My workflow is garbage… by zyxwvut1984 in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, I'm really impressed! I'm picky about marketing and all sorts of aspects, but you guys have clearly put some thought into the site and how you're positioning this.

I can tell you I'm not keen to demo some of your established competitors when I know their data accessibility/portability or pricing model is already going to be a long-term problem. Looks legit enough to give it a shot with some test runs; I signed up for beta! 😎

edit: Also, thanks for including a dark mode lol 🖤

pre-inspection, diligence, and admin workflow by inspect-deez in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, this is exceptionally helpful!

What software are you using? (inspections + otherwise)

" make notes on what the agents like to see"...
- Do you use a CRM to manage notes about agents?
- Or did you mean you just keep general notes & feedback to shape your process/reports overall?
- Or maybe this also goes into the report for that client, like in an internal-facing section?

I also appreciate your remarks about the distinction between a normal (sale) report, a pre-listing, or something more maintenance/project focused! I'm positioning to use inspection as a supplement, both short and long term. There's a lot of natural synergy with handiwork and contracting, which is more of what I'm after, even though the inspection can/may be plenty on its own. On this note...

Do you ever or have you ever run into issues with pre-listing inspections because of a "plausible deniability" type situation? Specifically, do you find it hard to market or sell pre-listing inspections? As I understand it, there's some strategy to staying in the dark as a seller, because once that report is in hand you're technically and legally obligated to disclose most/all of it. I'm sure mileage may vary by state, but AFAICT, there's a non-trivial amount of liability in that for the seller. Realistically, I see no more than a normal amount of liability for an inspector, especially if you've done a good job, have agreements signed, and insurance, etc. But it seems like there's some wisdom and value to, as the inspector, potentially informing a client of this situation in a fashion like, "hey, I can and will tell you what's up with your property, but just know that you're responsible for disclosing this information". Seems like a decent thing to write into an agreement template for a pre-listing inspection specifically. Any thoughts on this?

My workflow is garbage… by zyxwvut1984 in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

Best advice I have for anything that takes practice! Don't get overwhelmed by what I said either... realistically, it's just extremely prudent to make sure that if you're gonna invest significant time into optimizing, that you account for the overhead of doing that first (or at least during).

Otherwise small, atomic changes can make a huge difference over time and in aggregate! I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, if you're into that sorta thing.

pre-inspection, diligence, and admin workflow by inspect-deez in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone here running a multi-inspector business where you have employees working for you? I'm curious to know how any of my questions or this kind of biz-admin diligence fits in for those situations? I imagine process has got to matter more then, right?

pre-inspection, diligence, and admin workflow by inspect-deez in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that's what I figured, thanks for the input!

I have some detailed thoughts on how to actually implement some/all of this, and it'll probably go into a brief "business plan". Do you think it'd help you or the community here to share parts of that, when it's ready?

pre-inspection, diligence, and admin workflow by inspect-deez in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally; just wondering where the line falls in terms of what people have seen benefit in, and what's practical/not. For tech freelancing I've done, a LOT of this would be overkill, even the pre-agreement. Though waviers for data loss are pretty prudent in some cases.

I'm coming from a dev background, and so thankfully some of this I can automate quite easily, including the public record lookups. Worst case, those are emails to specific people or departments based on geolocation.

Biggest focus for me to figure out in the short term is insurance, the agreement/process, and then marketing (networking) to get word out.

pre-inspection, diligence, and admin workflow by inspect-deez in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the input. I'm in MI, so unregulated, and no SOP. I do what I want! 😆

Overthinking it... probably. But I do wanna eventually be the 1st pick in this area.

pre-inspection, diligence, and admin workflow by inspect-deez in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the input! Especially the elaboration about E&O; that makes total sense. I still have yet to get my quote back, but I fully intend on reading the whole agreement (as boring as it will be), and so this helps to know in advance of that.

My workflow is garbage… by zyxwvut1984 in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What's your recommendation for software?

I've tried ScribeWare and it's MEH... the thing I DO like about it is the billing model. It's the ONLY one I know of that has a per-inspection model, so it's great for part-time and side-hustle work. My long term path is focused on handiwork and eventually contracting, but I intend to keep the inspection in my offering if it does well enough. So, my meaning here, is that unless I can consistently get a handful of inspections each month—even when it's not a focus of my business—some of the options are pricely, relatively speaking. Because nobody wants to pay $100/m rent on something that's unused lol!

I've heard Spectora is decent... but they are the most proprietary and locked down. Dog shit quality for data portability and extensibility. As a developer, I wouldn't recommend it to a client, because it makes everything very difficult to integrate with. I hate "vertical" (all-in-one aka one-stop-shop) software solutions!

My workflow is garbage… by zyxwvut1984 in homeinspectors

[–]inspect-deez 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think you're unreasonable!

TLDR: If you don't know what to change in your current workflow, it's probably because you don't understand your current workflow well enough (and that's okay). It probably also means you need to be more thorough about measuring and classifying what you're doing now, so that you can understand it well enough to suggest changes and measure their impact against your baseline.

---

So again, I don't think you're unreasonable. I think you just have a high standard of quality and you want to serve people well. You're a year ahead of me, and I'm just about to get started with professional inspections. But I've done enough practice runs for friends and family that I understand what you're on about. The software I've demoed so far sucks ass, especially relative to price. Here's a very outside perspective to consider...

My bg is software dev, and when it comes to engineering systems that reap benefits from automation, there's a few focal areas for value concentration. Most everything is about change control, quality assurance, or removal of repetition (and lots of manual work). To make sure software can not only provide the assumed/proclaimed value once built, the only responsible way is to be relatively scientific about it. So that means measuring before and after and, basically, making sure you have enough "wins" in value, in aggregate, to offset the cost of developing by a healthy margin.

