It's 3:42pm on a Tuesday. You've just completed three property inspections. The mobile app worked perfectly—photos captured, observations noted, signatures collected. Everything synced when you got back to WiFi.
Now comes the part nobody wants to do: creating landlord reports and composing emails.
You know the drill:
- Open Word, type property address
- Copy observations from LetAdmin, format headings
- Export photos from phone, insert into Word, resize each one
- Save as PDF with sensible filename
- Open email, stare at blank screen
- Compose personalized email explaining findings
- Attach PDF, send
- Repeat for inspections 2 and 3
Two hours later, you've created three reports and three emails. The inspection itself took 40 minutes each (2 hours total). The admin work took... also 2 hours.
You just spent half your inspection day formatting documents and writing emails.
This week, I automated that entire two-hour admin session. Here's what changed.
The Problem: Inspections Are Fast, Admin Is Not
Last week I made inspections work offline—you can conduct inspections in basement flats with zero signal, capture photos, collect signatures, all good.
Then an agency manager asked: "Great, but who writes the landlord report?"
Oh. Right. That part.
The inspection takes 40-60 minutes. Creating the professional PDF report? 30-45 minutes of Word formatting. Composing the landlord email? 15-20 minutes of careful writing.
Total admin time: 45-65 minutes per inspection. Almost as long as the inspection itself.
Nobody enjoys this work. It's not challenging—it's tedious. Copy observations into Word. Insert photos. Resize. Add headings. Export PDF. Name file correctly. Compose email matching tone to findings. Attach PDF. Send.
Multiply by 5 inspections per week, and your agents spend 4-5 hours weekly doing admin work that computers should handle.
The Solution: One-Click Professional Reports
This week I built two features to eliminate inspection admin:
Feature 1: Automatic PDF Report Generation
Click "Generate PDF" on any completed inspection. 10 seconds later, professional PDF downloads:
- Property details and inspection metadata in header
- Room-by-room observations with formatted headings
- Photos arranged in clean grid layout (2 per row)
- Maintenance issues highlighted in color-coded boxes
- Digital signature image with timestamp
- Professional formatting, sensible page breaks, optimized file size
No Word. No formatting. No manual photo insertion. No 45-minute document creation session.
Generate 3 PDFs for 3 inspections: 30 seconds total (instead of 2+ hours).
Feature 2: AI-Powered Landlord Emails
Click "Generate Landlord Email" on any inspection. 8-12 seconds later, AI-drafted email appears:
The AI reads:
- Property address and landlord name
- Inspection type (routine, move-out, compliance)
- Room observations
- Maintenance issues with priority levels
- Photo count
Then composes appropriate email:
Clean inspection (no issues):
Dear Mr. Thompson,
Following our routine inspection of 123 High Street on 15 October 2025, I'm pleased to report the property remains in excellent condition.
All rooms were found to be clean and well-maintained. The tenants are taking good care of the property, and there are no maintenance concerns requiring your attention at this time.
The full inspection report with photos is attached for your records.
Maintenance issues found:
Dear Mrs. Johnson,
Following our routine inspection of 456 Elm Avenue on 15 October 2025, I'm writing to update you on the property's condition.
Overall, the property is well-maintained. However, we identified one maintenance issue requiring attention:
Kitchen tap dripping (Medium Priority): The kitchen tap has developed a persistent drip. We recommend arranging for a plumber to replace the washer to prevent water wastage and potential damage.
Would you like us to arrange the repair, or do you prefer to instruct your own contractor?
Safety/compliance issue:
Dear Mr. Williams,
Following our inspection of 789 Market Street on 15 October 2025, I need to inform you of a safety concern requiring immediate attention.
Smoke alarm not functioning (High Priority): We found the upstairs smoke alarm is not operational. This is a legal requirement for rental properties, and we must arrange replacement immediately.
We've already contacted our approved contractor who can install a new alarm within 48 hours. Please confirm you're happy for us to proceed urgently.
The AI automatically:
- Matches tone to findings (positive for clean, concerned for problems, urgent for safety)
- Explains in plain language (no agent jargon)
- Suggests next steps (repair arrangements, contractor preferences)
- Includes legal context (compliance requirements, safety obligations)
You review the draft (30-60 seconds), make any tweaks, send.
No 20-minute composition session staring at blank email screen.
