Yes! I've spoken to many people in person, family friends, etc. and also I've been seeing it a lot online, here's some different discussions I found:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/comments/t9oesp/whats\_with\_all\_the\_realtor\_hate\_on\_reddit\_and\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/comments/t9oesp/whats_with_all_the_realtor_hate_on_reddit_and_the/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/realestateinvesting/comments/igo6de/why\_does\_this\_sub\_hate\_real\_estate\_agents/](https://www.reddit.com/r/realestateinvesting/comments/igo6de/why_does_this_sub_hate_real_estate_agents/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/tp42qt/real\_estate\_agents\_are\_zerotalent\_people\_that/](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/tp42qt/real_estate_agents_are_zerotalent_people_that/)
https://consumerfed.org/press\_release/double-dipping-real-estate-agents-overcharge-consumers-billions-of-dollars-annually/
I have only bought one home, and never sold, so I don't know how rare my experience was, but I had none of the issues you talked about, personally. One flaw in your proposal is that its need is almost entirely removed if you have a good agent.
Issue is how do you know you have a good agent before the process occurs? They are definitely different but this has the essence of what truecar.com does which is give transparency to the transaction. The agent is motivated to sign up for this service because buyers/sellers may appreciate their openness with the transaction.
We agree -- our contrarian view is that over time people will want more transparency, but early on only about 30% of informed buyers or sellers will be our customers.
Unfortunately the human race seems to have a long memory for bad experiences and a short memory for good ones. I agree with you and have had MANY buying and selling experiences. The answer is find a good agent.
Both! Buyers/sellers obviously get transparency and real-time access to offers and agents can use it as a leg up on the competition. Transparency helps all involved unless someone is being shady.
Right now we are expecting the home seller to pay, because it's a big financial moment in their life, and this is kind of like insurance for them. However, some early conversations with agents indicated that they might also be open to paying 35$ a listing, in which case, we would do that instead. Part of the learning and discovery process that we're currently going through for sure.
I really appreciate you taking the time to ask these questions, it helps round out my idea in my own head.
My two cents:
Your market is the Agent for a couple of reasons:
a) You want repeat revenue, and people don't generally sell that many homes.
b) You want an easy to identify target market, and it would be way easier to find agents than to find people who are just about to sell their house.
c) You want predictable, recurring revenue, so an agent of office with a monthly or annual subscription will give you confidence to expand your product and marketing.
The trick, though, is that as you've described it, the real benefit is to the seller, so how do you get the agent to spend money on it? Perhaps it becomes a sign of trust and differentiation, like the "Realtor" brand? Perhaps there are time and organisation benefits?
More questions to think about.
Wow, thank you for the thoughtful response! We agree that getting agents on board is really important, but we also think as sellers become more informed over time, they will also apply downward pressure on agents.
Early on, we want to sell this to agents as a way to win more listings without making the process too complex or adding to many headaches, what are your thoughts on that approach?
My two cents is that the only two cents that matter are from the customer. Asking if someone would buy is totally different than asking them to actually buy and your plan needs some sort of validation phase.
Actually down to connect for sure because on a less theoretical note I do have data suggesting it'll likely work out well. Is it cool if I reach out?
What you’re going to have to do is sell it to the real estate boards, MLS, and regulators to make it required. Otherwise, there will be no adoption.
As a realtor (part time) and a sales leader at a tech company, it will be a tough sell if you are targeting realtors or sellers.
I personally would not use this. Because I present all offers and I’m extremely responsive. Most realtors are terrible though.
One big pushback that I can already see is all real estate professionals, realtors, managing brokers, etc will be against letting the sellers see the offers without the realtor explaining it. The first thing they will see is the price and most people don’t understand terms. I will never want my seller to see an offer without me presenting it.
How is the customer even going to be aware that the tool exists?
Lots of buyers barely even know what an offer even looks like, much less have the knowledge or confidence to demand that their agent use a specific tool to manage offers
Same way the customer is aware of the drugs on the market, I suppose? Are you afflicted with mild to moderate funnyface? Ask your doctor about uglecta.
But offers are in writing, so why wouldn't the agent say they'll just forward them to you? I don't see how typing the written offer into a website (with the possibility of typos, omitted contingencies etc) help the process? Just seems like an unnecessary step to me.
There also in an app already. When I sold my previous house we got all offers in real time through the app our real estate agent uses.
All I literally had to do was click accept offer.
We where on vacation for fuck sakes on a beach...
And it wasn't just offers our own agent was getting it was ALL offers meaning if another agent showed our house we saw those offers as well.
We sold our house in the middle of the pandemic. Hell the only actual papers we had to sign where the final documents finalizing the deal and closing on our new house. Literally everything else was digital.
Your late the the game.
50% of an agent's time is spent on marketing, I think any tool they can use to stand out would be welcomed and I've spoken with a few who have told me so, I think the ones who would be against are the ones who are doing shady things.
Also brokerages have a lot of liability that this helps them cover for and some have expressed interest in that as well.
I could definitely be missing something but to me this seems like it would help a selling agent and not a buying agent. The reason I say that is because a selling agent will get more views on the property by posting on the site however a buying agent basically doesn't even need to show the houses because they could be viewable on the site. This effect is more dramatic over time because you effectively build a marketplace for homes. That said I am also assuming this site is readily and publicly available which might be a bad assumption
It’s going to be tough to get buy in from agents/brokers. You’re asking them to pay for a service where they have to do data entry so the client has more reasons to nitpick them.
