She Was Told ‘Who’s Going to Give You Business?’ Now She’s a Top Home Inspector in Brooklyn

Joseph Gathers wanted to own a home inspection franchise, and back in 2016, he was close to opening a Pillar To Post location in Brooklyn, New York. Then his cancer returned. He died soon after.

His widow, Jacqueline Gathers, didn’t know anything about the home inspection industry, and she didn’t have a license. At first, she had no interest in running the business. She even reached out to Pillar To Post about selling her husband’s location back to them.

“But then I thought about all the hard work he had put into training and getting his license and starting the business,” Jacqueline says. She wanted to honor his memory. And she realized she was being given a midlife opportunity. She was in her 50s, and after 30 years with the New York City Housing Authority, she was skilled at managing people and customer service. That’s a competitive advantage with home inspectors, because many inspectors are, as she puts it, “a little rough around the edges.”  

After training and getting her New York State license, she finally opened her husband’s location in 2018. “Home inspection is a white-male-dominated industry,” says Gathers, who is Black. “I thought, What in the world? How am I going to fit in here? But I put one foot in front of the other.” 

It must have been incredibly difficult to take over your husband’s franchise when he died.
It actually helped me through my grief. My youngest son had gone away to school, so I was in the house by myself. The business gave me a reason to get up, to go out every day, to manage my grief. It was rewarding.

What was it like as a woman doing home inspections? 
A lot of the male brokers — they were very dismissive, to put it nicely. One even told me, “Who’s going to give you business?” I wish I were kidding. He was saying, You don’t belong here.  But not for nothing, I was probably smarter than my male counterparts. People started to pay attention. Most of my female realtors said they’d never seen a female inspector. 

Do you still perform the property inspections yourself?
I don’t do a lot of inspections now. I don’t want to be on roofs or in basements anymore. I’ll do some condos here and there, but I have a team. I spend my time teaching the home-inspection component in seminars for first-time homebuyers.

How are you centering technology in your offering?
We have a package that includes a virtual tour and floor plan. In this day and age, people want a digital copy of their property, and they’ll pay for it. For insurance purposes with an investment property, say, they have a virtual copy of what that property looked like before anything might happen. You can zoom in as close as a switchblade. We do a lot of million-dollar condos, and they don’t bat an eye. They’ll take that virtual tour and floor plan and email it to their contractor for a home-improvement project.

What else do you consider critical to your success?
Customer service. If you give somebody exceptional customer service, first they’re shocked, and then they’re going to come back and tell their friends. I take those extra steps. I make a phone call to the client and say, “How did the inspection go? Do you have any questions?” Sometimes a client will call or email at 10:30 at night, and I respond. They always say, “Thank you for your quick response.” I’ve had families where I did the mom’s inspection, the daughter’s inspection, the aunt’s inspection — because they felt they got good service. 

Some people might worry about starting a business in their 50s or 60s. What do you say to that? 
Being older has helped me really be successful. I understand how to pick and choose battles. Some are not worth fighting. It’s a waste of energy. I just remove myself from those scenarios and keep on doing what I’m doing.