I am excited to announce that the all new TexTrex Pro, version 14, has been released. TexTrex Pro is a 100% TREC compliant home inspection report and a commercial inspection report all in one. The commercial report is 100% InterNACHI ComSOP 2012 compliant. Conforming to InterNACHI ComSOP 2012 couldn’t be any easier because it is incorporated right into the report. TexTrex Pro also includes support for the United States Federal Housing Quality Standards United States Housing Act of 1937 (more commonly known as Section 8 ).
There is nothing else like TexTrex Pro available to Texas inspectors. The TREC standard is fairly rigid but the Texas Real Estate Commission does give the inspector some flexibility with report design and layout. Your TexTrex Pro layout is limited only by TREC regulations and YOUR imagination! You will be amazed at what you can do with TexTrex Pro. You can add sub-categories, program auto-narrative entries, auto-color narratives and so much more. The best part is that it is published and backed by one of the most experienced software publishers in the business, MSI’s BestInspectors.Net. No other national inspection software publisher has been supporting Texas for as long or as well as BestInspectors.Net.
TexTrex Pro is priced right too. Other software with similar features sells for as much as $2,500! (Well, technically, that’s not true because NO other inspection report has the capabilities of TexTrex Pro) Other software may have a low price to get you in the door but then you have to pay usage fees or subscription fees. At only $395 - $295 for InterNACHI members - and NO recurring usage fees or subscription fees, TexTrex Pro is an amazing value.
Their websites don’t have a blank sample PDF of their “TREC compliant” report form.
If you can get someone from that group to send me one I would appreciate it as there are few software providers who provide precisely correct TREC 7-2 templates.
Which, by the way, may be changed by 4Q12. I have a copy of the new/proposed 7-3 template, but until TREC gives the final OK it won’t be released until that time.
Thanks. I appreciate your concern. I (and Nick) can assure you that this is not our first time out of the gate. This is our 14th year publishing 100% TREC compliant reports. TREC Reporter is only one of several TREC compliant reports that we publish. We have a PDF TREC Template that has been free to InterNACHI members since at least 2006.
Thank you for your reply, but that still does not provide an answer to my question.
I would like to personally see and review your PDF copy of a produced TREC compliant report that is in the new advertising posted by Nick.
Not a hard question to answer it would seem to me.
I’ve been around a long time as well. 20 years doing commercial inspections and 10 doing residential.
Could you please send to my e-mail address a 7-2 TREC compliant template of your new offering that includes the commercial as noted in the advertising post?
Barry…draft versions of the proposed new TREC SOP and REI-7-3 form are available on the TREC website. They are due for review at TREC meetings later in the summer and possible adoption by the end of the year or so.
So, on REI-7-3 draft, they took out the “deficient” box, but in the draft of form rules, they say under section (5) “The inspector shall indicate, by checking the appropriate boxes on the form, whether each item was inspected not inspected or not present and explain the findings in the appropriate space of the form.”
Does this mean that we will have to write down that an item was functioning as designed and not just write down the deficiencies if it wasn’t functioning as designed?
Read the proposed SOP and the RULES “thoroughly” and understand what they say. The proposed template is quite nice in that regard.
The proposed SOP cleans up a LOT of historical, headache legacy and is a quantum leap forward. I am hopeful that it will get passed as it helps clarify and simplify many things … IE: AFCIs !!!
Why do we need “any” checkboxes? If one writes an adequate report and doesn’t rely on the ‘checkbox mode’ you don’t have any need for such.
Like you … I would like to see a PDF of the blank report that George’s product delivers … in light of the media announcement by Nick.
There are not any samples at the noted websites and maybe they will be available tomorrow when the product is made available, but one would think the sample report template would be presented as part of the marketing announcement.
Certainly don’t think it would be something along the lines of: “You have to pass it before you find out what is in it.”
I’m optimistic that George will provide the PDFs of the samples in short order.
Thanks Nolan, I have read it many times over and agree with you, it has been clean up and also agree with not really needing checkboxes.
My questions still remains.
As of right now, because we have that extra box “deficient”, when that is checked, we write up the deficiencies. However, if the “deficient” box is not checked, there is no need to write anything (whether I/we write up “This system functioned as intended” anyway or not)
The way I read it in the draft is that we might have to write up that a system is functioning.
If it is “broke” … then it is “broke” and you should write it up for your client.
Don’t do reports for the “agents”. They love the “deficient” checkbox.
Consider that most professional inspection reports exist without ANY checkboxes. They rely on the inspector to provide a clear, concise, narrative of the property, product, situation.
If TREC shuts down the proposal it will be due to the lobby from the agents and their control over the inspector community in Texas.
And there lies my point. We are on the same page, just seeing it a little differently.
The way I see it is that because there is that missing “deficient” box and the way the draft is written, it could indicate that we will have to write up the systems that are working, therefore “coloring” the report with working items and “catering” a little more to the RE agent and the sell of the house, instead of just writing up the deficient items.
During yesterday’s inspection, the buyer’s wife asked why I wasn’t commenting on the things that were working in the house. I replied because she didn’t hire for that. She hired me to find the things that were not “working” and that she already knew the stuff that was working and evident.
A few of us have downloaded George’s DEMO to take a view of the application, but it will not allow for printing of a template to see the “finished” / “delivered” product.
That being the case one cannot tell if the delivered product is fully TREC compliant or not from that perspective.
George has not yet provided a sample template or even screenshots at his website of a delivered product as well.
Initial view of the interior of the application does show some areas that are “not” compliant with the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) requirements … so the claim of being 100% compliant is incorrect.
Application may be good for some folks and work well, but if you are a Texas-licensed inspector I would be wary as the document does not appear to be fully compliant and if your delivered report ends up in the TREC offices for review you could be in for a surprise.
We’re still waiting for George to provide a sample PDF of a produced report, but until then my comment above will hold.
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UPDATE 06/15/2012:
George Wells, Mike Boyett and I had an extensive/long conference call on Thursday - 06/14/2012 and were able to go over our respective concerns about the TREC-Mandated Report Template. We focused on the 7-2 version (Note that both the 7A-1 and 7-2 are currently permitted for use and will possibly be replaced with a 7-3 version in 4Q12 or 1Q13).
All of us learned a lot and had a very good discussion about George’s application as it applies to the Texas TREC template.
George has already made substantial changes to the template that were concerns of both Mike and I. We (Mike and I) have also learned far more about the flexibility and capability of George’s product and know that it’s capabilities are quite extensive.
Due to my education/conversation with both George and Mike I can and will support George’s product as a very good application for use by Texas TREC-licensed as well as any other inspectors in other locations for their serious consideration in their inspection business.
There are many good applications out for consideration and George’s product should be in the top tier of one’s consideration.
I too downloaded the Demo version and agree with all Nolan has said. Be aware that the s/w is a macro-driven Excel spreadsheet that requires you to have Excel 2007 or 2010 on your computer in order to operate. It also requires the modification of security options in Microsoft Office (specifically Excel) to accept 3rd party macros, not just from TRECReporter, but from any source (best I can tell). That seems extremely risky to me. Anyway, like Nolan says, without the ability to see the final delivered report format then it’s impossible to confirm TREC compliance. I too saw several things right off the bat that seem to indicate it is not compliant however. The “commercial” template is minimal at best and I won’t even get into the claim of it being compliant. Bottom line…I’m underwhelmed by the s/w. Whisper Reporter (the universal report writing s/w that I use) runs circles around what I’ve seen so far.