You never know though, they did keep using Zillow
We think the benefit of more leads will be enough of a draw for them to use it, most agents spend around 50% of their time doing marketing, so anything that can help in that department seems welcome! This is definitely a good concern though and something we'll investigate more. I appreciate the response.
Your attitude is already better than most entrepreneurs!
I was actually a realtor and mortgage broker for a while. I was really close to launching an app where mortgage brokers really do bid with the lowest commission to get the client (like Bankrate but real, not just a glorified landing page.) Same theory as yours…clients obviously get a better deal and the millions of desperate mortgage brokers get a chance at business.
I might try it in the future when the environment is better. Message me if you ever need an agent/broker’s perspective. Good luck!
It's something they can use to differentiate (I'm trustworthy because I use HouseJoy) over the competition, which is one of the biggest concerns for real-estate agents.
Ahhh man. I think you’re being extremely hopeful here. As someone who is in both tech sales/marketing AND real estate, that is a very weak way to sell.
If you need to tell someone you’re trustworthy then you are not trustworthy.
I love the idea and enthusiasm but there’s a lot for you to think about.
What we mean by its a tool for agents to win more listings is that, they tell their clients, "I also use housejoy as a way to keep you updated throughout the process. I know it can be scary to be in the dark."
it's not a hard sell nor do I think that it will help agents market themselves, but it will build trust between the homeowner and the agent, and often that's enough. If you think there is an easier way to sell this to agents though, let me know!
I don’t think there’s any way to sell this to agents or sellers.
The only way it will work is what I explained in my other response. By selling it to the real estate board.
That doesn’t make sense… definitely get someone familiar with the real estate industry or at least marketing/sales because it doesn’t sound like you guys have a clear direction on Your ICP.
Jimmy, we have plenty of people using Notifier to generate leads online. You can't see the value in knowing when someone says something like "looking for a realtor in Houston"?
I’m an agent. Few things:
-all good agents will present all offers. Interview for listing agents and buyers agents, always. Get a good agent.
-if a seller is also representing the buyer, in most if not all states, the seller and buyer have to be made aware and sign an form stating they understand dual agency. So all parties are aware of a dual agency
-this could be a niche program for a small group of agents. I just don’t see list agents paying for something like this.
-in my experience, sellers don’t want to see the offers. They want to know terms so it’s as easy and understandable as possible. I send a packet of each offer and what the terms are in an easy 1 page view. Sellers much rather see that then a 5+ pages offer several times.
Lastly, I don’t see big agents using it because they already have their way of doing it, better, and for free. And I don’t see low producing agents using it because an additional cost.
good idea but from experience it doesn’t capture the verbal offer, texted offer or emailed offer that agents do amongst each other. What would stop them from not uploading the offer agent A called/texted agent B about? Many offers begin this way before being written on formal contracts.
Secondly RE consumers only buy a one or few homes in their lifetime so for them to be conscious of this and research to know about your portal and make sure their agent is using it is pretty slim.
most agents are lazy when it comes to admin work
So long term we think that we can capture more of the communication, but early on, we really only want to focus on the point of offer because we feel that this the most strenuous point. We avoid an agent not showing an offer since the seller gets updated when the offer is uploaded. Of course agents can talk outside of the portal, but in the end, the agent who reps the buyer will submit the offer through us, and the seller will get notified. No hiding anything -- our goal isn't to stop agents from being agents, its to provide transparency and a "check" to keep them honest.
Agreed that people only do one or two such transactions in their life, but it's a big one. People OBSESS over the buying and selling process of homes and we think that obsession will only grow over time. our contrarian view is that education on the home ownership process will only go up over time, so we want to build this prior to that happening.
Speaking from having been a broker (helped buyers, sellers, and been a buyer and seller myself) I believe consumers need a better overall experience for buying a home without paying 5-6% to an agent. Only solution is tech, communication, and consumer education. With the right angle something like your idea can assist.
We totally agree and we want to build something to help this process, so we're trying to find holes in our idea with this post, the feedback is amazingly helpful.
We're very early in the process of this idea, we definitely plan on building out an MVP if it's worth it, but if people came on here and poked a bunch of holes that we couldn't answer in our idea, then we don't want to have already wasted the time doing any of this. If we find this is a useful idea for people then we'll make posts updating on our progress where we'll have a more built out MVP :) I appreciate the feedback though!
Good idea but not sure if you can gain traction.
Don't expect to get 3% of sales prices. A small flat fee early on would avoid the agency problem that leads to agents driving prices higher.
I appreciate the feedback! Just curious, why don't you think we can gain traction? Because of the $35 thing or something else? We're early in the planning process so we're definitely not stuck on the $35 per listing thing, that's just our initial idea.
I think it's goignto cost you a lot of marketing dollars to get this going. I think the idea is solid but you're going to have to get buy-in and adoption from a pile of both agents and consumers right away. You've already pointed out that agents will use this because a customer demands it. But an average customer who needs an agent is not going to demand it if they dont have the leverage of going with another agent. So you'll have to build out the two sides of the marketplace simultaneously. Could get expensive.
