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MyHome is an online portal that allows agents and homebuyers to track the title search and escrow process.
Platforms: Browser; mobile-optimized
Ideal For: All buyers and agents within markets covered by Williston Financial Group (WFG)
Top selling points
- Superb user experience
- Collaborative
- Transaction timeline
- Powerful value-add for agents
Top concerns
Limitation to markets where WFG National Title Company has a title office, although talks are underway to license the software to unaffiliated title companies.
What you should know
For most consumers, title companies are like the Greek Fates of the American dream. You may walk away from closing unscathed, or you may end up weeping on the sidewalk.
WFG National Title Co.’s MyHome was developed by West, a subsidiary of Williston Financial Group to shine a bright light of collaboration on the most vague, confusing part of any real estate sale for buyers and sellers. (West developed and maintains Inman Pro.)
The portal is an elegantly designed, mobile-optimized look into every step, task and individual involved in a sale during escrow.
Vice President of Product Development Matt Wilson deemed it, “The Domino’s pizza tracker of the escrow process.”
The software kicks into gear as a home goes under contract, alerting all parties to each step thereafter via text or email. Agents and consumers can log in at any time to view the status of the deal.
The UI is a three-column look divided by Dashboard, Transaction and People.
The Dashboard is a running timeline of critical steps highlighted by a simple “Where you stand” circle graph indicating percentage of sale completion.
Clicking on a timeline entry opens a card succinctly describing what happens when the “Title Report Has Been Delivered,” for example, and what’s expected to happen next.
The Transaction menu offers the escrow number, property address, directions on how to get to the signing office and the home’s sale price.
The People column offers contact details for all stakeholders, and emails and calls can be initiated on click.
Title office employees and agents can upload videos, viewable by a “play” icon, to introduce themselves and their office. Great touch.
And what would the escrow process be without paperwork?
WFG’s MyHome comes with a repository of viewable and downloadable versions of completed deal documents.
Next to the Documents menu is an alert tool indicating new activity, refreshed upon log in.
The Agent Dashboard is different, but equally informative.
The interface is divided by Buyers, Sellers and Closed. It’s clearly designed for agents who frequently work with WFG.
A map view holds clickable address-pointers that open up property and deal information, which are also accessible via the status updates of each respective sale in the Buyer and Seller windows.
A panel slider reveals buyer or seller details, escrow status, prices and the timeline.
Overall, WFG’s MyHome is an sharply conceptualized solution for sharing with buyers and sellers a part of the deal in which they’re not often included.
Having bought a house this summer, I can attest to the rudimentary methods of communication demonstrated by most title companies. I can feel the perpetual gut-spinning dread birthed by the expectation that The Fates discovered a snarling, deal-destroying title demon in their research, and my hopes of ownership would be delayed until, I don’t know, whenever Zeus decided otherwise.
(Deep breath.)
While there was no consistency in who would reach out to us or in what method they used to do so, I don’t think the local title company was at all lacking in service; it’s simply the industry standard. Our agent did a great job of keeping them on task.
If it was accessible to me, I would have never logged out of MyHome.
Command+R. Command+R. Command+R.
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