Showing management software company Instashowing is moving quickly on the heels of its latest funding round in May.
In the same year, it launched its showing request solution with merely one employee — its founder, William Schoeffler — Instashowing has hired 12 developers and a sales manager, found influential investors and forged marketing partnerships. It also added several new features to expand how agents market and show properties. It also launched an iOS companion app.
First, its MLS connectivity enables users’ listings to automatically populate the showing dashboard, reducing error-prone manual data entry and shrinking the time between contract signing and property marketing. (The company has inked several MLS partnerships and continues to pursue others.)
Although showing software products target primarily listing agents, InstaTour’s founder developed it to allow buyer’s agents to build smart home tours and travel logistics. Those logging in from a connected MLS can search for and add homes with only an address, then arrange times, and send a batch of showing requests to each listing agent. Agents can quickly share tours with clients via text, email or live URL.
The interface is clean and bold. There’s nothing visually irritating to get into the way of the most critical information. There are lots of dark fonts, white space and clever hints of emphasis colors.
A tour preview page displays in a vertical timeline, with each showing illustrated in a large image card of the home, price, address and tour times.
A map view is ever-present, and users can drag and drop times and listings quickly if something needs to change.
The live link, a bi-directional feed, ensures the buyer sees any updates immediately.
The ideal outcome of any home showing is that it turns into an offer. For those times, there’s a new offer management and workflow feature.
The tool provides users with a basic but efficient way for agents to quickly submit the terms of a deal for the seller’s consideration. Users can drop documents — such as preapproval letters, proof-of-funds, and hopefully, a formal offer to purchase contract — into the app to accompany what was submitted. There’s a helpful video tutorial included.
Buyers can choose which contingencies to add with appropriate dates, offer a seller occupancy period and include specific notes. The user experience is excellent here, using very clear text for each contingency, radio buttons indicating inclusion, and short text fields for dates.
Sellers can accept, reject, counter, and even batch request the highest and best from multiple buyer parties.
Listing agents will see all offers submitted and their subsequent status on their offer dashboard, including the names of all parties and the buyer’s agent’s profile.
Brokers will be happy to know an activity log tracks when every offer is received, reviewed, and responded to. This data is helpful if a buyer’s agent thinks the listing agent and sellers didn’t consider their clients’ terms or if the listing agent isn’t reacting as quickly as needed.
Instashowing has also built an analytics tool for live looks into market activity designed to help agents understand where offers they send and receive stand up against what the market says something is worth. The company updates data every 30 minutes and is depicted in a series of charts, graphics and map views.
As I said, this company has been pretty busy in its effort to supply the industry with more than just a way to schedule property showings. It appears to be evolving into a proper real estate business support tool centered on listings, which, in a way, is what the industry is all about.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
