been doing real estate and events for a couple years now and while its fine, the work is really inconsistent. feast or famine depending on the time of year and honestly the market in my area feels like it's getting saturated with guys charging way less than they should be.

starting to look at pivot options and inspection work keeps coming up — roofing, solar, cell towers, that kind of thing. i know some of that requires additional certs or training beyond part 107 and i've been trying to figure out if the investment in getting those is actually worth it. heard the pay is better and the clients are more professional to deal with but i dont have firsthand experience.

curious if anyone made that shift and whether it was actually worth the effort to get into. also wondering how you even find those clients — is it just going directly to roofing companies and solar installers or is there some other channel im not thinking about

yeah inspection work is a different world and honestly i think its better in a lot of ways. i do mostly roofing and insurance documentation now and the clients are way more repeat-business oriented. a roofing company that finds a pilot they trust is going to call you back constantly, unlike a real estate agent who maybe uses you once a month if you're lucky.

the certs thing depends on what specifically you want to get into. for basic roofing and solar you dont necessarily need anything beyond 107, but if you want to get into utility or tower work there's more involved and some companies want to see specific safety training. that stuff takes time and costs money but the rates on the other end are significantly higher so it tends to pay off. i just went and found a couple local roofing contractors and offered to demo what the footage looks like for an inspection — one of them basically hired me on the spot because they'd been paying someone from out of town to come do it.

thermal imaging for solar is another one worth looking into if you havent already. adds another layer to the service and from what i understand the inspections are more specialized so theres less competition. you do need a decent thermal camera setup which isnt cheap but might be worth researching. i havent made the jump myself yet but its been on my radar for a while