Kelley Blue Book Homes has announced the launch of its residential real estate platform, bringing the Kelley Blue Book brand into the home valuation market. The website delivers homeowners home valuations for when they sell. Agents can secure exclusive access to those sellers on a zip-code basis through marketing agreements with Kelley Blue Book Homes.
The platform is now open for agent sign-ups in 10 states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington—with seller marketing services beginning August 1.
The new initiative is a joint venture with appraisal and home valuation company True Footage, whose CEO, John Liss, tells RISMedia that the platform will leverage deeper data and the Kelley Blue Book’s century-old brand to offer agents (and sellers) something new in the crowded lead-gen and home valuation space.
“I would say nobody needs more junk in the lead space. There’s plenty of that,” Liss says. “We have data, and we know that our valuations are more comprehensive than others. So it’s not just throwing some instant uninterpretable AVM model at consumers.”
In early test markets, the platform is seeing more than 17% of listings go on the MLS within 90 days of getting a price report, according to the release, which Liss says shows that high-intent sellers are attracted to the Kelley process and information. Leads are vetted, with sellers opting in, and needing to complete the much more comprehensive home valuation process, which mirrors some of what Kelley Blue Book does with cars.
Unlike the commission-based referral structures that define most lead platforms, Kelley Blue Book Homes explained in the release that it operates on a subscription model. Agents pay a predictable monthly fee for marketing to sellers in their zip code rather than committing to a percentage of their commission at close.
Liss adds that Kelley Blue Book has “an implicit trust” with consumers, based on its long history in auto valuations. The valuations are also meant to differentiate from competitors who rely on algorithms, with a property valuation that has “a human in the loop,” and includes aggregated data and analysis from True Footage’s products, according to Liss.
Agents are vetted based on performance metrics including sales volume, days on market, sale to list ratio and other qualitative factors making sure Kelley customers only get serviced by top-performing agents, which Liss says includes more than just sales volume.
Asked how the initiative will evolve—if Kelley Blue Book plans to significantly expand its agent community or criteria for using the platform—Liss says they have “aspirations to grow. We feel like there’s enough top agents in the U.S. to grow responsibly.”
Liss also affirms there are opportunities to bring in more consumers from the established auto valuation side (where the brand sees 240 million annual visitors), potentially increasing the volume of leads, without providing specific details.
“There’s belief that providing consumers with more one-stop shop solutions across all of their needs in terms of asset understanding is a good thing,” Liss says.