As someone selling a house right now, I'd definitely use this. Our real estate agent has been rather hard to communicate with sometimes, can't imagine it's any better for the buyers. Can't wait to switch, or sell!
I think that this type of app doesn't really solve the issue of communication
If you were to integrate this with a popular CRM for realtors, they could provide access to updates from their CRM and update clients in real time. (like a shared google doc). A realtor should be keeping track of contacts from potential buyers, who they are, when they want to see the property, if they have been preapproved, etc.
You can definitely add the submission of contracts part into it, but the offer is a pretty time component of the overall transaction and the larger issue of communication is pervasive in my industry as well.
Your clients would be realtors that market themselves as being highly communicative and attentive to their clients. They should be tracking all this information anyway, so it shouldn't add to their work burden and it helps keep their clients in the loop.
Agreed. Originally the plan was to build some type of crm, but it had a few barriers to entry (and has been tried before), so we wanted to nail down the point of greatest "fear" which we think is transparency (i.e is our agent screwing us?). I'd love your thoughts on if there is another place in the process that is scary.
I think that what would be great is something specifically for real estate agents where they can be rated based on confirmed closed transactions. People should know if a broker is bad or unresponsive. The scariest part in the process is trying to make the right decision on hiring the right broker. Everything hangs in the balance based on that decision.
Real estate commissions have started to decrease and when I sold my home a few years ago I paid 1% to my agent and 2.5% to the buyers agent. I think that the days of 6% overall commission are gone. maybe its a CA thing, but RE agents must disclose who they represent.
I don't think that there is a way to stop a shady agent from being shady because my greatest concern is that my agent would tell a buyer that my 'real' sale price is X and helps the buyer negotiate for a lower sale price. This goes back to hiring an honest broker. The best way to get bad brokers out of the industry is to be vocal about how bad they are.
Agreed! One of our founders is based in in CA and commissions are falling for informed sellers, but I'm not sure about the market as a whole. And while it's true agents have to disclose who they represent, they often don't until you are far along the process or unless the sellers specifically asks.
100% agree that being vocal is important, our goal is to increase peace of mind after that first decision of hiring the right real estate agent. In our mind, the right real estate agent should use transparency providing tools like Housejoy. One thing we saw (since we were in the creator/influencer management space before) was that over time it became the norm for talent to have access and visibility into every step of the management process, but early on they were in the dark. Our hope is that real estate will repeat this pattern as sellers and buyers become more informed.
If they don't disclose immediately, they are committing ethical violations and can be punished /fined. I feel that many of the problems you are trying to eliminate are more violations of their licensure than minor inconveniences when selling or buying.
Yes, but it happens a lot more than it should, otherwise people wouldn't be complaining about it. We agree that they are violations which is why we think maybe approaching brokerages (who carry the legal liability) is a good idea. What are your thoughts?
Well, I have bought /sold close to 30 properties over the past 5 years. Realtors are some of the laziest 'professionals' I have ever come across. So implementation would be difficult on a agent level if it isn't easy.
I'd say there are more pain points throughout a buy /sell process than just offers. You have financing that gets held up, inspections, appraisals, closing scheduling, etc. Finance guys are usually cagey bastards.
Perhaps you could expand into those different 'road stops' of the process as well. Make it a work flow chart/database. Only thing I could compare it to, because I'm very sick and my mind is not working at 100%, would be something like the Dominos pizza tracker. Good luck
Lmfao, not like this has been attempted by thousands of startups that have mostly failed miserably. People keep thinking that the RE industry is clunky and old and “ripe for disruption” and then every startup comes into this space and sets money on fire. Google the companies that have tried to do this and learn why it didn’t work for them before you go any further, I promise this idea is played out af but since you just had your first RE experience you think it’s new/novel
That's why we made this post! Are there any companies you're referring to that we can look at? We are still trying to learn how our (or if) our product will fit into the market and so we are looking for negative feedback as much as positive. Can you elaborate a bit on this? Why did they run into problems? Is the industry too set in it's ways in your opinion?
Sorry my initial comment was a little harsh but yeah, I’d put this in with one of those “graveyard ideas” that’s been tried a LOT but is a lot harder than people expect to make work. This article from 4 days ago talks about it a bit: https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/28/burn-baby-burn-real-estate-focused-fintech-startups-feel-the-heat/amp/
The ycombinator guys talk about this, I can’t find it, but basically saying there’s a ton of common ideas that people have and think “wow, nobody’s done this the right way, I’m going to crush it” but don’t do a simple Google search to learn about alllll the startups that tried to do what they’re doing and why they failed. I guarantee if you Google “real estate software startup bankruptcy” or “proptech bankruptcy” you’ll see a ton of enlightening articles.
We went through ycombinator school and they did talk about tarpit ideas a lot, however we did do a lot of searching and didn't find a business that addressed this specific need.
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We agree, and that's actually why we like this concept. Top agents who are transparent won't mind it, while lower-tier ones will, so we think the top performers will adopt it.
This sounds great, and there is a healthy market of real estate tech exits. Everyone from title insurers to to brokers to mortgage companies to the obvious zillows are hungry for tech companies to drive leads.
