of inspection tools that general contractors would not have any business having because they’re building new construction or remodeling. They’re not re inspecting their own work. They’re just doing it right from the beginning. So you have all those tools to take a look at an existing home that general contract, those tools nobody has. They’re not using. They’re not going to have. Give us an

ADRIENNE: 
example, real quick, Kenji, of these, these different tools that you have that needed, you know, John or contractor would not have.

KENJI: 
Well, the first one will be an infrared camera. They don’t have an infrared camera to be able to detect leads. So if they were to have that, that would be huge, huge improvement that we can run water, test it, and if there’s a leash, they can address it before they close up the cavity. Another one is our 360 cameras that we use. So yeah, takes a picture, gives you the floor plan, and now you got a tour on the property. So yeah, without even being here,

ADRIENNE:
yeah, and you. Guys draw squares around things, put arrows, you point out notes. It’s very organized. It’s like, super organized, and I’m sure that it’s super helpful too. Like, if they’re trying to get quotes, they can send it to the appropriate they get the links, and you can tell them where, where to look.

ATTILIO: 
Home Inspections come back to us on the sell side, because it’s used as part of the negotiation. So for buyers, highly recommend it never, ever, ever, ever buy a house without home inspection, and the only home inspection company we recommend is pillar post. Kenji. Kenji Vendetta. He’s got a vendetta to make sure that you buy a house, and you know what the heck you’re buying. That’s his Vendetta.

ADRIENNE: 
Yes, it is, Kenji. Thank you so much for being our featured guest today and reminding our listeners all about home inspections and why they’re important. Yes, thank you, Kenji. Thank you, Kenji. You’re the best. Aloha. All right, so that’s Kenji Vendetta. You can find him on Team lally.com under the Resource tab and experts we trust, so click around his website there, see all the tools we were we were screen sharing them on the website, and book your appointment today.

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