Back in April, we released the first results from our survey of recent homebuyers*. Those results related to how buyers said they wanted their inspection report delivered – which was basically multiple formats – html, pdf, and printed. Read the details.
Format is one thing, but what do they think is important to get with their report?
Some of the answers won’t surprise you. Of the survey respondents,
98% want an Easy to Navigate report with Hyperlinks
97% want Videos and Pictures to Better Understand the Findings
96% want a Summary of the Major Findings
95% want Equipment Recall Notices Included in Report
92% want Links to Appliance Manuals for their New Home
Most inspectors are now providing at least a PDF with hyperlinks, and anyone using online reporting tools is including pictures and maybe even videos in their reports. But our findings show that buyers want even more.
Extras are Expected with the Inspection Report
You may have thought that providing recall notices and links to appliance manuals would only be appreciated by a small percentage of your customers. But, over 90% of homebuyers said, “yes please,” they’d like those extras.
HomeHubZone includes recall notices and links to manuals for free.
An End to the Summary Debate
We wrote a post last winter about the value to all of your constituents of including an executive summary in every report. The homebuyers backed us up on this, with only 4% of respondents saying “no thank you” to a summary. They were a little less clear on where it should go.
Placement of your summary is an easy setting toggle in HomeHubZone.
Homebuyers Want More
In addition to querying buyers about features that are either easy to find in current inspection reports, or are at least easy to cobble together from solutions on the market, we also asked them about some pie in the sky, what if you can even have, type questions.
These results may surprise you, as buyers seem eager to get as much as they can as they scope out their new property and plan their move:
Taking Buyer Preferences to Heart
Just as our surveys of inspectors and realtors helped guide the development of our revolutionary inspection reporting apps, we think there are ways to provide homebuyers the tools and resources they would find valuable as they move to and fix up their new property.
Enabling inspectors to easily provide these additional resources along with the report could help them please their homebuyers and increase referrals.
We have some announcements coming up that will improve the buyer experience very soon. If you aren’t on our mailing list already Signup Now to be the first to know.
We’d love to hear what you think about what buyers had to say in the comments below. Do our results match what you are hearing from your buyers?
*2016 Homebuyer Inspection Survey performed by HomeHubZone. Included 204 respondents who purchased a single family home or condominium in the preceding 15 months, and hired a professional home inspector.
I am a professional home Inspector and am able to trap realtors in a room to listen to me for ten minutes at the beginning of their various training sessions. Does Home Hub Zone have any marketing materials to promote the variety of advantages of using their software? For example recall check, product manuals, etc.
Yes we do. We have a web page http://www.homehubzone.com/homebuyer/ and we have a 2-sided marketing piece with information about the benefits to the home buyer and stats from our homebuyer survey. I can add your logo and colors to make it appear to be your marketing piece.