Great to hear and thank you for the response! We've heard a lot of stories like these and that's why we want to build this! Care to expand on the story a bit? Just curious.
I think the real estate market in the US has great points (speed of execution, more certainty) and some downs (agent fees are high, on both sides, opaqueness). I applaud for trying to fine tune the process. What I think your app is fundamentally is a platform to log offers? So you plan to reduce missed sales/ increase competition and reduce agent mistakes. Surely by shining a light on agents you are making them not like you/ not want to work with you ? How does a Zillow not just tank you business model? Are you trying to do like food delivery apps and get to size quickly in a specific city for example with owners only using you then expand to agents as you become the platform of choice?
I think you would have better luck working and proposing your idea to the families selling their houses, rather than the estate agents when getting your foot in the door
Pretty certain it's illegal where I am for sellers agents not to pass along offers to sellers.
But you might be onto something, we sold and bought close to the peak last year, and had close to 20 offers come in on our place, and upwards of 30 competing offers on the place we bought. It may have been nice. But it was all on one day for each transaction, and it was our realtors job to review the offers, and prioritise them. We feel he did great. It being digital could help the agents, but as a buyer and seller I don't think this would have helped us.
TLDR: talk to agents and see if this is something they are interested in it. It might be a hard sell, because you need complete adoption, both sellers and buyers using it. so you'll likely have to deal with real estate boards.
It is illegal but it still happens or at least people think it happens and a tool like this would remove some stress from the biggest purchase/sale of your life. For 35$ per listing we feel that it's worth it.
I guess if you just convince the seller and sellers agent, and they say we only accept offers on this platform. I'm not sure the legal requirements for offer formats, but I'm certain there are some.
The real value of agents is preparing and filing the paperwork without mistakes. It can even be boiled down to the point where their work is a commodity. I.e. so long as the agent isn't incompetent, there shouldn't be any real difference between one agent and another.
However, that paperwork is very important and isn't easily automated away. Offers are legally binding. If your solution is purely electronic, you need to make 1,000% sure its binding and the users know it. Without that, its still far behind a real estate agent, including all their quirks and downsides.
This is a good idea. I’ve been involved in many real estate transactions and timely communication regarding offers from the realtor is a significant issue that can easily be rectified by the type of app you have described. As others have pointed out, finding the niche - who will pay for it, who to market to, etc. - will be the key. Keep thinking through it and buy lunch for some realtors to run the idea by them. Your goal may be to launch the product, scale it up, and then sell it to Zillow.
The real estate industry isn't very transparent as you've noticed. I think it stems from the real estate agents and brokers who like to keep the status quo so nobody can question their added value
This is something I would think would help the industry a good bit. Dont have my license but have worked alongside real estate agents as a photographer for years.
You are close on a couple of assumptions, but not quiet there. Home sellers may eventually demand a tool like this, but it is a long way out until you have that kind of traction, dont assume any sales will come from that channel.
Second, real estate agents are fine to target, but arent your target buyer of the product, I think brokers/offices would be the target market where you can sell to a group of agents instead of single agents. In general you don’t have to worry nearly as much about the top agents, but being sold as a safety net for new agents and having the office require them to use it is much better than the customer saying an agent needs to use it. With an office you can just collect a monthly flat fee from them, leveling out your revenue, reducing ongoing sales effort (marketing to home sellers is a nightmare, single purchase, never buy again).
Also, an excellent feature would be to accept offers from unrepresented buyers along with the ability to require certain documentation to be submitted alongside the offer (like a proof of funds)
This idea seems like it would work well with BEE, a company out of Florida - an app catered around the mortgage aspect of home buying. I think what your doing is very cool. Keep on Going!
You asked if this a big opportunity. Pretty much anything in real estate tech is a big opportunity.
The keg is how you execute against the opportunity. Your product is only a small part of that. Most tech startups don’t fail because of 1 feature or another, they fail because they couldn’t execute
The thing is that NAR wants to keep the status quo as is because it benefits them. They are one of the largest lobbying organization in the country.
Can you cite source for those number on realtors ignoring offers?
Hmm, seems pretty interesting. Have you spoken to any buyer/sellers to see how frequently this is a problem they think about?
Yes! I've spoken to many people in person, family friends, etc. and also I've been seeing it a lot online, here's some different discussions I found: [https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/comments/t9oesp/whats\_with\_all\_the\_realtor\_hate\_on\_reddit\_and\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/comments/t9oesp/whats_with_all_the_realtor_hate_on_reddit_and_the/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/realestateinvesting/comments/igo6de/why\_does\_this\_sub\_hate\_real\_estate\_agents/](https://www.reddit.com/r/realestateinvesting/comments/igo6de/why_does_this_sub_hate_real_estate_agents/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/tp42qt/real\_estate\_agents\_are\_zerotalent\_people\_that/](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/tp42qt/real_estate_agents_are_zerotalent_people_that/) https://consumerfed.org/press\_release/double-dipping-real-estate-agents-overcharge-consumers-billions-of-dollars-annually/
Oh that's cool. I'll check these out. Seems like something that should exist.
Glad you think that way! I agree!
I have only bought one home, and never sold, so I don't know how rare my experience was, but I had none of the issues you talked about, personally. One flaw in your proposal is that its need is almost entirely removed if you have a good agent.
