Testimonials From Real-Life Home Inspectors
"I just purchased InspectFaster and wanted to tell you what a great program it is. I had written a program for myself in a database program some years ago when I was doing home inspections "on the side" and had not used it in a while. Recently, I got back into doing home inspections again and found that my database had somehow gotten corrupted beyond repair.
Now I was faced with having to build a new one from scratch, which would be kind of fun except that now I have kids and less time on my hands, so I don't have the time I once did to make an elaborate system such as this. Nonetheless, that's what I was starting to do until my sweet and resourceful wife got on the Web and found InspectFaster.
It looked good, but my fear was that it would be buggy or clunky, as specialty software from one-man shops often is. I downloaded the demo and started using it. Much to my surprise, it is fast, stable, and more comprehensive than I'd hoped. Further, there were some features that clearly reflected first-hand knowledge of how home inspectors work, like the drop-down text boxes, for example.
Sure, InspectFaster doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a company with a team of people working on the product, but I sure wouldn't call it crude or rough-edged. In fact, far from it.
Anyway, having worked with the demo for four or five days, I was entirely satisfied that it was worth the $249 investment, as well as worth taking a moment to thank you for a fine product.
Enough blather. Thanks for InspectFaster. I will probably be mailing you suggestions and, if I find bugs, I'll send them along to you as time goes on. As somebody with first hand knowledge of software programming, I hope you will find any input I offer useful; I assure you they will be offered in a spirit of positive constructivism."
Cheers,
Michael Bloom
Full Bloom Property Inspection
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"I ordered InspectFaster software on 12/17/09 - and I love it! I wish I had ordered it years ago. It is really making my job easier since I found that creating reports "on site" is such a breeze. I was using an older version of InspectVue, but it started going buggy on me and was generally too confusing and not worth the money to upgrade, especially since I could buy InspectFaster for the same price and it could import my InspectVue libraries. The first week was a little scary for me - but it was so easy to learn and it all fell into place within a couple of days! Thanks, Martin!"
Sue Atkins
Baltimore Home Inspection Service
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"For the past 5+ years I have been using 3-D inspection software to do our home inspections. I hate it. First, at the time we bought their software they were just about the only game around. Second, the "investment" was substantial to say the least. I hated to think I had sunk that much money into a program just to discard it for one from another company or an "upgrade" from 3-D that was just more of the same. And finally, I didn't want to give up on it. I thought it was a matter of learning the program. Not so.
The last inspection I did was very involved. It took me about three hours to do. The worst part began back at the office, wrestling with the 3-D inspection software. I did make the software work and after fifteen hours or so I was done. 3-D makes no logical sense when inputting information. It is not intuitive and has to be, for me, the absolute worst part of doing inspections. It was so frustrating!
After getting that last inspection report to the client I decided to never use 3-D inspection software again. I was fed up!
So, as I did 5+ years ago I got online and began, to search for a new inspection program. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for but it had to be a lot easier than 3-D but still powerful enough to make good looking reports that were easy to produce. To keep things straight I made a matrix, a spreadsheet where I could keep track of the names and my impressions of the programs.
I discovered 31 programs in all. From the simple to the extremely complex. From "print the form and check the boxes with a pen" to the entire report being spoken. Many were text based where you step through the menus one at a time as you progress through the report. The problem is they are not easy to navigate. Sometimes you don't know where you are until you exit the section you're in. A few were database or spreadsheet type. These have panels that pop up and you fill in form blanks. Then the data can be stored, or used to "create a report". Others tried to be everything to everybody which made them just as unusable. When I ran across InspectFaster online I really couldn't believe what I had been putting up with. The program was so different and easy to use. It has a "graphic user interface" (GUI) like Windows or Mac and is very intuitive and complete. There is not a bunch of stuff you don't need and just about everything you do need for inspection reports.
I used three rounds of testing. Round 1. Was the software something I would even be interested in using? If so it went in the matrix. I rated them as they looked at first blush for my purposes from 0-10. (10 being the best) I also recorded the price. Round 2. I revisited the sites and examined what they had to offer should I decide to go with that software. Almost all offered some kind of "subscription" or hosting solution which I didn't need. All my reports go out in PDF format. Easy to send, easy to print. Believe it or not, a lot of them showed the finished report but NOT the interface someone would use to get the information into the report. To me that was about 75% of the program. If there was a trial version I downloaded it and put it through it's paces. After that I made a few quick notes to refresh my memory and re-rated them based on the new findings. Round 3. Cut out everything below $500, which was the "special" price I was given by 3-D for being so loyal for the past five years, and rerun the software digging deeper into the features.
After this phase the number was cut down to nine with the average price being $294. My rating fell like this: I had 1 zero, this was 3-D my benchmark, two 1's, one 2, one 3, one 5, two 6's and only one 9 (InspectFaster). I really felt short changed once I saw just how much better InspectFaster was than 3-D. I had to switch.
Nothing even comes close to what InspectFaster has done. The interface is simple to navigate. It has places for company and inspector information that can flow through the reports but are simple enough to use. The first thing I did with the demo was create a cover page with a picture for a sample report. It took all of about one minute to select where I wanted it in the report, browse to the picture of the house on my computer that I wanted to use and insert it. In 3-D I always felt like one of those little toy poodles in the circus jumping through who-knows-how-many hoops to get the page I want and it never IS exactly what I want. With InspectFaster it is. There are built in sample documents for inspections and macros for adding to or creating your own documents. Which I did. Again, in the demo, it took me about a minute. 3-D puts the onus on the user to try to conform to their conventions rather than the other way around. If you have used 3-D in the past, you know. If you haven't, don't even try. Software is supposed to expedite your workload, not add to it. Some might say "maybe you just don't know how to use the 3-D software?" Maybe, but I have tried. Believe me. I have dedicated untold hours trying to making it work for me. I don't want to spend the kind of money I did to just disregard it and move on. Maybe $1,000 or $2,000 isn't a lot to some. To me that's a whole lot. And I don't claim to know a lot about computers but I can follow instructions. The problem is with 3-D there are WAY to many instructions to do the simplest of tasks.
To summarize: I hate 3-D. And absolutely love InspectFaster. They are on polar opposites of the scale. I love your software. It is better than anything I had hoped for when I started looking a week ago.
You can use any or all of this letter as there is nothing here that isn't true. Take what you like, leave out what you will. I truly do hope more inspectors find out about your software because there is really no comparison to anything else currently on the market. I can tell it took a lot of time and effort to create such a program. You've done a great job. Thank you."
Jay Lloyd
AllPro Home Inspection, Cape Coral, FL
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"After downloading and trying a number of inspection report programs, InspectFaster Home Inspection Software is without doubt the best one out there. And I did spend time trying them all! I specifically like the fact that I can easily customize the templates for the different types on inspections in perform, like condos and commercial properties. InspectFaster has all the features I need - and they all work as advertised. As a home inspector, it allows me to accurately record defects at the property, easily type in any changes I need, add images, etc., and then quickly produce a copy of the report on a disk for my clients and their agent. My clients are impressed to see me using state of the art software. I also like the clean, straight forward intuitive interface so I didn't have to read any manuals... launch and go! Clearly this software was designed by someone who needed the product himself. Finally, the quick and responsive support for the few questions I had during my trial period convinced me to buy InspectFaster. 4 months later and I have no regrets. Great job!"
Rob Austin
Countywide Property Inspection, Duluth, Iowa
Home Inspection Report Software
