The pillar for this cluster said the agent is the person who is never at the house and always has to explain it to somebody. The repair quote post was about a number. This one is about a question, and it is the roof question every buyer asks the agent, in the same spot every time.
Standing in the driveway after the showing, the buyer looks up and says: "How much life is left in that roof?" The agent looks up too. The listing says the roof was replaced in 2011. That is all anybody has. The agent is not a roofer, has a stake in the sale, and knows that whatever they say in the next five seconds will be quoted back to them in a year. I have been the roofer those agents call, and this is how I handle it.
The roof question the agent cannot answer
The agent should not guess. Not because guessing is dishonest, but because a guess from a person who is not a roofer and who benefits from the sale is worth nothing to the buyer either way. "Probably ten years" reassures nobody who thinks about it. "Looks fine to me" is worse.
The written inspection report usually does not settle it either. A home inspector will note granule loss, a lifted course, a boot that is split, and will say the roof is near the end of its serviceable life or that it is not. What the buyer wants is a number of years, and the report does not have one because nobody honest does.
So the question hangs there, and the agent carries it through the whole transaction. It comes up again from the buyer's parent, and again from the partner who was not at the showing, and again the week before closing. Every time, the agent answers from memory of a conversation with me.
What I can actually say about the roof
I can describe condition. I cannot describe the future, and I say that out loud at the start of every one of these walks so nobody is waiting for a number that is not coming.
Condition is concrete. How much granule is left on the south slope, which takes the most sun. Whether the shingles are still pliable or crack when I lift a tab. Exposed nails on the ridge cap. The rubber boots at the plumbing vents, which fail before the shingles do. The step flashing at the chimney and the counter flashing above it. Whether there is one layer or two. Prior repairs and how they were done. What the underside looks like from the attic hatch, if I can get to it: staining on the decking, daylight at a penetration, whether the ventilation is doing anything.
Two roofs put on the same year can be in very different shape depending on slope, sun, trees, ventilation and who nailed them. That is the honest answer to the roof question, and it is more useful than a number, because it tells the buyer what they are actually buying. Why I document pre-existing roof wear too is the same idea from the other side: the ordinary wear is part of the record, not a reason to leave it out.
A twenty-minute look with both of them watching
I text the link to the agent and the buyer, or to the agent, who sends it on. Both tap it and watch in their browser. No app, no account, no camera permission prompt on anybody's phone. I see a count on my screen so I know when both are there.
Then I walk it slope by slope, the way I walk every roof, and I narrate for the buyer, not the agent. Slope, then feature, then what I see, then whether it is ordinary. "South slope, the one facing the street. Granule loss here is more than the north side, which is normal for the sunny side. Still plenty of grit in the gutter, which tells you something, and no bare mat anywhere I can see." I say the boring parts. Most of a decent roof is boring, and the buyer needs to hear that from somebody who would know.
The buyer cannot interrupt. If they see something they want to ask about, they tap "I have a question about this," which saves that frame with a short note and puts it on my screen while I am still up there. The quick ones I answer in the narration. The rest I answer by phone once I am down and the inspection is ended, not during, because a phone call on an iPhone suspends the stream and because "should I be worried about that" deserves an answer with my feet on the ground. Telling a homeowner the roof is fine is about the harder version of that call, where the honest answer is that nothing needs doing.
The recording the agent can point back to
Live is for the buyer. The recording is for the agent, because the agent is the one who will get asked again.
Three weeks later the buyer's father calls and asks about the roof. The agent does not re-explain from memory. There is a twenty-minute recording of a roofer on that roof, in daylight, saying what he saw, with the stills and the frames the buyer flagged and a timestamped history of when it happened and when each viewer joined. The recording lands with my company automatically, not on my phone, and is private, reached through short-lived signed links rather than a public URL.
Whether the agent sends that recording to the buyer's father is a decision the agent and buyer make on purpose. The live link itself expires when I end the inspection or after twelve hours, so nobody keeps a window into anything.
Where this is not the answer
If the buyer wants a number of years, I am going to disappoint them either way, live or not. I would rather disappoint them with the condition on screen.
If the roof is wet, snow-covered, too steep to walk, or something I should not be on, I document from the ladder and the ground and say so. A live look from a ladder is still a look, but it is not the same look, and I do not pretend otherwise.
And this is not an inspection. It is a roofer describing a roof. If the report flagged something structural, or the buyer wants the whole house looked at again, that is the inspector's job and the buyer should call them. What I give the agent is one clear answer to one question, on the record, so the agent can stop answering it from memory.
The rest of the situations where an agent puts a buyer on a link are on the use cases page, and the viewer's side is on the how it works page.
InspectStream records what an inspector observed. It is not a public adjusting service and does not prepare, negotiate, or advise on insurance claims.