IS MY SOFTWARE MEETING MY NEEDS?

I had a good experience this past week talking with a good friend who inspects nearby and he was once again railing on his inspection software firm. He chose his software about 13 months ago because of some promises made by the software company that have yet come to pass. The promise was simple....... "We are about to release a version of our software that will work on wither the Palm or the Pocket PC." Combine that promise with a lower investment amount than the 3D software and the hook was set and the sale was made.

The last 13 months have been filled with frustration and broken promises from the inspector's software company. I have spoken with him on several occasions over that time frame and have just shook my head with disgust. Not for his judgement, but with the broken promises upon which he has placed the ease with which he conducts his report generation. It is one thing when you can't pick up your e-mail because of software glitches. It is another thing when your ability to crank out your product is affected. His original $700 investment has allowed him to limp through the last year, but he is still not producing reports in the manner which he was originally pursuing. His vision was to produce reports using a handheld machine.

So what was the straw that broke the camels back? His software firm was bought out by another and the policies have now changed. The long awaited handheld version of his software is going to be released soon. He must now pay for the upgrade and follow that investment with a $40 to $50 monthly payment to get the permission to use up to 50 handheld reports a month. Let's check the math....... 12 x $40 or $50 = $480 to $600 per year from here on out. If you exceed the 50 reports per month, then you must pay more for the privilege. I think the breaking moment was that one has to pay for the continued use of the software and not just for the privilege of upgrading. In other words, if you don't keep paying the fee then the software expires and you cannot use it anymore.

The monthly fee made me step back and re-evaluate the 3D software subscription plan that one could argue is just an $8.50 per month subscription fee. On the surface you might just group the inspection software firms together in the same pot, but 3D's philosophy is different. Their annual subscription fee is optional. If you don't buy it, then you just don't get any future upgrades. Your software does not expire within a month. You can use the current version an unlimited amount of times until your life expires. You don't have to upgrade. So why get the subscription plan?

I believe the best reason to invest in the 3D subscription plan is to take advantage of new features that upgrades offer. The $100 per year fee entitles you to automatic upgrades and lets you have all of the newest features. Their development team is constantly working on either the Office Management, Report Writer or the Pocket Report Writer softwares. They have a wish list of features for each that comes from the user's request and they continue to make improvements. Inspection software is evolutionary and there is a constant need to update the software to work smoothly with new operating systems and take advantage of new technologies. I look at this as a plus having a team working to keep my business software on the cutting edge.

In talking at length with my friend about his software woes I finally asked him what his real goals were for producing reports. His response was that he longed for the day when he could use a handheld flawlessly on site. He also wanted the ability to modify his reports. And finally, he wanted his software to be his outright and not at the mercy of monthly relicensing fees. Then I asked him why he was staying with his software firm since there was nothing but red flags and none of his software goals were coming to fruition to which he responded, "Well I guess I have gotten my $700 worth out of my software, so there is really nothing holding me back from switching." With that we went ahead and set him up with a trial version of 3D to see if it would fit his needs. His investment will be outright. He can modify his reports to his liking. And the Pocket Report Writer has been in use for a couple of years now. This sounds like the perfect mating of an inspector with a software solution. I think the biggest excitement for him is that he won't have to lug his laptop out onto the inspection site again.

AII EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S ADDRESS

Hello A.I.I. Members,

I have just returned from the Oregon Home Inspector's Advisory Committee (HIAC) meeting in Salem, OR. Even though this may be of more interest to Oregon inspectors, our brothers and sisters south of our border are facing the certainty of state regulation in the near future. I hope it may be of interest to you and others to see how things work in the state of Oregon.

HIAC meets 3-4 times a year to discuss home inspector issues. We review claims made against home inspectors (there have actually been very few), work on improving the certification test, make recommendations for the contractors board to review and pass onto legislators, approve or deny applications for inspection schools hoping to provide continuing education programs/courses and a few other misc duties. The first two hours are spent in Executive Session where we work on enforcement issues and test questions then the meeting is opened up to the public.

We had a very full agenda at this meeting and didn't get through all of it even with going over our scheduled time (normally 4 hours). Since we have some big issues we are working on we will go back again next month (Mar 8) and try to get through some more. Each HIAC member has research assignments to complete and bring back to the group for next meeting.

A big issue for many of us has always been Pest & Dry Rot inspections which are currently not included in regulation for Certified Home Inspectors. For a bit of history; a person performing home inspections in Oregon must be Certified if they inspect more than one component of the home. A component being roof, chimney, HVAC, plumbing, electrical etc., but not inclusive of Pest & Dry Rot inspections. It would be very difficult for an inspector to be successful in Oregon if not performing P & D's since most inspectors do.

