TOPIC: HIP report time

David, My hat's off to you!
If you can make a report your comfortable with, that's great. Not that it should take longer to be good either!

I think you have better construction standards in OH too!

I'm not putting your plan down, just making a point to all that often a HI gauges their pay by the time in the field and the report is the "necessary evil" they have to deal with.

I will continue with my long report writing, but I also realize I can't go up against the check box, pencil and paper HI! I charge more than most, but my clients want to know "when" not "how much do you charge?" so price is not much of an object.

Dominic knows it takes me a while to finish reports.  Depending upon the condition of the home, sometimes a report takes me a few hours.  The other day I had 269 pictures and used many of them.  It was a 59-page report and took about 4-5 hours, maybe it was 6 hours.  I thought this is too long and would enjoy more family time despite the necessary evil of the reporting time.  My last inspection report took about 1.5 hours but the home was in fairly good shape.  My reports are thorough, as is the inspection (like all of us). I think I'll get better as my library becomes more complete for me (HIP).  Someday maybe I could print on site, but I doubt it.
v/r
Greg

There's a pretty quick drop it time over your first month or two. Like David Macy said above, he was averaging 2 hours for the first month, now he just finished a 30 min report, and the rest are about an hour.

Now, if you're going to be inserting 269 photos, you figure it takes 30 seconds to import them all. 5 seconds per photo to set the correct section is 23 minutes alone. If you add arrows or some other annotation to 1/4 of those and spend 20 seconds per photo you've added another 20 minutes, another 20 seconds on 1/4 for captions and you've basically taken an hour to setup your 269 photos. You might want to post one of your reports on here for other guys to comment on (they play nice, don't worry). I have a feeling that there's some areas where you can shave off major time. Also, simply as you do more reports, the narratives become yours like you mentioned, you memorize where your comments are and whip through the report.

I have a few things cooking to greatly reduce the photo time even more (it's already one of the #1 features that people say they like when moving from another program).

Gregory, When I get a home that has 250 things to take pictures of, it is very likely that the client won't buy the house or already knows that they are going to rip the house apart.

Back to what I was saying about room-to-room vs. component reporting; There comes a time where you just have to say that you need a plumber to go over everything and fix because there a numerous deficiencies in that area. There is really no need to list exposed wire nut by wire nut! There are also only so many things you really need a picture for.

Ben Kelly and I are big on photo taking and posting, but there comes a point...

I have about done away with my digital recorder (only because I am not doing three inspections a day now) and take a picture of everything and do the report from the pic's. I only use about 1/3rd of the pic's I take. A lot I upload for safe keeping but do not publish in the report.

If I were you, I would consider getting with your client when you see that your report is going to take all day and let them know that you have no intention of reporting every defect. It is about meeting your clients expectations. As long as their not expecting every defect noted, they won't care.

You go from "there is an ungrounded outlet in the left rear corner of the left rear bedroom on the second floor and one in the right rear corner......"

To; There are numerous ungrounded outlets throughout the house, have an electrician test/evaluate and repair as required.

If the client expects you to name everything, give them a quote for $2,300!
Your family time is worth that.

David,
You bet--and I'm working toward that.  I'd like a 30-minute report time but especially three inspections a day!  Nice!!!

Greg

Gregory, When I get a home that has 250 things to take pictures of, it is very likely that the client won't buy the house or already knows that they are going to rip the house apart.

Back to what I was saying about room-to-room vs. component reporting; There comes a time where you just have to say that you need a plumber to go over everything and fix because there a numerous deficiencies in that area. There is really no need to list exposed wire nut by wire nut! There are also only so many things you really need a picture for.

Ben Kelly and I are big on photo taking and posting, but there comes a point...

Haha. Yes, I have a copy of Ben's 99 page, 400 picture report!! I thought that was the most ever used in Home Inspector Pro, but then William DeVries did a 1000+ report, but that was on 12 or 24 condo complex (can't remember which).