The Time Savings Are Massive
Before this week (typical workflow for 3 inspections):
- 9:00am-10:00am: Oak Street inspection (60 min)
- 11:00am-12:00pm: Elm Avenue inspection (60 min)
- 2:00pm-3:00pm: Market Square inspection (60 min)
- Total inspection time: 3 hours
Back at office 3:30pm:
- 3:30pm-4:15pm: Create Oak Street PDF in Word (45 min)
- 4:15pm-5:00pm: Create Elm Avenue PDF in Word (45 min)
- 5:00pm-5:45pm: Create Market Square PDF in Word (45 min)
- 5:45pm-6:05pm: Compose Oak Street email (20 min)
- 6:05pm-6:25pm: Compose Elm Avenue email (20 min)
- 6:25pm-6:45pm: Compose Market Square email (20 min)
- Total admin time: 3 hours 15 minutes
Total day: 6 hours 15 minutes
- 48% inspection (actual work)
- 52% admin (formatting and writing)
This week (same 3 inspections with automation):
- 9:00am-10:00am: Oak Street inspection (60 min)
- 11:00am-12:00pm: Elm Avenue inspection (60 min)
- 2:00pm-3:00pm: Market Square inspection (60 min)
- Total inspection time: 3 hours
Back at office 3:30pm:
- 3:30pm: Generate 3 PDFs (30 seconds total)
- 3:31pm: Generate Oak Street email, review, send (3 min)
- 3:34pm: Generate Elm Avenue email, review, tweak, send (4 min)
- 3:38pm: Generate Market Square email, review, send (3 min)
- Total admin time: 10 minutes 30 seconds
Total day: 3 hours 10 minutes
- 95% inspection (actual work)
- 5% admin (reviewing AI drafts)
Time saved: 3 hours 5 minutes per day (nearly half the entire day eliminated).
For an agent doing 5 inspections per week:
- Old method: 10+ hours/week admin formatting/writing
- New method: 25 minutes/week reviewing AI outputs
- Time saved: 9.5+ hours per week (nearly 500 hours per year)
What This Means for Your Agency
Inspections Become Profitable Again
When inspection admin takes as long as the inspection itself, profitability suffers. You're paying agents full salary to format Word documents and compose emails.
With automation:
- Agent time: 95% inspections, 5% admin
- More inspections possible: Complete 5 inspections in time you previously did 3
- Same-day turnaround: Generate reports and send to landlords before end of day
- Consistent quality: Every report identical format, every email appropriate tone
Agents Actually Like Inspections Now
The tedious part isn't the inspection—it's the 2-hour admin session afterward. When admin disappears, inspections become faster, more efficient, more satisfying.
Landlords Get Better Communication
AI doesn't get tired. AI doesn't rush. AI doesn't skip details because it's 6:30pm and you want to go home.
Every landlord email:
- Appropriate tone for findings
- Clear explanation of issues
- Suggested next steps
- Professional, consistent quality
No variation based on agent workload, time of day, or how many inspections they did.
The Technical Challenge: Making It Look Easy
The automation looks simple to agents (click button, get PDF/email). Behind the scenes was... less simple.
PDF Generation Challenge
I needed professional PDFs with photos, formatting, page breaks. Most Ruby PDF libraries require manual positioning—you calculate x/y coordinates for every element. Not sustainable.
Solution: Render inspection as HTML (which I'm good at), convert to PDF using headless Chrome (which is excellent at rendering HTML).
Problems encountered:
- Heroku doesn't include Chrome—needed special buildpack
- Chrome uses lots of memory—concurrent PDF generation crashed dynos
- Photo embedding required signed S3 URLs with correct headers
- Page breaks needed CSS control to prevent awkward splits
Time to solve: 12 hours of debugging and optimization.
Result: Beautiful PDFs generated in 8-12 seconds, works reliably in production.
AI Email Challenge
I could have built template emails: "Dear [LANDLORD_NAME], we inspected [PROPERTY_ADDRESS] and found [ISSUES_LIST]."
But that's not personalized—it's mail merge.
Instead, I send inspection data to AI (Claude) and ask it to compose contextually appropriate email. The AI reads observations, maintenance issues, priorities, and composes matching tone and messaging.
Problems encountered:
- AI API calls are slow (several seconds)—can't block UI
- Needed background job processing with progress indicators
- Required real-time updates when AI finishes (ActionCable WebSockets)
- Had to handle API failures gracefully (retries, error messages)
Time to solve: 8 hours of integration and error handling.
Result: Contextually appropriate emails in 8-12 seconds, agents review and send.
What I Learned
The most valuable automation isn't always the most impressive technically.
Offline-first inspections (last week) required complex IndexedDB handling, service workers, sync logic. Technically impressive.
But PDF generation and AI email composition probably save more time daily. They eliminate boring, repetitive work that nobody wants to do.
Sometimes the best feature is the one that makes tedious work disappear entirely.
Also learned: Headless Chrome is both amazing and infuriating. Amazing because it renders HTML perfectly as PDFs. Infuriating because deployment and memory management are non-trivial.
But it beats calculating x/y positions for every PDF element.
What's Next
This week eliminated inspection admin. Next steps:
Branded PDF templates: Custom agency logo, colors, contact details
Automatic email sending: Option to email PDFs automatically after inspection (for landlords who trust you)
Portfolio reporting: Summary PDFs for landlords with multiple properties
Learning AI: Track which email edits you make frequently, improve drafts over time
Multilingual emails: Generate emails in landlord's preferred language
The goal: Make inspection admin completely invisible. Conduct inspection, everything else happens automatically.
This week's work saves letting agents 9.5+ hours per week. That's 500 hours per year not spent formatting Word documents and composing emails.
That's a lot of time back.
Next week: Honestly not sure yet. Probably something that doesn't involve debugging headless Chrome deployment. That was enough fun for one week.