How to Start a Home Inventory Business

Business Overview:

If you’re looking for a high-demand business that has the potential to make great profits, consider learning how to start a home inventory business. A home inventory is an account of every asset in a person’s home that has positive value. With a home inventory business you create and maintain an account of homeowners’ assets in exchange for a fee by listing the value and specific details about each item they own. Maintaining a home inventory is an important practice, as it allows homeowners to pinpoint every item they own in the case of loss due to theft or disaster. This helps to streamline the process of claiming insurance for destroyed, damaged or stolen items. Therefore, you’ll be providing a valuable service that will give your clients increased peace of mind and an added sense of reassurance that they’ll be able to recoup the true value of any losses incurred in the case of an accident or disaster in their home. Home inventory is a service that is always in high demand, and as such this is a business idea that can really lead to great profits. The reason for such high demand is that while the value of maintaining a home inventory is widely recognized, many people find that they do not have the time to continually maintain and update their records. Therefore, if you can provide a quality service and market your home inventory business effectively, you will be likely to attract many clients and generate great profits. While this business offers a high profit making potential it’s not an especially difficult business to get started. You can open a home inventory business relatively quickly and at a fairly low cost. The ability to appraise items and determine their true value is a skill that you will certainly need as it is essential when producing home inventories, but if you aren’t currently trained you can easily take local or online courses. Alternatively, if you have more start-up funds available, you could hire experienced staff to produce your inventories for you, freeing your time up to focus exclusively on the marketing of your business. Another attractive advantage to this business is that you can easily start and run this business from the comfort of your own home. While technically it is not essential, you should get a license when starting up. Not every state or country requires licensing for home inventory businesses, but insurance companies only accept appraisals from home inventory firms that are licensed. Therefore, in order to provide an attractive, quality service to your clients it is definitely recommended that you obtain licensing when setting up your home inventory company.

A Day in the Life of a Home Inventory Business Owner:

The bulk of a typical day as a home inventory business owner will be spent visiting clients’ homes and doing appraisals for them. Having reviewed your diary to check which clients you are booked in to see for the day, you will travel to your clients’ homes and create inventories. A standard home inventory form is separated by room categories, and you will follow this system for each client you see and note and appraise each specific item of positive value in each room in your client’s house—and put them into the appropriate categories on your form. Household items like couches, televisions and microwaves, as well as more unique and valuable items such as antiques and jewelry, will all be recorded as part of your full inventory. On completion of your work, you will provide your client with a copy of their home inventory (in digital format as well as a hardcopy) and keep a backup record of your own which you will update periodically for your client as they purchase new assets. If you decide to hire staff to complete your clients’ inventories for you, then a typical day will instead be focused on marketing your business to attract new clients and further increase your profits.

About Your Customers:

Your customers will be homeowners who want an account of all the assets in their homes that have a positive value, for the purpose of ensuring that they are able to recoup the true value of any losses incurred in the case of an accident or disaster in their home.

What You Need to Start:

• Training in appraising items and creating home inventories (alternatively, you could hire trained staff to do the appraisals for you)
• Licensing for your home inventory businesses (though this is not always required in every state or country, it is highly recommended)
• Marketing (website, paper ads, radio, etc.)
• Financial tracking software
• Inventory sheets or software

The Good:

• Home inventory services will always be in high demand.
• Due to high demand, you can potentially make great profits with this business.
• You can start at a relatively low cost.
• If you aren’t currently trained in appraising items and creating home inventories, you can quickly get qualified by taking local or online courses (or you could hire staff to do your home inventories for you).
• You can start and run this business from the comfort of your own home office.

The Bad:

• Due to the high demand for home inventory services, this business can be competitive.
• It may be a while before you to start to see good profits, as establishing your home inventory business and building up a solid client base can take some time.

Resources:

• National Association of Home Inventory Professionals
• Bureau of Labor Statistics on Claims Adjusters, Appraisers, Examiners and Investigators
• Wikipedia on Inventory

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