Champions in Action – As many of our readers know, at Champions School of Real Estate we truly enjoy highlighting our #ChampionsinAction, Champions who come back to us to share their experiences with their new careers and businesses! After last week’s statewide career fair, we had the opportunity to speak with Tamill Acker of Acker Home Inspections, who completed the Home Inspector program in June. We interviewed him and shared his wonderful insight on his journey to becoming a home inspector – make sure to read his interview below! Don’t forget to follow #ChampionsinAction of Twitter and on Instagram to see more wonderful stories we’ve shared from our students! – Karla, Communications Director, Champions School of Real Estate
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself, Tamill:
TA: “My name is Tamill Acker, and I am the owner of Acker Home Inspections. I finished the home inspector course at Champions School of Real Estate and sat for my licensing exam in June. The rest, as they say, is history!”
Q: What was your experience with the home inspector program?
TA: “It was very, very good; I always got really good help anytime I had questions. Even if they were busy, they would say to email or call, and they would get back to me, which everyone did. Everybody was always really accessible. I found Frank [Berry] to be extremely informative; he was really, really good and gave me a lot of good tips that I still use today.“
Q: What made you get into home inspection?
TA: “What made me get involved in Home Inspection was that I was already a home investor. My wife and I own rental properties, and one of the things we were always spending money on were their home inspections.
When you’re an investor, you may go through several properties before you get to the one that you want to purchase, but you’ll spend several hundred dollars on each one to get them inspected.
That was the reason why I got involved – you learn the tricks of the trade, so it made adapting to the material pretty easy.”
Q: What do you enjoy the most of being a home inspector?
TA: “One of the things that I like the most, believe it or not, is the flexibility. I spent 16-years in corporate America doing everything from training to managing large departments. What I always found was that I always had to adapt to their schedule, their time off, their vacation, etc. Even though I had a lot of vacation – I would earn ten weeks of vacation a year – I couldn’t necessarily take it when I wanted to because it was about the needs of the business.
I wanted that flexibility so that I could spend time with my kids and still make a good living. That’s probably one of the things that I like the most – that work-life balance – but I also just love what I do. I love being able to use my knowledge and expertise to be able to help people, as buying a home is a very expensive decision.”
Q: What would be your biggest tip for somebody new to the industry?
TA: “My biggest tip for someone new to the industry? Study. Study, study, study.
You know, one of the promises you have to make when you become a home inspector is that you will always be increasing your knowledge. Before I even starting to do home inspections for profit, I was doing them for free! People would say, “that’s crazy – what are you doing?” but it was for practice. Getting that hands-on practice ahead of time made it seamless [when I was ready] to start collecting the fees for it.
Do home inspections for every friend, family member, and anybody you can in the beginning so that you can gain the knowledge. That’s when you’ll get very good at noticing the deficiencies of what things should look like and what they shouldn’t look like.”
About Acker Home Inspections: To learn more about Acker Home Inspections, visit them on social media! Acker Home Inspections is a member of the Collin County Association of Realtors and can also be found on Facebook and on Twitter.
Like this? Take a look at some of our other recent blogs:
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- #ThowbackThursday: Teacher Edition (featuring Betty Dickens)
- Real Estate News Now: September 26, 2016
- 2015 – 2016 Champions School of Real Estate Award Winners
- Real Estate Laughs | Ellen’s Real Estate Tips (The Ellen Show)
- Champions School of Real Estate Summer Catalog Update
- Loan Origination Guest Blog: Pre-Qualification? Pre-Approval? What’s best, and when?
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