At this time the only requirement for performing a P & D is that the person have an active contractor's license. They don't necessarily have to know anything about wood destroying pests or rot to legally perform these inspections and there is no reference to this in the testing requirements for a contractor's license. There are also a whole other group of pest control operators who perform 'free' inspections in conjunction with pest control extermination. Inspections performed by pest control operators are not valid for the sale of real property unless the operator also holds an active contractors license. Whew, it is pretty involved but please try to stay with me.

At the last two HIAC meetings we have had discussion and started working towards a proposal for the contractors board to review and forward to their legislators. We did vote within HIAC and get approval to add P & D as a section on the Oregon Certification test. The inspection associations have been asked to bring back education information, proposals for standards of practice and proposed test questions to the next meeting. This will add credibility to Certified Home Inspectors in this area. The other part of this is getting to the point where everyone performing a P & D is required to be Certified by the state. Wahoo!!!

Any discussion of state certified P & D in the past has been a very heated issue. This is being approached as a separate certification so those who want to perform only P & D's do not have to be certified for whole house inspections also. This whole issue has felt like an uphill battle to me until this meeting when representatives from the Oregon Pest Control Association attended the public session to voice their support for this! They have asked that the language from this point forward be referred to as Wood Destroying Organism inspections. I have heard many different acronyms; P & D, T & D etc. but I promise to clean up my language at this point to be politically correct. We are not in complete agreement on all of the details but this is progress in this area. I guess you can tell I'm a bit excited. I know the pink cloud will pass, there will be many hurdles to jump over and this will most like take two years to complete but to get the OPCA and the Contractor's Board working together to reach a common goal is pure Gold. I also felt pretty proud that A.I.I. was the only association represented that already has an approved WDO course with the state of Oregon. Kudos to Ron Cloyd for that.

Next issue, Smoke Alarms. There has been quite a bit of discussion on our inspection AII Hotline recently regarding the new Smoke Alarm Requirements. HIAC did not feel a need to change our standards to include checking for a 15 minute hush feature or a 10 year battery. This is an individual business decision. If you want to do it, fine. If you don't want to do it, fine. As with anything new that you do in your business make sure you review any new liability this may bring you.

There were some proposed changes to the Oregon Standards of Practice from a person in another inspection association which I opposed. It included language to 'explain whether and why if not self-evident, a system or component is unsafe, significantly deficient, or near the end of its service life'. To me this implied becoming an electrician, an HVAC tech etc. and performing destructive discovery. He decided that was not what he meant and took it back to his drawing board. We also approved two schools to provide education in approved subject areas and denied one. At this time approved subject areas do not include Mold. This is still considered an environmental issue.

At our next meeting we will have discussion on expanding our approved subject area. Three items we didn't get to on the agenda were; 1) Discussion on background checks becoming a requirement for home inspectors, 2) Discussion on whether certain work experience should qualify for CEU's and 3) Discussion on contracting out certification test development and administration. Number 1 will bring us closer to the possibility of the Oregon and National Association of Realtors accepting us a professionals and allowing us more affiliate membership benefits (key cards for access). It sounds like the discussion may center around this being a voluntary thing. Number 2 came as a result of an inspector spending some learning time with an HVAC contractor on the job. Number 3 - I don't know what they are thinking of here but we spend two hours of our meeting working on the test so I am open to discussion if this will lead to a more effective use of our time.

Oregon certification for home inspectors went into effect in July of 1998. This article is meant to give you some information on how things continue to work. As always, I appreciate and welcome any feedback, opinions, ideas or just general comments. I am so grateful for Jon Gudnason, Jim Lucas and our other members who are taking an active role in the California regulation process. Steve Bradley worked very hard on HIAC in the beginning to validate and ensure A.I.I.'s place in this process. Although not the biggest association in Oregon we are very well respected.

The details for our Spring Conference will be finalized Monday. The brochure is on the way to the printer. For those of you who don't know, the dates are set for April 5 - 7 in Reno, Nevada. Please read next week's MMM for more on the conference (I think I've used up my space for this week).

On a personal note, Nathan & Misty are very pregnant. The baby is due March 5th. It has been so fun watching them enjoy and prepare for this blessing. They spent their entire Saturday last week at the hospital getting certified to perform baby CPR, in addition to doing baby classes every Tuesday evening. No, they don't know the gender of this child, although Nate has done some of his own blue baby clothes shopping. The office is soon to be outfitted with a bassinet for our newest inspector!

