It has been a hot topic here on AR - how do you do your written consults?  Do you take photos and notes, then go home and write them up?  How much time do you spend?  Is it worth what you are paid? So on and so forth.  Obviously, not process is right for everyone, so we all do it differently.

It used to be that I would walk through a house with a client discussing certain things with them, taking photos, etc. Then I would go home spend countless hours writing up every tiny detail, writing and rewriting until I couldn't see straight.  When the report was complete, I would return to the property and go through the entire thing with the homeowner - again.  All told, I was probably spending 10-12 hours per report - sometimes even more. I did manage to wittle that down to 5-6 hours as I became more confident, but that is still a lot of time.  As my business grows and my children's schedules get busier, that is harder and harder to do. It also seemed to needlessly extend the staging process. So what is a good consultant to do?

In my time here on AR, I have read every single post I've come accross on this subject and, quite frankly, never found the perfect solution for me.  My first inkling of the inevitable change came when I read a comment from James Frazier when he mentioned that we are "Marketability Inspectors".  My mind went immediately to the home inspector that we hired when we purchased our most recent home.

The man we hired is called 'Dr. Death' in this area.  He is so thorough that he hardly misses a thing and has killed more deals than most would think possible. How does he do his inspections?  Not by running home and writing an individual and lengthy report, that is for sure. He does not have time for that.  He uses a STANDARDIZED FORM. There is not much that varies in the systems of a home, so you are always looking at the same things - staging is not that different.  He has a form printed in triplicate that has boxes to check and lines for adding notes when something should come up that is out of the ordinary.  Can you say 'epiphany'?

Thanks to Karen Reynolds, I now have NCR (triplicate) paper that I can run through my inkjet.  My preset forms list the rooms, have boxes to check for standard issues such as reducing family photos to a minimum, and lines to fill out for adding the not so standard issue such as removing the dead animals from the living room. 

Now, I walk through the house with the homeowner discussing issues as I see them and suggesting changes, I take photos, then we sit down with the form.  We fill out the form TOGETHER, going over everything we just discussed.  We have now gone over all of my suggestions twice.  I answer questions as often as they need me to and with the preset form, I do not miss a thing.  While we do this, I download the photos to my laptop to show them what their listing photos will look like if they list the house 'as is'. ( That is always an eyeopener.)  And the process takes 2-3 hours at most.

This has been much more effective for me than anything I have tried in the past.  My clients like it because they have an actual punch list rather than a voluminous report to wade through.  Not that I do not write specific reports when it is called for (investment properties and builder's models), but this has certainly simplified the occupied listing consultation process.

That is one of the things I love about AR.  You may not find the perfect answer, but you may find the information that leads you to it!