The North Carolina-based Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors has chosen ShowingTime as the new real estate showing appointment service provider for its nearly 1,700 members, starting today.
Chicago-based ShowingTime and WRAR signed a deal Monday morning, on the heels of the association’s announcement last week that it had ended its five-year relationship with Newark, Del.-based eShowings.
The trade group had been eShowings’ last remaining big client after a string of defections since company founder and CEO Charles Smith’s conviction for failing to pay payroll taxes.
Michael Lane, ShowingTime’s president, declined to disclose the length of the agreement with WRAR, citing confidentiality. He said 400 offices representing some 12,000 agents had switched from eShowings to ShowingTime, including 160 offices with roughly 4,000 agents in the last 30 days.
Most of the firms that made the switch are in the Northeast, particularly in the Philadelphia metro area near eShowings’ main office. Some of the biggest brokerages include Keller Williams Real Estate, Re/Max Associates, Coldwell Banker Preferred, Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate, Century 21 Alliance, Coldwell Banker Hearthside, Long & Foster, and Weichert Realtors, Lane said.
EShowings did not respond to a request for comment.
In a notice on the WRAR website, the trade group’s new MLS president, Sandy Beals, said WRAR’s board had “worked diligently to find a product that would better than what we had” and had unanimously chosen ShowingTime. The company beat out 10 other competitors due to its “superior” tools, she said, and ability to provide services 15 hours a day, from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time.
Members will also be able to use ShowingTime’s online scheduling system through the WRAR MLS at any time of day, and use ShowingTime’s mobile application to request and manage showings and feedback.
“The ShowingTime Appointment Center’s extended hours, two-way text messaging capabilities, branded calls and emails, and overall use of technology to automate the scheduling process is exciting,” Beals said in a press release.
“I am looking forward to a long relationship with ShowingTime. I am so confident they will exceed members’ expectations.”
Beals asked WRAR members to be patient as ShowingTime’s staff enters each member’s showing instructions into its system as each appointment is set. ShowingTime is currently holding online training webinars for WRAR’s members and will conduct on-site training sessions next week.
ShowingTime schedules more than 2 million showings per month in more than 190 markets representing more than 400,000 real estate professionals.
More than 6,000 offices across the country use its products, which are integrated with more than 190 MLSs. In November, ShowingTime signed up three MLSs: the Northwest Ohio Real Estate Information Service (NOREIS), the New Jersey MLS, and the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors MLS.
