Chicago-based brokerage and franchisor @properties this week announced that it has launched a new portal meant to help guide homebuyers through the many tasks associated with closing on a home.
The portal is called Closing Milestones. Among other things, it’s meant to help real estate consumers keep track of things like home inspections, due dates, earnest money, mortgage financing and more. Agents with @properties can customize the portal to fit their clients’ specific needs, and a statement adds that @properties in-house tech team built the tool in response to frustration from consumers.
“People who make it through today’s gauntlet of property tours, bidding wars and negotiations may think they’ve reached the finish line once they have a signed contract in hand, only to realize that a purchase agreement is often just the beginning of another long and sometimes arduous road to closing,” the statement notes. “Closing Milestones aims to make this second half of the homebuying journey a walk in the park.”
The new portal operates within, and is available to, users of @properties proprietary technology platform, which the company calls pl@tform.
A screenshot showing the interface of Closing Milestones. Credit: @properties
Closing Milestones comes at a time when numerous real estate companies are working to build end-to-end platforms for their customers. The idea is that real estate has traditionally represented a fragmented and, at times, confusing process for consumers. The logic follows that a single, unified platform where homebuyers can manage all of their various tasks and documents would significantly improve the consumer experience.
Different firms are approaching the end-to-end puzzle from different directions — @properties is taking a very different approach compared to, say, Zillow — but the end-to-end objective is one of the more significant emerging trends in real estate from recent years.
Thad Wong
In @properties statement, company co-founder and c0-CEO Thad Wong characterized Closing Milestones as giving “homebuyers an agent’s view into their home purchase.” He added that the new portal “is essentially a client-facing version of @properties’ Deal Management System.”
“Is it normal for homebuyers to feel overwhelmed by the dozens of details that need to come together in order to close and move into a new home? Absolutely,” Wong said. “@properties’ agents have the technology to efficiently manage this process. We thought, ‘Why not give our clients this technology too?'”
