Chicago-based Truepad is a home search portal that uses agent-supplied data to rank the best listings in a market.
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Truepad is a Chicago-based home search portal that uses agent-supplied data to crowdsource home value and rank quality of available listings.
Platforms: Browser-based
Ideal for: All agents
Top selling points
- Agent-oriented portal; promotes agent market expertise
- Great potential for growth in new markets
- Agents can’t rank own listings
- Average DOM of agent-recommended listings is 13
Top concerns
Truepad is available only in Chicago at this time. Its model seems ripe for growth in new markets, however; plans call for expansion soon.
What you should know
For any agent who’s complained about the Zestimate: Here’s your chance to up-end it.
Truepad is a consumer-facing home search portal that uses agent feedback and expertise to highlight the best homes within a market.
For example, the highest-rated homes will be presented in red on a map of search results.
Each new agent member of Truepad is asked to rank every listing they’ve shown according to:
- Estimated sales price
- Expected time on market
- Subjective opinion of quality/value (a review)
The software’s most valuable offering, its algorithm, then bakes the ingredients into a star-based rating.
The most recommended homes aren’t given a hard number ranking, but they are presented higher in buyers’ search results.
Truepad members are not allowed to rank their own properties.
Agents whose opinions regularly land closest to a listing’s final sales stats grow in ranking on the site as well, which is a useful way to stand out to unrepresented home shoppers.
According to Truepad statistics based on 1,460 listings in Chicago, 1,152 of which closed, Truepad is better at predicting sale price by 4 percent, averaging a 3 percent median error compared to the Zestimate’s 7 percent.
When it came to being within 5 percent of sales price, Truepad agents were right on 73 percent; Zillow agents were right on 39 percent.
The study was conducted for more than a year, from February 2016 to April of 2017.
Now in beta-testing is a product called Trueassist, which automatically promotes a member’s listing activity on his or her Facebook account.
Price adjustments, new listings, sales and open houses are given promotion via links to an agent’s MLS identification number.
A social post is also triggered when a listing becomes “highlighted” on Truepad.
Truepad is similar to Relola, another platform that publicizes the feedback of agents after viewing a property.
Relola doesn’t yet translate feedback into a specific ranking system, but it can make one house stand out from another based on the knowledge and subjective expertise of industry professionals, which is why I very much like the trend both companies are representing: technology-supported agent transparency. It’s the only thing that will “beat the bots.”
As of the conversation and demonstration I had with Truepad last week, the site has more than 1,000 registered agents and is averaging between 10,000 and 20,000 active home shoppers per month.
I believe there is tremendous potential in Truepad. The website is designed very nicely, the search experience promotes interactivity and lets agents shine in their respective markets.
I’ll be watching this platform closely as new markets are announced. So should you.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
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