As in, you finish the report and either wait to send it or setup a delay in your auto-delivery system?
I usually do and the main reason is a value-perception thing. I don’t want to get $450 for a condo inspection and deliver the report 2 hours later. I fear people will think I raced through the property and/or that I’m charging too much. A secondary, and pretty rare, benefit is that I later think of something and want to change the report. This doesn’t come up much but there have been instances. I’m just wondering if I’m a nut and should just send the report when I’m done?
For years prior to inspecting, and even now part time, I bartend which is basically moving as efficiently and fast as I can (while still doing a good job, of course) and a lot of that trickled into my inspecting. I can get through inspections pretty quickly after many years and being super-familiar with my software. I suppose the real question I’m asking here is, how quick is too quick to drop a report on someone and not have them question the quality/time spent? I had a brief conversation with @mcrow1 at a convention once and he thought everyone is in such a hurry during a transaction that they’d appreciate the report ASAP. I love Mike’s insight and vision of the industry which is one of the reasons I am always questioning myself on this.
Anyway, this isn’t a life-changing topic or question… just wondering what you all do?
My thinking may not be common, I don’t know for sure. But over the years I’ve developed a comfort with hiring the experts when I need them. And, honestly, I hire them for their experience/expertise and the amount of time it takes them to perform the task doesn’t seem that important,
I do exactly what you say Matt. I tell people up front the report will be posted the following day. Even if I finish it the same day, most often, I wait. I have in the past thought of things I wanted to change or say differently in the interim.
Matt, I highly regard your ability not only to preform at a very high level but to report on a high level as well. As yourself, I charge $450.00 for a condo inspection, private area only. But to be able to provide a report 2 hours afterwards would be almost imposable now. I use to though.
Now I write long reports. Typically 65-70 pages for a 1 bedroom one bathroom condo. Add 10 pages for common areas.
That being said. Do the math. 1 hour traveling time. 1 hour on site. 1 hour regular pre-inspection preparation. 2 hours to write the report. That is 5 hours in total. When you deduct what it cost you on average to produce a report, you are bringing home $300.00 or less. That is not big money for the liability we as home inspectors take on daily.
I think setting a auto-delay would help the average first time purchasing client digest the cost. As for seasoned real estate purchasers, I do not think they would mind.
You just saw a knowledgeable inspector go through a property efficiently.
Do you think he’s going to find more problems once he’s left the property or do you think he’s got it all figured out?
I leave the customers with “I’m going to go through the report, touch up the narratives and publish when I finish. We discussed the points of concerns and the report will generally be published this evening or tomorrow.”
Usually I get home, add the thermal images, fix typos, clean up the language a little and publish. Often within a few hours.
That said, I’m not as busy with inspections as most of y’all. Typically I do 1-2 full inspections a week and a smattering of the 4 point and wind mits. Granted I’m also doing listing agent repairs as well, but those can float timewise usually. Two weeks ago, I did 3 full inspections, 7 ancillary inspections and still managed to publish within hours. Shrug.
I am more old school and email my finished reports when I finish them. Since I wrote my own report form many years ago in the infancy of electronic reporting, I don’t use any of the commercial reports. My reports are 90% finished at the inspection. I tell my clients at the end of the inspection that I will finish the report at my office and email it to them this evening, but sometimes that will be as soon as I can get it done. A buddy likes to do his reports the next morning, but I seem to loose information from my mental hard drive over night, so I do my reports the same day.
I get a lot of my report done during the inspection but I add my drone photos and crawlspace/attic/roof photos at home. I don’t type while I’m up high or crawling, I have to concentrate on inspecting.
Delaying the report a few hours does give me a chance to edit the report, fix type’os , and I think also may allow the client to realize that my work is not all done in the 3 hours I spent onsite. I may go for a hike and eat dinner before sending the day’s reports out. For the same reasons Matt mentioned in the original post on this topic.
A few days ago I read your comment about this very thing and decided to try it. I just now sent my report that I wrote yesterday and I was surprised what a difference it made. I made several small changes just after proof reading the following morning. Thanks for your insight, even though it wasn’t directed at me.
I gather all the information onsite and use my phone to take pictures and they get inserted directly into the line item of the defect. I then upload to the cloud, download to my desktop, add drone shots or zoom shots from my panasonic zoom camera, and then I go through each defect and refine the report by adding more specific information and details such as location of defects.
