We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ralph Borgess. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ralph below.

Hi Ralph , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Yes, we are a resource for Clients for the life of their home and believe in building last relationships. The Home Buying process can be extremely stressful and is the biggest investment most people will ever make, it’s a big deal and I treat it that way! My mission is to provide a very personalized experience and take full ownership of the home for the couple hours I am there. I learn as much as I could about the property and educate my Clients on every detail. I always pass along my contact information and follow up after the inspection, and always encourage Clients to call me in the future if they have an issue so I can help troubleshoot and navigate them through any issues.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began my career in construction as a Union Carpenter in New Jersey. I completed a 4 year apprenticeship and Trade School and worked in both commercial and residential construction. After buying my first home in 2010 and having my home inspection I was immediately hooked and began the process of obtaining my License in NJ. I completed the NJ required training which included both classroom and field training, as well as passing a National Exam. I obtained my license in 2011 and began performing home inspections part time while working full time in the construction industry. In 2012 our home was wiped out by Hurricane Sandy and after over a year of renovations and repairs we decided to move to Maryland to pursue a position with a construction safety company. Upon moving to MD in 2017, I completed the state required home inspection training and obtained my license in both Maryland and Delaware. I officially formed Hawkeye Home Inspections in Maryland in 2020 and business immediately skyrocketed and I was lucky enough to form some great relationships with local real estate brokerages in Baltimore. We currently service homebuyers and homeowners in the Baltimore metro area and conduct extremely extensive inspections properties prior to purchase to help identify and potential issues. We also provide general maintenance inspections for homeowners and pre-listing inspections for Listing Agents.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Home Inspections were always my side hustle. I mostly did them after work and on weekends and never really considered them work because I loved doing them so much. When I moved to Maryland I connected with some amazing people and began utilizing Social Media to reach out to Real Estate Agents in the area. I never dreamed inspections would turn into a full time gig, but the more I did the happier I was and my full time job in construction began getting in the way of what I truly wanted to do. I was obviously very scared to just make the jump into doing inspections full time since I have 4 young kids I need to provide for, so I basically worked 2 full time jobs for close to a year to ensure inspections would cover the family financially. After several months of consistent sales far exceeding my salary in construction I decided to make the jump into doing inspections full time.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I was a complete novice when I started doing social media and very embarrassed to put myself out there. I started off slow until I became more confident and when people started contacting me through social media to book inspections I was shocked. I started simply being myself on social media so people knew exactly who they were getting when I showed up at their house for an inspection. I started receiving a lot of great feedback about my social media account and @inspectorralph kind of became my brand so to speak. The best advice I could give is to simply be yourself, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid of what people will think. You can’t fake being genuine and people see right through that, it’s much easier to just be you. Now I love creating content and find it so fun, and it’s flattering to see other inspectors starting to do the same thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hawkinspect.com
• Instagram: @inspectorralph
• Facebook: @facebook.com/rborgess
• Twitter: inspectorralph
• Youtube: learnyourhouse