Neighborly acquires HouseMaster

Neighborly , a franchisor of home service brands, announced the acquisition of HouseMaster, a professional home inspection franchise headquartered in Somerville, NJ. The addition becomes the 25th brand under the Neighborly umbrella and officially expands the organization to more than 4,000 franchise owners around the world.

“Our vision is to ‘Own the Home’ and provide the very best services to homeowners, and this now includes HouseMaster’s premier home inspection network with a stellar reputation that more customers can call upon,” said Mike Bidwell, president and CEO of Neighborly. “HouseMaster is a perfect complement to our existing Neighborly brands and presents a tremendous opportunity to grow more franchise locations.”

Founded in 1979 by Ken Austin, HouseMaster became the first home inspection business to franchise and now includes more than 170 franchise owners serving more than 300 franchise territories across the U.S. and Canada. Since the brand’s founding, HouseMaster inspectors have performed more than 3.5 million home inspections.

Now as part of Neighborly, the brand that pioneered the home inspection business will operate alongside Neighborly’s many home service brands that repair, maintain and enhance the home. The combined reach that results from this acquisition will continue to help more than 10 million customers across the Neighborly organization find and utilize the best home service professionals in the world.

“Having grown up in this business, I recognize that joining the larger Neighborly organization marks a historic moment for HouseMaster as a launching point for growth like we’ve never seen before,” said Kathleen Austin Kuhn, president of HouseMaster and a charter member of the American Home Inspection Association (AHIA). “We look forward to expanding our presence, serving more customers by being all things Neighborly to residential and commercial real estate buyers and sellers.”