I then print it into a PDF, put together any other reports such as WDI, Sewer scope, Radon Test, and email them out. If it only takes me 20 minutes at the desktop, then so be it, but I will usually take a lunch break when I arrive back at the office/home before I put the reports together, so that takes at least 30 minutes which would be added to the report delivery time.
Back in the day when I was doing 2 a day, I would always prefer to finish the first inspection report before heading out to my second job.
Yeah, a couple other things that speed me up - Here on Maui most of what I get for condos are small (<800sf) oceanfront units. 99% are vacation rentals that people pay a bunch for and the guests are super-picky. I rarely find much wrong so the reports are very quick to write. Usually just stuff about HVAC age and a couple other things typically. It’s almost as if the units are being inspected continually by anal vacationers I do a bit of handyman work for some friends/family on their units and the things people will call and complain over are laughable - I recently went to a unit because the water from a couple holes in the shower head was spraying out at an angle due to some minerals clogging the opening. I wiped my finger across it and was done… Basically, what I do in my own shower every other day. Yeah, first-world problems to say the least.
Another twist it 90%+ of the time I’m alone. Typical scenario is a buyer is in town to shop and once they make an offer they’re back home. Being vacation rentals there are always door codes so the agents just throws me a code and I’m on my own. I roll in and am free in a unit alone. I can easily inspect and knock out the report in < 2 hours. It’s actually pretty nice… Not only am I not paying what most people do to be in the unit staring at the ocean… I’m getting paid! Life would be particularly grand if I could just fill my schedule with inspections here and quit the bartending gig. Volume is generally down here due to rates and lack of inventory. Plus, I’m still pretty new-ish here still.
Hi Matt, my thinking is similar to you. The majority of my clients are first time home buyers and the perception of time v money spent seems to be important to them. For the last couple years I delay all reports to send in the evening, but still go the same day. I’ve never had a complaint, so if anything it doesn’t hurt.
Some years ago, I had a student who was a Hawaiian Japanese American native. She wanted do home inspections for Japanese citizens who were buying vacation homes (nearly all condos) in Hawaii. She told me there was not a single Japanese speaking home inspector there. I told her “Brilliant” I often think of her, but have no idea how she’s doing.
Never really thought about delaying delivery before. We do turn off text notifications if the report is published after 8-9PM.
We shoot a ton of videos to explain what we see (and what’s wrong) and tell the clients that, thankfully, our software allows us to complete 90-95% of the inspection on-site. Then it’s just a question of cleaning up/clarifying narratives and sending it. I suppose we could set a delay up but a lot of our clients/realtors have a 5 day inspection period and they’re already breathing down our necks. LOL!! I guess for us we publish the same day because then if they have questions or need clarification they can call us that evening.
Once the next day is going yesterday is gone!
I always tell my clients that the report will be ready for viewing and printing “tomorrow afternoon”, on the day following the inspection. I mostly take photos during the inspection, but also make notes in the report as I go, about observed defects or brand names of components. Then I have plenty of time while finalizing the report on the laptop or PC, to review the photos, adding circles or arrows to clarify comments, etc. During this quality time, I often find details in the photos that I was unable to notice with my own eyes in the bright sunlight, or water stains in the dark recesses of the attic or crawlspace. The camera even has a way of catching telltale shadows on the ceiling that suggest water leaks from above.
I’m glad you posted this Matt. I thought I was one of the few that did this. For many of the same reasons, I delay sending out most reports. I agree that perception can be affected by giving a report out too early.
Think of it like this. Let’s say you take your truck in to have the transmission replaced and that same day you get it back with a $4,000 bill. I think most people would feel better about spending that hard earned money if the job took a week. I know, time is money, but that’s how many folks perceive quick service.
Like many of you out there, I also sometimes make a revision or two after having time to contemplate the inspection. A fringe benefit I suppose. Great comments guys!
So, after reading through this thread, I’m curious where all the inspectors are that deliver onsite reports are and why they’re not on here explaining the advantages of delivering them that way.
Although I haven’t seen him post here in a few years, Jeff Pope, whom I have a great amount of respect for, was a big proponent of delivering onsite reports.
I do a bit of handyman work for some friends/family on their units and the things people will call and complain over are laughable - I recently went to a unit because the water from a couple holes in the shower head was spraying out at an angle due to some minerals clogging the opening. I wiped my finger across it and was done… Basically, what I do in my own shower every other day. Yeah, first-world problems to say the least.
I’m too busy to delay inspection reports. I just don’t have time to play games with my time.