Most people have never heard of this line of work. Mortgage Field Service inspections have been around since the first 30-year mortgage was issued in 1954. It is really simple: whenever a mortgagor is more than 45 days behind in their house payment, someone has to go by the house, take photos, check to see if it is still occupied, and report on the condition of the property.
The most commonly asked questions:
- Is a license required? No. As of the passing of the Dodd/Frank Bill in Congress in 2010, all Mortgage Field Service inspectors must have a verifiable background check. Besides a good running car, internet connection, cell phone, there isn’t much besides keys.
- What are the keys for? Vacant Real Estate-Owned properties are required to be inspected once a month. Most of the time, there is a lockbox and a code to enter the property. But that is not always the case. When the locks have been changed but a lockbox is not installed, our clients expect us to use our own set of keys.
- What are the hours? Asking this question immediately indicates that you are not familiar with the differences between an Independent Contractor vs an Employee. The hours are whatever your boss (YOU) says they are. All we want is the work to be submitted by the due date, and of course, your photos must be during daylight.
- Do you have to set up an LLC? No. As an Independent Contractor and sole-proprietor of your own business, forming an LLC is entirely optional.
- Do you have to have Errors and Omissions Insurance and General Liability? No. You do not have to pay for it, but we do. When you complete work orders for our company you are covered under our insurance policy.
- Do you have to open your own InspectorADE.com account? No, we take care of the costs for that as well.
- How are jobs assigned? We ask that each contractor agrees to cover the county they reside in. Some counties are so big that we have cut them in half or in quarter sections.
- How do you get more inspections? Our software works so that the quicker you submit inspections, the more work is assigned to you.
- What is the national average payment for inspections? ZipRecruiter has good information on the averages. https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Jobs/Mortgage-Field-Inspector This is based on 4 to 6 inspections per hour. NMFS usually pays double that.
- When do they pay? Our industry has an average payment process known as Net-30. You work a particular month, an invoice is generated at the end of that month, and the client pays you 30 days later. Some companies pay weekly based on the 30 days prior. Each company pays differently but expects a delay at the start.