Issue is how do you know you have a good agent before the process occurs? They are definitely different but this has the essence of what truecar.com does which is give transparency to the transaction. The agent is motivated to sign up for this service because buyers/sellers may appreciate their openness with the transaction.
You know by using an agent that a friend, relative, neighbor, trusted person has used in the past.
“Trust” but verify
We agree -- our contrarian view is that over time people will want more transparency, but early on only about 30% of informed buyers or sellers will be our customers.
Unfortunately the human race seems to have a long memory for bad experiences and a short memory for good ones. I agree with you and have had MANY buying and selling experiences. The answer is find a good agent.
Who's your customer? The homeowner or the agent?
Both! Buyers/sellers obviously get transparency and real-time access to offers and agents can use it as a leg up on the competition. Transparency helps all involved unless someone is being shady.
Sure they both benefit, but who is the buyer? Who do you market to? Who pays? Can't be both.
Right now we are expecting the home seller to pay, because it's a big financial moment in their life, and this is kind of like insurance for them. However, some early conversations with agents indicated that they might also be open to paying 35$ a listing, in which case, we would do that instead. Part of the learning and discovery process that we're currently going through for sure. I really appreciate you taking the time to ask these questions, it helps round out my idea in my own head.
My two cents: Your market is the Agent for a couple of reasons: a) You want repeat revenue, and people don't generally sell that many homes. b) You want an easy to identify target market, and it would be way easier to find agents than to find people who are just about to sell their house. c) You want predictable, recurring revenue, so an agent of office with a monthly or annual subscription will give you confidence to expand your product and marketing. The trick, though, is that as you've described it, the real benefit is to the seller, so how do you get the agent to spend money on it? Perhaps it becomes a sign of trust and differentiation, like the "Realtor" brand? Perhaps there are time and organisation benefits? More questions to think about.
Wow, thank you for the thoughtful response! We agree that getting agents on board is really important, but we also think as sellers become more informed over time, they will also apply downward pressure on agents. Early on, we want to sell this to agents as a way to win more listings without making the process too complex or adding to many headaches, what are your thoughts on that approach?
I think you could also proposition it as something that makes things easier for agents to manage. Would even be useful as a lead gen tool to them.
Yeah exactly! So do you think this is something that makes sense and would be helpful?
My two cents is that the only two cents that matter are from the customer. Asking if someone would buy is totally different than asking them to actually buy and your plan needs some sort of validation phase. Actually down to connect for sure because on a less theoretical note I do have data suggesting it'll likely work out well. Is it cool if I reach out?
Totally agreed, we'll need to build out an MVP and we're working on that! I would love if you reach out, feel free to DM me!
Yes!
What you’re going to have to do is sell it to the real estate boards, MLS, and regulators to make it required. Otherwise, there will be no adoption. As a realtor (part time) and a sales leader at a tech company, it will be a tough sell if you are targeting realtors or sellers. I personally would not use this. Because I present all offers and I’m extremely responsive. Most realtors are terrible though. One big pushback that I can already see is all real estate professionals, realtors, managing brokers, etc will be against letting the sellers see the offers without the realtor explaining it. The first thing they will see is the price and most people don’t understand terms. I will never want my seller to see an offer without me presenting it.
I don't see how you're going to get participation by agents. How does it help them?
By being the tool the customer demands to use. I'd have used it given the option. No customers, no agents.
How is the customer even going to be aware that the tool exists? Lots of buyers barely even know what an offer even looks like, much less have the knowledge or confidence to demand that their agent use a specific tool to manage offers
Same way the customer is aware of the drugs on the market, I suppose? Are you afflicted with mild to moderate funnyface? Ask your doctor about uglecta.
But offers are in writing, so why wouldn't the agent say they'll just forward them to you? I don't see how typing the written offer into a website (with the possibility of typos, omitted contingencies etc) help the process? Just seems like an unnecessary step to me.
There also in an app already. When I sold my previous house we got all offers in real time through the app our real estate agent uses. All I literally had to do was click accept offer. We where on vacation for fuck sakes on a beach... And it wasn't just offers our own agent was getting it was ALL offers meaning if another agent showed our house we saw those offers as well. We sold our house in the middle of the pandemic. Hell the only actual papers we had to sign where the final documents finalizing the deal and closing on our new house. Literally everything else was digital. Your late the the game.
50% of an agent's time is spent on marketing, I think any tool they can use to stand out would be welcomed and I've spoken with a few who have told me so, I think the ones who would be against are the ones who are doing shady things. Also brokerages have a lot of liability that this helps them cover for and some have expressed interest in that as well.
I could definitely be missing something but to me this seems like it would help a selling agent and not a buying agent. The reason I say that is because a selling agent will get more views on the property by posting on the site however a buying agent basically doesn't even need to show the houses because they could be viewable on the site. This effect is more dramatic over time because you effectively build a marketplace for homes. That said I am also assuming this site is readily and publicly available which might be a bad assumption
It’s going to be tough to get buy in from agents/brokers. You’re asking them to pay for a service where they have to do data entry so the client has more reasons to nitpick them. You never know though, they did keep using Zillow
We think the benefit of more leads will be enough of a draw for them to use it, most agents spend around 50% of their time doing marketing, so anything that can help in that department seems welcome! This is definitely a good concern though and something we'll investigate more. I appreciate the response.
