Valerie and Steve Fraser are working together to strengthen their franchise and the A Buyer’s Choice Home Inspections system as a whole
By Alya Somar
Becoming a homeowner is a milestone that many Canadians look forward to. With that accomplishment comes the task of finding trustworthy inspectors to examine their home before, during, and after they purchase. A Buyer’s Choice Home Inspections is a Canadian company dedicated to being there for realtors and homeowners throughout every step of their property ownership journey.
Steve and Valerie Fraser’s A Buyers Choice Home Inspections (ABCHI) franchise opened in 2018 and serves Medicine Hat, Alberta, Southwest Saskatchewan, and the surrounding areas. Together, they work to conduct home and commercial inspections for their customers and educate homeowners directly about the best care for their homes. They and their team of sub-franchisee inspectors work closely with their realtor partners and homeowners to ensure their inspections are both thorough and educational, as well as delivered with exceptional customer service.
Finding their fit
The Frasers didn’t always work in the inspection space. Before opening their franchise, Steve worked in the automotive industry on the finance side and Valerie worked in journalism and corporate communications. The couple also owned several of their own rental properties, which gave them an opening to the housing industry. Over the years, they upgraded their properties with renovations and grew their joint knowledge of property management.
Originally, Steve stepped into a lead role at their franchise while Valerie kept her previous job. Steve spent the last quarter of 2018 training for his home inspector certifications, and at the start of 2021 they were adding their first inspectors to the team as sub-franchisees. Eventually, in 2022, both Frasers felt it was best for Valerie to step in full time with their franchise and since doing so, their business has grown to new heights. Steve’s background experience with insurance, financing, and warranties would prove to be an asset in running their location, and Valerie’s ability to connect with others through her career experience would help their business expand over time.
“We said, ‘if we’re doing this, we’re doing it.’ So we got everything set up, I had the education portion in place, ready to go. Effectively, the day that I finished the job that I was at, that was the day that all the books came in the mail and the education side of it became my full time job,” says Steve.
Working together
Valerie and Steve’s day starts off with a five a.m. alarm and a cup of coffee. After handling their personal matters, they both find time to check in on their emails and plan out their busy days.
Valerie focuses a portion of her day on connecting with the leadership team and inspectors in business strategy sessions. With multiple strategy sessions a day, she maintains the pair’s close relationships with their team. Valerie’s background in communications also comes into play as she dedicates time to connecting with others on social media and LinkedIn, meeting the demands of current communications needs within the real estate industry.
The Frasers keep close bonds with their trusted realtors so they can collaborate on fulfilling the needs of their wide array of clients. Once a week, Valerie also takes part in a roundtable discussion on field franchise coaching with various franchisees across Canada and the U.S., where they can connect on their successes and challenges to support one another. Throughout all of this, Valerie is consistently crunching numbers and connecting with her leadership team. She’s intentional about keeping close contact with the various bodies of the ABCHI ecosystem, to be able to provide support for those that need it and gain insight on areas that she’s expanding on. This deep interpersonal connection has been a great help to their franchise, and they are happy they can now provide the same level of connection to incoming franchisees.
“ABCHI is not a place where you can buy in and just sit back and things will just happen,” says Valerie. “You need to be part of it. You need to constantly be moving, learning, and growing.”
Steve hits the road as soon as he can to do his own inspections and connect with his fellow inspectors. When he’s on the road, he’s available for hands-free calls to assist his inspectors whenever they need him and juggle which inspectors will take on which clients. Steve and his team of sub-franchisee inspectors travel throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan to see multiple clients a day, including realtors and homeowners. They work closely with homeowners when needed to teach them about their homes, ensuring they feel confident in dealing with their maintenance needs.
Once Steve is done traveling for the day, he can be found back at the office cleaning up reports and tackling his end-of-day emails. During this time, he also stays up to date on the newest software and products available to keep their franchise on the cutting edge of innovation. Whether it’s products to help their inspectors in the field or software to enhance their reports, Steve and Valerie both lead by example when it comes to maintaining the quality of their business.
Part of the team
“One of the biggest inspirations for us is that it is very much a growth mindset within the entire organization. Everyone’s constantly looking forward, everyone’s constantly doing more,” Steve shares.
The Frasers have seen firsthand through their regional owners how collaboration helps a business thrive. Cliff Campbell, Darci Campbell (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), and Rick Mayuk (Atlantic Canada, B.C., and Ontario) are the regional owners above the Frasers, and they have been supportive of their franchisees since day one.
Once their own location was up and running comfortably, Valerie and Steve knew they wanted to be more involved with the larger ABCHI community. When they attended the national ABCHI conference in 2023, they noticed that their regional owners had a high volume of people seeking their expertise in growing their franchises. The Frasers saw this as an opportunity to expand their responsibilities within the company. They asked their regional owners if there was any way that they could help support their fellow franchisees while taking some of the burden off of the regional owners’ shoulders. Valerie had undergone previous training in one-on-one coaching, so they mutually decided that her skillset could be used to coach franchisees within the company through the business strategy sessions, and she has been conducting them ever since.
Together, Valerie and Steve have also run the ABCHI “Bootcamp” for the last three years. The Bootcamp is an intensive online training program for new franchisees to learn all things ABCHI before opening their doors to clients. Through the joint collaboration of the Frasers and the regional owners, ABCHI teams across Canada continue to enrich each other’s businesses and propel each other forward to new success.
Looking into 2026 and beyond, Valerie and Steve hope to keep thriving, and want to support other franchisees as they do so. Their three-year growth plan contains many endeavours, including growing their sub-franchisee team of inspectors, creating more opportunities to support those same inspectors, and expanding the territories that they serve. The Frasers are passionate about educating homeowners, uplifting their team, and serving their communities as the industry continues to grow and change. Their drive and ambition are sure to power them through to a bright future.
“There’s no ceiling,” Valerie says. “Our leadership team has big goals, and I know they’re going to get there. I don’t think you can reach for those big goals if you don’t have a solid foundation and our leadership team has built a solid foundation under us, so we feel safe to grow.”
Learn more about franchising with A Buyer’s Choice Home Inspections