Thank you for allowing me to be your Executive Director.

Best regards, Betty Buckley

QUESTIONABLE BROKER ACTIONS

Ken Ives from Sacramento, CA passed along this interesting article that flashed up on a pop up menu while he was surfing the web. Especially of interest is item #7 that deals with inspectors.

Ten Things Your Real Estate Broker Won't Tell You By Michael Kaplan January 15, 2002

1. "Your open house is really a party for me." Hire a real estate broker to sell your home and one of the first things he'll likely suggest is hosting an open house, so potential buyers can casually check out your property on a weekend afternoon. While open houses are promoted as a great way of finding a buyer, a National Association of Realtors study found that their success rate is a mere 2%. No matter. Having an open house serves another important purpose — for the broker. "It gives him a database of clients," says Sean McNeill, an independent real estate broker based in New York City who says that he doesn't like open houses, preferring to match clients with appropriate buyers. "At open houses, you get all kinds of people walking in. Some are [trying] to see how much they should sell their own places for; others just want to get a look at what's out there." All are perfect pickings for a broker looking to increase his roster of buyers and sellers. "Think about it," McNeill says. "The broker is devoting a couple hours of a weekend. He won't do that unless it helps him in a big way."

2. "My fees are negotiable." Brokers like to make it sound as if their fees are engraved in stone, but that's rarely the case — especially in a brisk market, when brokers fiercely compete for properties they can unload fast. This past summer one broker in the Midwest says he lowered his fee by a full percentage point because there was so much demand for good properties that he needed leverage. Indeed, says the broker, who asked not to be named, sellers should shop around for broker's fees. He suggests these negotiating tactics: "If somebody's willing to commit to me for selling one place and buying another, I give a discount. If you're in a particularly desirable neighborhood with a house that will bring a lot of traffic" — say, at an open house — "that can be used, because the broker will use the flow of people to get potential customers. And with some [smaller] brokers, all you need to do is ask and they'll lower the commission."

3. "Think you've had no offers? Actually, there've been several." Legally, the broker you hire to sell your home is obligated to tell you about all offers that come in. In reality, some don't. Perhaps he thinks the offer is insultingly low for you, but more likely, "the broker thinks it's too low for his own purposes. He wants to hold out for a bigger commission," says McNeill. Or else there's an outside broker (or "co-broker") circling your house, and the primary broker is waiting for one of his own clients to make an offer so he can keep the full 6% to himself. "You must be clear with your broker that you want to be informed of all offers," McNeill says. "Otherwise, you may be leaving him to make decisions that you should be making." Check the listing agreement drawn up when you hire the broker; if the promise to disclose all offers isn't listed explicitly, insist that it be added.

4. "I talk about you behind your back." You spot your dream house as you're driving through a neighborhood and call the broker listed on the For Sale sign. That's how a lot of buyers stumble on a broker — who, in turn, happily shows you other houses, asking about your needs, laughing at your jokes. It's easy to get loose-lipped and forget whom you're dealing with: someone else's agent. "Legally, brokers are obligated to provide their sellers with any information that can help them get the best prices for their homes," says Stephen Israel, president of Buyer's Edge, a Bethesda, Md.Ðbased company that represents homebuyers. "If you tell the broker that you're willing to pay $500,000 but want to offer $450,000, they'll pass that on to the seller. They have to." Also, some brokerage companies encourage prospective buyers to get preapproved for loans. While that can make a buyer more attractive to a lender, it also tells a broker whether a buyer can afford a $600,000 house when he's trying to haggle on a $400,000 property. "When somebody asks for [a preapproval], find out who they're representing," says Israel, acknowledging that such details can short-circuit your negotiating leverage. "If they represent a seller — or someone in their office does — they shouldn't have it. The broker may tell you she will be impartial, but how can she be?"

5. "Sometimes I forget whose side I'm on." The past 10 years have seen the proliferation of the buyer broker, agents who are supposed to work strictly in the buyer's interest, helping him get a fair price on a home as well as avoid pitfalls along the way. Unfortunately, things don't always unfold so nicely. While buyers may think they're getting a broker who isn't commission-hungry, many buyer agents are just that: They usually get about 3%, the same amount any broker typically earns when he gets involved with another agent's listing. "Buyer brokers are sometimes too focused on closing the sale and getting that commission," says Max Gordon, an Overland Park, Kan.Ðbased real estate broker and attorney, so it's often in their best interest to see you pay as high a price as possible. Even worse, some brokers who call themselves buyer advocates are actually working for companies that also represent sellers. "Brokerages offer bonuses to buyer agents if they sell an in-house listing," says Israel. A good way to get a broker who has no such conflicts of interest: The National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents, whose Web site (www.naeba.com) can help you find a buyer agent near you who pledges to help you get the best deal possible and has no ties to sellers' agents; many even work on a fee structure rather than on commission.