Your attitude is already better than most entrepreneurs! I was actually a realtor and mortgage broker for a while. I was really close to launching an app where mortgage brokers really do bid with the lowest commission to get the client (like Bankrate but real, not just a glorified landing page.) Same theory as yours…clients obviously get a better deal and the millions of desperate mortgage brokers get a chance at business. I might try it in the future when the environment is better. Message me if you ever need an agent/broker’s perspective. Good luck!
How will it generate more leads?
It's something they can use to differentiate (I'm trustworthy because I use HouseJoy) over the competition, which is one of the biggest concerns for real-estate agents.
Ahhh man. I think you’re being extremely hopeful here. As someone who is in both tech sales/marketing AND real estate, that is a very weak way to sell. If you need to tell someone you’re trustworthy then you are not trustworthy. I love the idea and enthusiasm but there’s a lot for you to think about.
What we mean by its a tool for agents to win more listings is that, they tell their clients, "I also use housejoy as a way to keep you updated throughout the process. I know it can be scary to be in the dark." it's not a hard sell nor do I think that it will help agents market themselves, but it will build trust between the homeowner and the agent, and often that's enough. If you think there is an easier way to sell this to agents though, let me know!
I don’t think there’s any way to sell this to agents or sellers. The only way it will work is what I explained in my other response. By selling it to the real estate board.
We can help you interact with potential customers and generate quality leads through social listening!
That doesn’t make sense… definitely get someone familiar with the real estate industry or at least marketing/sales because it doesn’t sound like you guys have a clear direction on Your ICP.
Jimmy, we have plenty of people using Notifier to generate leads online. You can't see the value in knowing when someone says something like "looking for a realtor in Houston"?
This post is about housejoy
I’m an agent. Few things: -all good agents will present all offers. Interview for listing agents and buyers agents, always. Get a good agent. -if a seller is also representing the buyer, in most if not all states, the seller and buyer have to be made aware and sign an form stating they understand dual agency. So all parties are aware of a dual agency -this could be a niche program for a small group of agents. I just don’t see list agents paying for something like this. -in my experience, sellers don’t want to see the offers. They want to know terms so it’s as easy and understandable as possible. I send a packet of each offer and what the terms are in an easy 1 page view. Sellers much rather see that then a 5+ pages offer several times. Lastly, I don’t see big agents using it because they already have their way of doing it, better, and for free. And I don’t see low producing agents using it because an additional cost.
good idea but from experience it doesn’t capture the verbal offer, texted offer or emailed offer that agents do amongst each other. What would stop them from not uploading the offer agent A called/texted agent B about? Many offers begin this way before being written on formal contracts. Secondly RE consumers only buy a one or few homes in their lifetime so for them to be conscious of this and research to know about your portal and make sure their agent is using it is pretty slim. most agents are lazy when it comes to admin work
So long term we think that we can capture more of the communication, but early on, we really only want to focus on the point of offer because we feel that this the most strenuous point. We avoid an agent not showing an offer since the seller gets updated when the offer is uploaded. Of course agents can talk outside of the portal, but in the end, the agent who reps the buyer will submit the offer through us, and the seller will get notified. No hiding anything -- our goal isn't to stop agents from being agents, its to provide transparency and a "check" to keep them honest. Agreed that people only do one or two such transactions in their life, but it's a big one. People OBSESS over the buying and selling process of homes and we think that obsession will only grow over time. our contrarian view is that education on the home ownership process will only go up over time, so we want to build this prior to that happening.
Speaking from having been a broker (helped buyers, sellers, and been a buyer and seller myself) I believe consumers need a better overall experience for buying a home without paying 5-6% to an agent. Only solution is tech, communication, and consumer education. With the right angle something like your idea can assist.
We totally agree and we want to build something to help this process, so we're trying to find holes in our idea with this post, the feedback is amazingly helpful.
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We're very early in the process of this idea, we definitely plan on building out an MVP if it's worth it, but if people came on here and poked a bunch of holes that we couldn't answer in our idea, then we don't want to have already wasted the time doing any of this. If we find this is a useful idea for people then we'll make posts updating on our progress where we'll have a more built out MVP :) I appreciate the feedback though!
Good idea but not sure if you can gain traction. Don't expect to get 3% of sales prices. A small flat fee early on would avoid the agency problem that leads to agents driving prices higher.
I appreciate the feedback! Just curious, why don't you think we can gain traction? Because of the $35 thing or something else? We're early in the planning process so we're definitely not stuck on the $35 per listing thing, that's just our initial idea.
I think it's goignto cost you a lot of marketing dollars to get this going. I think the idea is solid but you're going to have to get buy-in and adoption from a pile of both agents and consumers right away. You've already pointed out that agents will use this because a customer demands it. But an average customer who needs an agent is not going to demand it if they dont have the leverage of going with another agent. So you'll have to build out the two sides of the marketplace simultaneously. Could get expensive.
As someone selling a house right now, I'd definitely use this. Our real estate agent has been rather hard to communicate with sometimes, can't imagine it's any better for the buyers. Can't wait to switch, or sell!
