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HouseMaster, a 40-year-old home inspection services company with offices throughout the United States and Canada, announced in a press release it has partnered with technology company Xactware to provide homebuyers with a streamlined home repair estimation platform.
The product, Repair Estimate Report, will base its costs on the inspection recommendations made by HouseMaster professionals.
Homebuyers and agents can generate reports in a few clicks, with the intent on using the numbers for a more clear negotiation of repair issues.
Xactware is the resource for specific costs behind the reports, basing costs on its expansive database of construction information covering more than 450 regional markets, which include material costs, labor cost averages and pricing models for common home repair items.
Typically, post-inspection repair estimates require scheduling additional vendors to visit the property and produce a report. This often leads to further speculation and superfluous back-and-forth between parties. The built-in repair estimation technology is intended to reduce that process by days, thus reducing the risk of a delayed closing.
However, both parties will still need to agree on the HouseMaster report being the benchmark document on which to move forward.
Xactware has close to 20 different products that relate to streamlining estimates for the residential and commercial construction industries. Its library of technologies is used by a range of different sectors in banking, insurance and real estate. Its first product was Xactimate, launched in 1986.
New Jersey-based HouseMaster was founded in 1979.
“HouseMaster knows home inspections and homebuyers, and Xactware knows estimating, data and software,” said David Obert, Xactware vice president of property solutions in a press release. “Together, we’ve been able to create a tool that gives consumers access to the most in-depth and verified cost estimates in North America.”
HouseMaster is known in part for its more hands-on approach to involving homebuyers in the inspection and recommendation process, and it offers real estate agents additional protection from errors and omissions with its Referral Liability program.
Repair estimates are included in inspections, and additional reports can be ordered for $29.
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