It was the roof that caught your attention.
As you traveled around the area with your 32-year old son who was looking to purchase his first home, he was interested in showing you the theater and sports room spaces in many of the homes. He was also interested in looking at the garage space. Was the floor coated in one of those all purpose surfaces? Was their already a temperature control plan in place?
And while your son had his own dream list of things that he would like to find in his first home purchase, he had intentionally brought you along for most of the visits. He knew that you would avoid getting swayed by all of the extras, and that you would, instead, focus on what was really important. In many of the areas of town where there had been many storms last spring, you were in the habit of looking at roofs. You looked at a lot of other things as well, but the roofs were of particular importance. In the areas that had been so hard hit by heavy rains, high winds, and, sometimes, hail, you had gotten in the habit of looking at the potential roof repair cost estimates that you could create in your head.
Homes that had already been fixed by insurance claims and were sporting the newest composite shingles were definitely in the running. Those with roof damage and other rain and gutter issues that remained unfixed these many months after the storm were, at the very least, an indicator of a home owner who was not that meticulous about property care and management. You knew from your days in both commercial roofing and residential roofing contracts, the best building owners know that roof repair has to come before almost any other tasks.
You also know that with more than 50,000 establishments offering installation of roofing, siding, and sheet metal work, most home owners have plenty of opportunities to make the needed repairs if they care about their home or office building. Missing shingles, or other exterior damage can be a warning sign that your son might miss as he finds himself overly impressed with a fancy garage and a room for a large television screen. The fact that 72% of home owners indicate they would select new roofing materials that require little or no maintenance means that for those homes that do have new roofing, your son will be looking at a home that might not need major repairs in the near future.