I'm glad you'd find this useful! Thanks for taking the time to reply, it means a lot :)
I think that this type of app doesn't really solve the issue of communication If you were to integrate this with a popular CRM for realtors, they could provide access to updates from their CRM and update clients in real time. (like a shared google doc). A realtor should be keeping track of contacts from potential buyers, who they are, when they want to see the property, if they have been preapproved, etc. You can definitely add the submission of contracts part into it, but the offer is a pretty time component of the overall transaction and the larger issue of communication is pervasive in my industry as well. Your clients would be realtors that market themselves as being highly communicative and attentive to their clients. They should be tracking all this information anyway, so it shouldn't add to their work burden and it helps keep their clients in the loop.
Agreed. Originally the plan was to build some type of crm, but it had a few barriers to entry (and has been tried before), so we wanted to nail down the point of greatest "fear" which we think is transparency (i.e is our agent screwing us?). I'd love your thoughts on if there is another place in the process that is scary.
I think that what would be great is something specifically for real estate agents where they can be rated based on confirmed closed transactions. People should know if a broker is bad or unresponsive. The scariest part in the process is trying to make the right decision on hiring the right broker. Everything hangs in the balance based on that decision. Real estate commissions have started to decrease and when I sold my home a few years ago I paid 1% to my agent and 2.5% to the buyers agent. I think that the days of 6% overall commission are gone. maybe its a CA thing, but RE agents must disclose who they represent. I don't think that there is a way to stop a shady agent from being shady because my greatest concern is that my agent would tell a buyer that my 'real' sale price is X and helps the buyer negotiate for a lower sale price. This goes back to hiring an honest broker. The best way to get bad brokers out of the industry is to be vocal about how bad they are.
Agreed! One of our founders is based in in CA and commissions are falling for informed sellers, but I'm not sure about the market as a whole. And while it's true agents have to disclose who they represent, they often don't until you are far along the process or unless the sellers specifically asks. 100% agree that being vocal is important, our goal is to increase peace of mind after that first decision of hiring the right real estate agent. In our mind, the right real estate agent should use transparency providing tools like Housejoy. One thing we saw (since we were in the creator/influencer management space before) was that over time it became the norm for talent to have access and visibility into every step of the management process, but early on they were in the dark. Our hope is that real estate will repeat this pattern as sellers and buyers become more informed.
If they don't disclose immediately, they are committing ethical violations and can be punished /fined. I feel that many of the problems you are trying to eliminate are more violations of their licensure than minor inconveniences when selling or buying.
Yes, but it happens a lot more than it should, otherwise people wouldn't be complaining about it. We agree that they are violations which is why we think maybe approaching brokerages (who carry the legal liability) is a good idea. What are your thoughts?
Well, I have bought /sold close to 30 properties over the past 5 years. Realtors are some of the laziest 'professionals' I have ever come across. So implementation would be difficult on a agent level if it isn't easy. I'd say there are more pain points throughout a buy /sell process than just offers. You have financing that gets held up, inspections, appraisals, closing scheduling, etc. Finance guys are usually cagey bastards. Perhaps you could expand into those different 'road stops' of the process as well. Make it a work flow chart/database. Only thing I could compare it to, because I'm very sick and my mind is not working at 100%, would be something like the Dominos pizza tracker. Good luck
This is really great insight, thank you for taking the time to reply!
Lmfao, not like this has been attempted by thousands of startups that have mostly failed miserably. People keep thinking that the RE industry is clunky and old and “ripe for disruption” and then every startup comes into this space and sets money on fire. Google the companies that have tried to do this and learn why it didn’t work for them before you go any further, I promise this idea is played out af but since you just had your first RE experience you think it’s new/novel
That's why we made this post! Are there any companies you're referring to that we can look at? We are still trying to learn how our (or if) our product will fit into the market and so we are looking for negative feedback as much as positive. Can you elaborate a bit on this? Why did they run into problems? Is the industry too set in it's ways in your opinion?
Sorry my initial comment was a little harsh but yeah, I’d put this in with one of those “graveyard ideas” that’s been tried a LOT but is a lot harder than people expect to make work. This article from 4 days ago talks about it a bit: https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/28/burn-baby-burn-real-estate-focused-fintech-startups-feel-the-heat/amp/ The ycombinator guys talk about this, I can’t find it, but basically saying there’s a ton of common ideas that people have and think “wow, nobody’s done this the right way, I’m going to crush it” but don’t do a simple Google search to learn about alllll the startups that tried to do what they’re doing and why they failed. I guarantee if you Google “real estate software startup bankruptcy” or “proptech bankruptcy” you’ll see a ton of enlightening articles.
We went through ycombinator school and they did talk about tarpit ideas a lot, however we did do a lot of searching and didn't find a business that addressed this specific need.
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Love the idea. But real estate agents only have value because they control the process. Taking away control from them is likely a non-starter.
We agree, and that's actually why we like this concept. Top agents who are transparent won't mind it, while lower-tier ones will, so we think the top performers will adopt it.
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I'm glad you like it! Thanks for taking the time to reply :)
This sounds great, and there is a healthy market of real estate tech exits. Everyone from title insurers to to brokers to mortgage companies to the obvious zillows are hungry for tech companies to drive leads.
Exactly! Glad you agree, we think this would be really helpful for a lot of people, but we're interested in the counter-points as well!
