Over the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to accelerate the digitization of the real estate transaction. Whether it is closing on a new home or beginning the search process, homebuyers—especially the emerging millennial generation—expect to be able to digitally transact with trust, transparency, speed, ease and convenience.
Real estate firms know that investing in technology is critical, but it is also a challenge. Keeping up with technology is one of the biggest problems facing real estate agents and brokerages. They are challenged by an overwhelming number of choices and technology options with fragmented solutions and antiquated technology. Many agents and brokers use 10 or more individual solutions, requiring them to manage their relationships in a highly disjointed and frustrating way.
Looking through the lens of a homebuyer or real estate agent, the real estate transaction is cumbersome, slow and manual. A few of these pain points include:
- Speed of the transaction: The time from contract to close has remained the same for many years.
- Communication and sharing of information: There is a need for better integration between platforms to improve communication and sharing of documents between the brokerage, lender and closing company, which each have their own process and technology.
- Home search: The typical home search experience is limited to a few basic categories like a home’s square footage or number of bedrooms, leaving out a treasure trove of valuable information buyers are interested in like property condition, flooring, countertops, and lighting.
- Closing: The closing process can be very stressful for homebuyers, often because they do not understand the process, what they are paying for, or what is expected of them.
There is an opportunity to improve the experience for both homebuyers and agents by making the transaction more seamless and transparent across the board. From the moment a homebuyer begins their search online to the moment they have the keys in hand, there are touchpoints along the customer journey that technology can help optimize. What is most important however, is to view the entire real estate transaction from a holistic perspective from search to close. Rather than considering the steps of search, financing, title, and closing separately, we must consider them all as a unified experience for the homebuyer.
homegenius is focused on improving the buying and selling experience and enabling real estate agents to be the smartest person in the room while maximizing their productivity. Our solutions are powered by big data and proprietary analytics and technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning that will take homebuyer and agents from search to close with intelligence, transparency, speed and simplicity.
We are creating a better, more personalized home search process through geniusprice technology, using computer vision artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are developing smarter workflow technology for agents, solving a key problem for many real estate agents—the time it takes to keep up with technology and managing the various workflow systems and portals they need to access. And we are delivering a faster and more modern title and closing process backed by blockchain technology through titlegenius by Radian.
Visit homegenius.com to learn more about the homegenius ecosystem and the new digital frontier we are forging.
Eric Ray
Senior EVP, Chief Digital Officer and Co-Head of homegenius
Eric Ray has more than 30 years of experience in the technology sector. As senior executive vice president, chief technology officer and co-head of homegenius, Eric leads the vision, strategy and execution of hg’s products, technology, data, analytics and operations.