6. "I know zilch about zoning." Real estate agents love to suggest big ideas to prospective buyers — say, removing trees to enhance a view, or even squeezing a rental unit out of a roomy garage — meant to happen once the deal is done and they're out of the picture. "We had a client who bought a dilapidated house with a beautiful piece of property on a marshland," recalls Manhattan-based architect Mary Langan. "The broker told him that he could fix the house up however he wanted, insisting that this was a sleepy little town where nobody would care what he did. He put up a $15,000 shed in his backyard, pulled down trees, filled in some of the marshland. Now the town is making him put things back because of environmental zoning regulations." The lesson: Before you buy into your broker's creative thinking, check with your local zoning commission.

7. "I won't let termites — or pesky inspectors — kill a deal." If a broker is selling a house, you figure he knows the place pretty intimately — after all, he talks a good game about the new kitchen, the big closets, the heated garage. What you need to worry about, though, are the home's features that he keeps to himself. Steve Van Grack, chairman of the Maryland Real Estate Commission, says, "We have had cases where [brokers have] been deceptive about termites and flood damage." You'd figure that the home inspector, who comes to check out the place before you close the sale, might notice those things. And he will — if he's not in cahoots with the broker. "Realtors give potential homebuyers lists of home inspectors," says S. Woody Dawson, a structural inspector in Connecticut. "Those are people who will rubber-stamp the house" in return for repeat business. As one who works outside those lists, Dawson says that he sometimes butts heads with overly controlling brokers. "One time I had a broker tell me that unless I told her the results of my inspection — which is confidential between myself and my client — she wouldn't let me get up on the roof. I got out my ladder and told her that unless she was big enough to stop me, I was going up there. She wasn't big enough."

8. "I'm not a lawyer, but I play one in your house." Most states strictly regulate the contracts used in real estate transactions, stipulating the use of boilerplate agreements that offer little room for creativity — but some brokers can't keep their clause adding instincts in check. "I see [brokers] pushing the envelope all the time with amendments and addenda," says Gordon. "They draft language that can have consequences without really understanding it — but they want to keep the sale going." For example, Gordon points out, it's fairly common for "a transaction to close on one day but possession doesn't happen until a later date, in which case the buyer rents the house back to the seller for those days." Gordon warns that issues of responsibility for the house require more than a couple lines from the broker's pen. If a clause is worded improperly, you as the buyer could end up liable for damage done by your "rental tenant." Same goes for purchases of non-real-estate items (such as patio furniture) and owner carryback (in which the seller provides some of the financing). "In both cases payment terms might not get spelled out clearly," Gordon says, "and can result in one party taking advantage of the other." Whether you're the buyer or the seller, it's worth the legal fees, he says, to get the offer contract reviewed by your lawyer before you sign.

9. "My Web site is a dead end." Considering that over 50% of house hunters look on the Web, according to the National Association of Realtors, sellers might assume that using a broker with a site can help make a sale happen. But some brokers' sites are better than others, and you need to look beyond a well-designed home page to figure that out. One common flaw: posting houses that sold long ago. While the mistake can be simple negligence, others think that it's a bait-and-switch-style ploy. "It brings people in, but it gets them upset when they find out that the property's [gone]," says Frank D'Ostilio Jr., president of William Orange Realty in the New Haven, Conn., area. "If a broker has to advertise properties that are already sold, it tells you that he doesn't have enough inventory to keep his [roster of houses] full." Aside from checking up on a site's prominently placed listings, prospective sellers should also make sure that a site is easy to navigate. Roger Lautt, a Chicago-based broker with Re/max Exclusive Properties, has had his own site up for the past five years. "You want to use a broker who keeps himself relatively high on the search engines," advises Lautt, adding that he pays a Webmaster to make sure this happens for his site, which is linked with Realtor.com, Yahoo! and the Re/max site. "One of the big things a broker should have on his site is community information," Lautt says — schools, recreation facilities, commuting options, maps — "which attracts people who are thinking of moving to the community."

