Some folks love the PDA solution,  There is no denying its convenience  and with our Horizon report writing software, it is fast and easy to use. 

 However, it looks to us like compact laptops are taking over the market, and are priced as competitively as PDAs.  There seems to be more research and development and considerably more product choice in the netbook (compact laptops) space than PDAs.The full Windows operating system, more power and storage, and convenience of a full keypad appeal to many.

The laptop version of Horizon has an abundance of convenient features including

·         Fast syncs

·         Flexible zoom and font size setups

·         Data entry screens that are very similar to the web screens

·         Quick data entry and editing through Quick View/Edit

·         A wonderful photo management system

·         The ability to create a PDF preview quickly

·         A better looking report output than the PDA

·         A much nicer work order interface than the PDA

Looking to the future, our efforts are going to focus on development of the laptop version, becauuse that’s where we see the world going.

 There are no wrong choices,  as long as you have all the information you need to make the right decision for your business.

 What happens when you inspect a house on Monday for one client, and then get a call to inspect the  same house on Thursday for a different client?  Should we tell the second client that we inspected the house before? Should we tell the first client that we are inspecting the house for a different client? Should we say anything to the agent for the second client or the first client?

It’s a difficult situation.

There is probably no perfect answer to this, but we do not say anything. Let me explain why.

If you say something, it may be adversely affecting someone’s negotiating position. If you tell Client 1 that you are about to do an inspection for Client 2, you may be giving Client 1 a heads up that there is competition on the home.

Similarly, Client 2 may have no idea that another inspection has been done and there may be another interested party. Telling Client 2 that you have recently inspected the house may hurt Client 1, because Client 2 now knows something that they do not - there is or may be another interested party.

It is not our place to interfere with the transaction

You have the same problem if you tell Agent 1 that you are going to do an inspection for Agent 2.

We will never know all the circumstances, and may cause some damage.

The other side of the coin is that we have been accused of failing to say something and are greedy in accepting a second fee for the same work.

When we are accused of this, we explain the negotiating sensitivity, mention the fact that we do have to go through the complete inspection and spend the same amount of time with Client 2. It means we cannot be doing another inspection and earning another fee, so we need to charge the same amount. We cannot hand Client 1’s report to Client 2, because the report belongs to Client 1. We have to create a new report. We typically find that different clients have different interests, different plans for the home and different needs, so the two reports are rarely identical.

It’s a difficult situation, but this is where we have landed after 30 years.

I hope this helps.

Alan Carson