ShowingTime is unveiling a new feature that displays home tour availability in real time, significantly speeding up the process of booking a home tour and reducing hassles for buyers, sellers and agents alike, according to the company.
“Back-and-forth conversations about tour availability and scheduling hassles are time consuming and a potential deal killer in today’s fast-paced market,” said Michael Lane, vice president and general manager of ShowingTime. “This new feature’s functionality has long been sought in the industry because it helps everyone involved in a transaction—buyers, sellers and agents—by making it crystal clear when a home is available to tour.”
The feature is live in Dallas, Houston, Denver and Atlanta, and will roll out nationally later this year. It will be available soon for easy inclusion on broker and agent websites everywhere via the application programming interface (API) of ShowingTime, a residential real estate industry leading technology provider of showing management and market stats, according to the company.
Real-time availability is designed to reduce the burden on agents, particularly due to the complicated nature of scheduling in today’s highly competitive market.
By using the feature, agents know for certain when a home is available to book and can schedule those tours with their buyers faster—a key component to quickly narrowing down the best options in a market where the typical listing lasts just 11 days before a seller accepts an offer. This will also greatly reduce the burden on listing agents to manage showing requests that conflict with unavailable times.
Interest in 3D and virtual tours rose during the pandemic, but demand for in-person tours is heating up as well. The number of markets averaging double-digit showings per listing jumped 45% year over year, from 75 to 109 in February, according to ShowingTime’s latest Showing Index® report.
Typical buyers surveyed by Zillow in both 2020 and 2021 went on three private tours, one more than the typical buyer in 2018 and 2019. And in 2021, 95% of buyers took a private tour.
Sellers benefit, too, ShowingTime stated. A simpler, more efficient tour scheduling process means sellers can showcase their homes to more buyers who are ready to transact a sale. Sellers still living in the home they’re showing will also have greater insight and control into potential tour windows and know exactly when buyers will arrive.
For more information, visit https://www.showingtime.com/.