10. "You may not need me at all." Brokers like to create a lot of mystique about selling homes, insisting that the process is complicated and best left to professionals with multiple listings and loads of house hunters. Not so, say homeowners who have sold their homes themselves (about 20 to 30% do so each year). William Supple, publisher of the sale-by-owner real estate magazine Picket Fence Preview and author of How to Sell Your Own Home, says that "properly priced and advertised, a house sells itself," adding that sellers should plant a yard sign and post online ads with local sites aligned with print publications (call current advertisers to see if the given site is effective). After all, when it comes to the inevitable negotiations between buyers and sellers, Supple figures that brokers and their commissions get in the way: "Usually, the haggling occurs over a 5 to 10% difference, and that is, more or less, the broker's cut of the sale price. You don't need him." Just be sure you price your home well. The way most self-sellers hurt themselves, Supple says, is in setting either an unreasonably high or tragically low asking price. "Hire an independent appraiser for $200," he suggests, "and he will tell you [the parameters of] what to charge." In a strong market with low interest rates, he adds, the asking price can be 10 or 15% above what the appraiser thinks it will go for; in a weak market it might be wise to price at or below the appraisal.

PHOTO CHALLENGE #89 FEEDBACK

Have you ever seen anything like this? What could cause this to happen?

Yes and I think the cause was a loose connection either a wire or a fuse if you have a fuse loaded close to its maximum of 80% example 30 amp fuse loaded at 24 amps and you have a loose connection you develop a heat problem that means more resistance that causes more heat and it causes more heat till we have it starting in the next fuse till you end up with the picture above. Good reason to make sure your wires are tight .I found this on a neutral to-day al screws in the panel were not tight. Roy Cooke sr. - Brighton, Ontario, Canada

Lightening ???? Robert Fischbach - Sacramento, CA.

I would venture to say a dead short in the compressor motor or more likely the heat strips, thus producing a large current draw and destroying the fuses. Jim Lucas - Camino, Ca

Yes! I have seen this twice. Once in an industrial setting with 480 volt and much more amperage. And once in a home setting just like this. No electrical, and I repeat no electrical panel is to ever sit on the ground. This situation is the panel is sitting on the ground on a linoleum surface to boot were water has probably been. We all know that water and electricity about 110% of the time do not mix. Obviously water got inside and it didn't have to be much and an electrical arch occurred and caused a huge explosion, one that I have been around before and experienced first hand. This is a direct violation of any code anywhere in the United States and would be a must repair before the home was sold. Neslon Wahlstrom - Littleton, Colorado

Yes, but not as bad. This furnace panel appears to be on or very near the floor. Could water have caused this? Flooding or just a shot furnace?

Strongly recommend a licensed electrician evaluate, in any case.

PS - Here in OR we are now advised, by the contractor's board, to use the word "strongly" before recommend. Ron Cloyd - K. Falls, OR

This led to my response to Ron....... Ron: Are you serious? Or should I say are you really serious? Or better yet, are you really strongly serious? I would think that this should be another topic for Betty Buckley to address with the contractor's board. If I am making a recommendation, then why is there any more need to quantify the amount of my recommendation? This is a never ending road of control if they pull this one off. If allowed, then an Inspector will be liable because he only recommended and did not strongly recommend. Where is the final level of recommend??? I adamantly recommend? I imploringly recommend? I feel that it is life threatening for me to recommend? The topic makes me feel silly that I did not fully support Bill Ball for his attempt to lay forth four levels of reporting recommendation in his Code Book. He used 1) Deferred Maintenance 2) Required a licensed technician for further evaluation or repair 3) Potential Hazard 4) Imminent Hazard. Bill's attempt to establish these four levels was a way of our industry telling everybody else how we would report the reportable conditions instead of allowing them to tell us what to do. I see a lot of wisdom in that now that I have read your brief posting. What do you think? Michael Leavitt Orem, Utah

To which Ron replied..... Yes, this is what the OR contractors' board wrote in their last newsletter. I don't agree with it, and yes Betty will bring this up at her next meeting in February. Where will it stop? CREIA is way out of line with most of the purposed CA legislation. I have written to Jon Gudnason with my thoughts and hope the other board members are all going to do the same. I have talked to most of them about the need for them to respond and most are. Ron Cloyd

February 4, 2002

GREAT MARKETING TIP

ROBERT FISCHBACH WIPES CLEAN THE COMPETITION

IS MY SOFTWARE MEETING MY NEEDS?

AII EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S ADDRESS

Do you have any feedback for Betty?

EXPLODING FURNACES

QUESTIONABLE BROKER ACTIONS

PHOTO CHALLENGE #89 FEEDBACK

PHOTO CHALLENGE #90

Have you got a good explanation for this breaker clip?

QUOTABLE QUOTE: "Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging." Duke Snider

The Most Qualified Inspector in Northern Utah!

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