Leading the Industry

David Goldstein is among the oldest second-generation home inspectors in the profession. “My father, Norman, was one of the first in the country to do this and helped start ASHI. I grew up in it,” he said.

Goldstein started in the early 1970s going with his father on inspections. The profession was just getting started. “It was not anywhere near as involved as it is now. The tools were certainly different. I remember enjoying watching what he was doing. I was a teenager then.”

Nearly five decades later, Goldstein has seemingly done it all in the profession. The New Jersey-based inspector’s services cover the Garden State and Pennsylvania, and he spends much of his time teaching throughout the country. He has served in local ASHI chapters and on the national level of ASHI on various committees, on the Board of Directors and as a national officer. Goldstein is a court-qualified expert witness in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware regarding home inspection issues, construction defects, and personal injury cases.

Goldstein was recently awarded the 2022 Ironman Award at InspectionWorld in Las Vegas in early 2023. The award is given to an ASHI Member who has given time, energy, talent, and determination to ASHI over a long period of time and with little recognition. The annual award is presented by the outgoing ASHI President.

“I still do some home inspections, but right now I specialize in doing large commercial buildings and stucco and EIFS inspections. These inspections, combined with all the teaching and expert witness work I do, don’t leave me with as much time for home inspections as I used to have.”

Evolving Business

Goldstein has experienced the home inspection business in almost every way, shape, and form—starting out as part of his parents’ family-owned multi-inspector firm, where he worked for several years. At that time, they were one of the largest independently owned and operated companies in the country with dozens of employees. Shortly after Goldstein and his wife were married, she also joined the business. Goldstein began training all of the new inspectors in the ’80s while his wife took on much of the administrative work. As the profession grew, he saw the need for computerized reports and pre-inspection agreements and says he worked to create the first of their kind in the country. By 1988 he and his wife had started their own home inspection company—AMBIC Building Inspection Consultants—and Goldstein’s parents retired.

“We started franchising immediately. We had franchisees all over the country and even started in Canada,” he said. He continued to take on the more technical and training side of things, while his wife handled the administrative work and marketing. They had about 40 franchises at one point.

“We franchised for about 15 years. Then licensing changed the way people could enter the business. Now of course you have to meet licensing laws or regulations. We also licensed our method to a few people, which is different from being a franchisee. But then it got to the point in the early 2000s when my wife and I made a decision that we didn’t want to continue franchising or have licensees. We chose to concentrate on educating the next generation of home inspectors and performing specialized inspections.”

Looking Back

A lot has changed in the world of home inspection. No longer are reports done by hand or typed on a typewriter. Most inspectors only carried a simple flashlight and screwdriver, plus maybe a few other things, in their pockets. “None of the tools home inspectors use today were around back then. I don’t even know if they were invented yet,” Goldstein laughed.

Today there’s a lot more to look at in a home inspection, too. Technology has changed both structurally and mechanically. Even Goldstein is always learning something new. “There are so many changes. There’s a continuous need for learning.

Fortunately, Goldstein both loves to learn and share his own expertise. On any given week he can spend a day attending continuing education himself while teaching a seminar to a full class on another. “The other day I taught report writing. Then I taught a class on inspecting stucco, EIFS and stone veneers. Then I taught venting and chimneys. I teach a lot,” he said.

A Challenging Career

Licensing and regulations are among the biggest challenges in home inspecting today, Goldstein said, as they both make things better but can also prove tricky. Keeping up with the ever-evolving technology and construction methodology is also a challenge. For example, smart homes and smart home features are on the rise when less than 10 years ago they didn’t really exist, Goldstein said. “At the same time, the housing stock in the country is getting older. My area has a lot of Revolutionary-era homes. It’s common here to inspect homes that are more than 200 or 300 years old, whereas in other parts of the country, a home is considered old at maybe 50 years.”

Goldstein said the additional services inspectors offer today simply didn’t exist years ago, including things like the stucco and EIFS inspections he does today. “That’s something that really only came about in the last 10 to 15 years,” he said. “The use of drones also didn’t exist until recently.”

The addition of so many tools and services only improve the profession, he said. “It also enables the home inspector to diversify their services so that they can offer additional services if one area of the business is slower than normal. This allows an inspector to earn additional revenue to make a good living.”

Advice

Remembering that you don’t know everything is key. “As someone who teaches the initial licensing course for new inspectors and a lot of continuing education, don’t ever think you’re going to know it all,” Goldstein said. “I’ve been doing this for many years, and I still learn new things all the time. Continuing education is very important to further yourself professionally.”

Goldstein says getting involved is the best education beyond ASHI certification and online classes. He recommends getting involved locally and nationally. “It’s very rewarding—the things you can learn talking to your peers, the camaraderie.” He doesn’t consider other inspectors competition. On the contrary, they often refer work to each other. “Why not help each other out?” he said.

“This business can be very rewarding,” Goldstein said. “You’re helping people. You’re teaching homebuyers in many cases about their first homes and how to take care of them and the nuances that go along with it.

David Goldstein is the director of training for Inspector Education Institute and president of AMBIC Building Inspection Consultants. Goldstein served as a national officer in ASHI and on the Board of Directors, as well as the president of two state chapters. He has been an ASHI Certified Inspector since 1985. He is a New Jersey, Delaware, and New York-licensed home inspector, New Jersey and Pennsylvania-licensed building inspector, plumbing inspector, construction official, sub-code official, and formerly licensed as a fire protection inspector. He is also a New Jersey certified pest control applicator and radon measurement technician. Goldstein served as a subject matter expert and on the Board of Directors of the Examination Board of Professional Home Inspectors (EBPHI) for 17 years, including a term as president of the EBPHI.