Home inspections cause more hassles than they’re often worth. Majordomo’s quick prioritization of repairs, pricing models and other tools can help buyers better understand inspections and repair negotiations — and get you to the closing table sooner.
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Majordomo is a post-inspection pricing and repair prioritization tool.
Platforms: Browser app
Ideal for: All brokers, teams and agents.
Top selling points
- Categorized level of repair importance
- Quick turn-around
- Custom per-item reports
- Plain-language reporting
Top concerns
Like all inspection reports and related documentation, each party will have their take on what to use as a basis of negotiation.
What you should know
I had look up “majordomo.” It means “chief steward of a household.”
So, the name of this tool is pretty clever.
And because time kills deals, Majordomo reduces the time between inspection delivery and per-item negotiation. Its value proposition is pretty spot-on, too. It bills itself as “the second half of the home inspection.”
There are other tools that can turn-around per-item inspection pricing reports quickly, but Majordomo’s value-add is in its sleek, browser-delivered prioritization of each issue.
Under a nice image of the home next to a map of its location, Majordomo organizes its content areas into a simple, palatable view that can then be intricately perused for every needle in the inspection haystack.
Report items are color-coded and siloed, from left to right, into “All Repairs,” “Urgent,” “Pressing,” “Cosmetic” and “Buyer’s Repairs.” The three in the middle will get the most attention.
Urgent items include those that are health and safety issues and Pressing are those concerns that can turn into health and safety matters. Cosmetic items are exactly that, important but not necessarily critical to ownership.
Each report also has a summary written by a senior analyst at Majordomo, who has personally reviewed what the software has generated. It adds a personal touch and reminds the buyer they didn’t pay for only an algorithm to spit out the numbers and recommendations. (Although that’s part of it. Because, software.)
And speaking of numbers, Majordomo runs through 35,000 providers of materials, equipment and labor, and more than 20,000 localized projects both completed and estimated, to arrive at their conclusions.
Individual repair item costs are broken down into materials, labor, equipment and contractor fees.
Buyers can select and add items to “My List” from each category to look at in more detail and then work with their agent to choose which should be addressed by the seller.
Majordomo creates a stand-alone report of those issues for email back to the seller party as an addendum.
There’s value in having all the inspection negotiation details centralized and easy to understand. Far too often, this part of the deal relies on email threads and voicemails, inevitably causing delays and mixed messages.
Although the report offers a single document from which to work, I think an in-app messaging tool could make Majordomo an even more powerful way to speed transactions. That’s not a knock, merely an observation of where this product could end up.
Report pages have a nice summary of the property details and important contacts.
Majordomo also does a great job of humanizing clinical and text-heavy inspection reports. Property inspectors’ jobs are hard, and they don’t have time to make their summaries visually appealing.
Once uploaded to Majordomo, buyers don’t necessarily have to refer to the original report again, as the software cites each page on which an item can be found. Original inspections are stored in users’ accounts in perpetuity, but can viewed and easily sorted by category, such as attic or laundry.
Buyers also have access to a library of sorts full of moving and local resources. It’s essentially a compilation of existing tools and websites related to their market.
The Domoscore is a feature that assesses a home’s overall physical quality by collecting data from every major unit of the house, such as the roof, HVAC, foundation, garage, yard, etc.
There’s isn’t a ton of value here outside of self-gratification. But it’s nice to see where your house might stand. It could be used down the road when selling, I suppose.
Domoreports can be shared with other parties via email
I like this product. There’s real value in products like this, the ones that go deep into the deal to root out delays and pending hassles.
The real estate transaction doesn’t have to go all-digital to be better or more efficient. It simply needs its knots untied, and inspections are one of its tightest. Majordomo goes a long way to loosen it.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
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