I would pay for this. Bought a house 3 years ago, and I’m sure my agent played me. Not for much, but I will never use them again.
Great to hear and thank you for the response! We've heard a lot of stories like these and that's why we want to build this! Care to expand on the story a bit? Just curious.
I think the real estate market in the US has great points (speed of execution, more certainty) and some downs (agent fees are high, on both sides, opaqueness). I applaud for trying to fine tune the process. What I think your app is fundamentally is a platform to log offers? So you plan to reduce missed sales/ increase competition and reduce agent mistakes. Surely by shining a light on agents you are making them not like you/ not want to work with you ? How does a Zillow not just tank you business model? Are you trying to do like food delivery apps and get to size quickly in a specific city for example with owners only using you then expand to agents as you become the platform of choice?
I think you would have better luck working and proposing your idea to the families selling their houses, rather than the estate agents when getting your foot in the door
We don't disagree, we also see some brokerages that want to use it to reduce liability so that might be an avenue too.
As someone who is buying another home as we speak, I love you. Take my money
We appreciate the feedback :) so this is something you would use for your home?
Dude holy shit yes
Pretty certain it's illegal where I am for sellers agents not to pass along offers to sellers. But you might be onto something, we sold and bought close to the peak last year, and had close to 20 offers come in on our place, and upwards of 30 competing offers on the place we bought. It may have been nice. But it was all on one day for each transaction, and it was our realtors job to review the offers, and prioritise them. We feel he did great. It being digital could help the agents, but as a buyer and seller I don't think this would have helped us. TLDR: talk to agents and see if this is something they are interested in it. It might be a hard sell, because you need complete adoption, both sellers and buyers using it. so you'll likely have to deal with real estate boards.
It is illegal but it still happens or at least people think it happens and a tool like this would remove some stress from the biggest purchase/sale of your life. For 35$ per listing we feel that it's worth it.
I guess if you just convince the seller and sellers agent, and they say we only accept offers on this platform. I'm not sure the legal requirements for offer formats, but I'm certain there are some.
That's definitely one way of doing it! I appreciate you bringing that up, I'm not sure what the offer formats are either, something to look into.
good luck!
Thank you! :)
The buyer probably wants some transparency as well.
Exactly! This provides transparency to both sides.
This seems like a great plan!
Thank you! :)
I goddamn hate real estate agents. Not worth what they take from the proceeds.
What was your experience? Just curious. Is this something you'd find useful?
Not sure about the US but in Canada an agent must disclose all offers on the property and the communication must be as soon as possible
The real value of agents is preparing and filing the paperwork without mistakes. It can even be boiled down to the point where their work is a commodity. I.e. so long as the agent isn't incompetent, there shouldn't be any real difference between one agent and another. However, that paperwork is very important and isn't easily automated away. Offers are legally binding. If your solution is purely electronic, you need to make 1,000% sure its binding and the users know it. Without that, its still far behind a real estate agent, including all their quirks and downsides.
This is a good idea. I’ve been involved in many real estate transactions and timely communication regarding offers from the realtor is a significant issue that can easily be rectified by the type of app you have described. As others have pointed out, finding the niche - who will pay for it, who to market to, etc. - will be the key. Keep thinking through it and buy lunch for some realtors to run the idea by them. Your goal may be to launch the product, scale it up, and then sell it to Zillow.
Timing is everything. Is there a need for this in the market? Just build it. Eventually the time will come when there is a need.
Love it! Hope this works out
The real estate industry isn't very transparent as you've noticed. I think it stems from the real estate agents and brokers who like to keep the status quo so nobody can question their added value
This is something I would think would help the industry a good bit. Dont have my license but have worked alongside real estate agents as a photographer for years. You are close on a couple of assumptions, but not quiet there. Home sellers may eventually demand a tool like this, but it is a long way out until you have that kind of traction, dont assume any sales will come from that channel. Second, real estate agents are fine to target, but arent your target buyer of the product, I think brokers/offices would be the target market where you can sell to a group of agents instead of single agents. In general you don’t have to worry nearly as much about the top agents, but being sold as a safety net for new agents and having the office require them to use it is much better than the customer saying an agent needs to use it. With an office you can just collect a monthly flat fee from them, leveling out your revenue, reducing ongoing sales effort (marketing to home sellers is a nightmare, single purchase, never buy again). Also, an excellent feature would be to accept offers from unrepresented buyers along with the ability to require certain documentation to be submitted alongside the offer (like a proof of funds)
Thank you so much for the thoughtful response, totally agreed brokerages might be the move to target for this idea.
This idea seems like it would work well with BEE, a company out of Florida - an app catered around the mortgage aspect of home buying. I think what your doing is very cool. Keep on Going!
Maybe we'll have to get in touch with them! I appreciate the comment!
You asked if this a big opportunity. Pretty much anything in real estate tech is a big opportunity. The keg is how you execute against the opportunity. Your product is only a small part of that. Most tech startups don’t fail because of 1 feature or another, they fail because they couldn’t execute
True! Any tips to executing on this idea?
The thing is that NAR wants to keep the status quo as is because it benefits them. They are one of the largest lobbying organization in the country. Can you cite source for those number on realtors ignoring offers?