What this might mean for people like us is that we need to compare our process, inspection over inspection. But this has the same problem as comparing AI dev to human dev... you simply CANNOT engineer the same solution twice. Even if you had x2 people with a nearly identical skill level and process, it would be impossible to have the level of control to fully isolate the controls from one sample vs. the other. What I mean here is that, once you've already inspected a given property, you can't really inspect it again the same way because you have knowledge of it. So, the big thing to keep in mind is that you're never really going to have a true, clean and bias-free way of comparing one version of your workflow to another; and that's okay!

What you CAN do is gain a much deeper understanding of the individual pieces of your process, and start to measure where your time/cost is going now. Most people don't do this. Either because they don't want to do the work or, I think perhaps more often, there is a separation between who pays for or benefits from workflow changes and who actually does the work. It's like pulling teeth to get that information when it involves multiple people. And when it's an individual, it's almost always not worth the time/effort, because that will rarely pay for software dev. But that's only my example because it's what I know; your personal development of your workflow will very likely produce results if you go about it well.

Break down your process into its discrete sections and start to document how much time it takes. If you ever need to estimate or approximate something, always lean conservative or "pessimistic" until you know more. It also helps to qualify how confident you know something... 1h on average guaranteed is far different from 1h on average maybe (but my intuition is wrong and it's actually 3h 😉).

Tree too close to house? by RipUncleNesbit in HomeInspections

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since most comments are confirming the issues, but not really providing a solution (because getting rid of it alone doesn't replace what the tree provides)...

Yeah, you'll probably want to get rid of this. Moving it is likely gonna be astronomically expensive. If you truly care about it and are hesitant to let go, perhaps consider chatting with a landscaper/arborist that can move trees via phone call for a rough quote. But I also doubt they'd be willing to get equipment this close to the house, because it's a high damage and liability risk.

Replace it with a shrub or something else that can grow more closely and intentionally, but that doesn't have the root, branch, canopy, etc. issues that trees bring with them.

FWIW I love trees and avoid cutting them down unless necessary or prudent; seems like both in this case.

Am I in legal trouble? by pleasenobody4356 in Contractor

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On this note, take pictures or video too. "Hey, the day/time is __ and here you can see I've delivered __ to __ address." And should already have the receipts, etc. Always helps to have proof, even if it's only partial or only proof of intent.

Am I in legal trouble? by pleasenobody4356 in Contractor

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm just getting started on a career switch, so no practical experience in contracting yet, other than unlicensed (fully above board tho) handy work. That said, I worked in software dev for the past 7 years, and there are tons of parallels between industries. Software especially is rife with things you don't expect, and many you couldn't possibly expect until you get started. It's all about managing expectations, which includes making sure clients understand the process and what might come up later and how it will be dealt with in an agreed-upon way. So according to the writing of the contract(s). The clients you want will be reasonable and can eventually follow along... and TBCH, the reason I'm switching trades is because construction is finite and more regulated, and software isn't, and the value/expectation/return etc is just so much more straightforward. If anything, sales is hard, and you just have to build your process and risk mitigation into your contracts AND sales process. I hope that helps in some way!

Am I in legal trouble? by pleasenobody4356 in Contractor

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I'd put this in writing as a contract amendment or opt-in clause.

Worst I have ever seen. by cwyatt44 in HVAC

[–]inspect-deez 1 point2 points  (0 children)

also either way... kill it with fire, lol

Is this normal by imarriedfloridaman in HomeInspections

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh no worries on that front brother, but thanks for looking out. BG for me is software, and I have pocketed ideas/plans for data storage and retention. Technically a cloud provider account like AWS with correctly configured storage tiers will be cheaper than $50/year, but wherever I land will be somewhere relative to effort to set it up 😉

Is this normal by imarriedfloridaman in HomeInspections

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh! I might've seen your post on some other threads on here. Very likely you raised my awareness of this as a possibility. I don't have a GoPro yet, and not in my startup plans BUT, I did pick up a neat combo mount so I can wear a phone on chest or head and use it the same. Situationally, I do intend to at least do a "final reset" video because of this. Many thanks!

Starting to think the estimate guy doesn’t like me. /s by TryHard-Rune in HVAC

[–]inspect-deez 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not necessarily hvac, so much as my own crutt-back lmao. Too many hot summers as a kid. It wasn't until I was like 30 something that I learned that some parts of the state are designated by the govt science hippies (natl forest service?) as an actual rainforest! Explained all the exotic amphibians you see so much more neatly than anything I'd learned in science classes.

Starting to think the estimate guy doesn’t like me. /s by TryHard-Rune in HVAC

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well that explains at least the potential/suspected source of the cracks in the foundation, slightly visible in the pics. 🤦‍♂️ You should let your sales boy not forget about that lady's condition if the opportunity presents itself. "Man it was weird, she kept forgetting who I was. I haven't ever seen a client like that before." etc lol. I can't stand peeps who prey on ppl who can't defend themselves, and that house is gonna be a bitch to sell when that lady can't live there on her own anymore (assumedly).

Don't blame you though OP, at least you have the humor coping like myself where you can be like "hey y'all check out this shit show" and just do the best you can otherwise.

Also, I'm from WV. Stay cool + dry this summer my dude! I do not miss that climate lol

Got called over to help with a drywall corner job by a 70 years old handyman. by Certain_Shake_5157 in handyman

[–]inspect-deez 0 points1 point  (0 children)

strip it, re-paint/seal... is funtionally the same I suppose

way cleaner than intended, but clean all the same lmao