KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Why Every Investor Agent Needs a Sewer Scope to Protect Profits

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

Summary:This episode highlights the critical importance of performing professional sewer scopes during the inspection contingency period. Host Randy Zimmer shares a cautionary case study of an investor who skipped the scope, leading to a $5,000 repair and a week of lost showings during a high-profile "launch". Agents will learn how to use a $300–$500 inspection to negotiate seller credits, avoid post-renovation disasters, and prevent buyer doubt caused by mid-listing construction.

You're listening to the Investor Agent Nation podcast, empowering agents and investors to collaborate effectively and grow their businesses symbiotically. Your host, Randy Zemnock and Eric Gross, share real-life case studies, trending tactics, and expert strategies that have helped them to accomplish over $1 billion in sales volume. Whether you're a seasoned agent looking to expand your business or an investor seeking to optimize your returns, you're in the right place. This is the Investor Agent Nation podcast. Hey there, I'm Rainy Zimnock, and in this episode, we're going to cover how one simple sewer scope can save you five grand and potential buyers. To save the potential $5,000 on a sewer scope in this specific situation and potential buyers, the whole thing about it is to actually do the sewer scopes while you're looking to buy a property. So if you're an investor in this particular situation and you're looking at properties and you're under contract and you have two days, three days, five days, whatever the contingency is to do your inspections, that is the time to do your sewer scope, right? My investor clients, including our investment company that we have, we do sewer scopes on pretty much every single property, especially the older ones.

there's a high probability that there could be something wrong with the sewer line. And usually the things that we find are wrong with sewer lines where they get clogged. It would be because of roots. So tree roots actually are the ones that are the most common reason why a sewer line might get potentially completely cracked and then also clogged at the same time, right? And then after a little bit of time of water going in that direction and then the clock gets bigger and bigger, then you might actually have backups, right? And that's when you know you have a problem, right? So one thing I would recommend, if you're an investor out there looking at properties, first test I would do is actually turn on all the faucets, turn on the shower, every faucet you can turn on in the house, turn it on, right? That should give you the first indication.

Okay, how is the water flowing, right? If it's flowing well and draining well in all areas, there is a high probability that maybe there won't be an issue. However, I still would recommend spending about, it's usually around $3 to $500 to get a professional sewer company to go out there. They basically take a camera and run it through the line, right, through the sewer line, and then they see what is happening, right? Is there a potential situation that's on hand? Is there a root that they could see already? Right? Because you might have a root going through the pipe and it's still actually allowing the water to flow.

But guess what? That still has to get fixed in most cases, right? Because there's now a high probability of that clock to actually take place. So sewer scopes, again, do it while you're in escrow to buy the property. It's only a $3 to $500 investment. But here is what you could do, right? So if you do a sewer scope and it comes back and you see, okay, we have a problem, right? The sewer company usually will either recommend a contractor or maybe they're the construction

company that actually fix the sewer lines. They could give you a quote, right? And that quote you could then use, go to the seller and say, hey, here's what we found. We would love to buy this property. However, we need X amount of the sales price or the purchase price. I mean. So in this situation, one of my clients, because I'm helping him sell this property, he didn't do it. He didn't do it prior. And what ended up happening, we actually got the house already for the open house. I mean, there was all this commotion happening, you know, days prior like

always does and with investors. We rush at the last minute, you know, try to get the house ready. So this was no different. We had the open house scheduled and literally the evening before, we had a backup, right? And then all this water started pop up everywhere. So we felt, you know, we dealt with the situation on hand. The water drained slowly. We taped the toilets so no one could use the facilities. And we had the open house. However, here is what really took place too, is one, the open house was a total success because we have launches, right? To us, an open house is like the grand opening and the grand reveal of the property. So we had 60 people that came to this open house. They really didn't know that there was a sewer problem. They only saw the,

you know, clear tape around the toilets, right? So no one really knew what is really taking place there. However, here is what happened after, right? Well, that needed to be fixed. So the investor in this situation hired a contractor right away, and on Monday, we had to stop showing the property. So here we are. We have this launch. We have all the marketing. We have the grand open house. We have 60 people that came to see the property. Some of those people usually would like to come back with their relatives or their uncle or their spouse and see if maybe this is the house for them. Well, we couldn't do it. We had to actually say we can't show you the property because why? Well, the contractor now dug up a massive hall in front of the house under the driveway. So now they had to remove the driveway, dig a hall, create a big pile of sand in front of the house.

It's probably not the best way that you would like a potential buyer that has an interest in this house to come back and see. And here's what I don't know, because I can't be at this property 24-7. I don't know how many of the buyers that walk through the property on Sunday maybe try to come back with their agent. the agent looked on the MLS and saw was like, hey, no showing, no more showings until Wednesday. I think we put Wednesday at that point because we were very optimistic that we could fix that problem in two days. Well, who knows? They might have went back to that property, drove by to just see like, why? Why can't we go see it?

It was just open yesterday. The open house was yesterday. And who knows? Maybe they went back. They drove by and they hear they see a pile of dirt, right? They see the driveway being dug up. contractors working, I think that could put a piece of doubt in the buyer's mind about, okay, maybe what's wrong with this house?

Like, wasn't this house just fixed and then put on the market and then here they are digging halls? And I will never know as the agent, because I can't be there 24-7. I don't know what's happening afterwards. All I know that there is a very high chance that several of the people went back by the property to see what is really the story here, right? And now we potentially might have lost buyers. And I truly believe we did, right, in that specific week. And that job delayed us actually, I think, all the way to Saturday. So imagine full week we couldn't let anyone in the house,

right? Meanwhile, there was all this commotion happening in front of the property. And then, oh, the cost here, the investor spent $5,000 to fix the sewer situation that was clogged because it was exactly what I said earlier. The roots are the ones that destroyed the sewer line here. So everything got fixed. Again, there is a solution to everything. It's just the point of it is like, I would rather have this be taking care of during construction, not once the house is listed, obviously. And the way you could have actually saved $5,000 if you're this investor in this situation, is if you did the scope while you were doing your inspections prior to buying the house, you could have ask the seller again and be like, hey, here's the situation, here is the report, we need $5,000

credit, because this will require this much work. And you have a choice, right? Either you buy the house with the credit if they honor it, or at least you know going into it that, hey, maybe instead of making 30 grand or 40 grand or whatever it is that the investor was trying to make, they might make five grand less. But at least you know going into it, what is to accept. expect and you're doing the work while the property is being renovated, which is when you want to do all the work, obviously. So the point of the story is, do your sewer scopes on most properties, again, especially the older ones. It is a small investment, right, that could save you five grand minimum. I mean, that was just in this situation. I've had sewer line replacements that cost

$15,000. I mean, the number could be much, much higher than $5,000. I think in this situation my client lucked out that was only five grand because it could have been a lot worse, right? So save yourself thousands of dollars, do it beforehand, use it to get the credit from the seller and don't lose potential buyers if you're doing it while the property is listed. You save, you know, $15,000. That's a lot of money. So that's how you create a win-win. For more insights and to join the investors.

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