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DirectOffer is a mobile listing marketing and consumer search app.
Platforms: iOS and Android apps
Ideal for: Corporate and indie brokers, teams and agents
Top selling points:
- InterestGrid pricing tool
- Audio tour creation
- Designed to be white-labeled for brokers and agents
- Pre-offer submissions
- Some features can be sold stand-alone
Top concern:
There are definitely some standout features in DirectOffer, but brokers and agents still need to sell it to clients for them to use it. Do that, and you should see success.
What you should know
DirectOffer is a branded mobile search experience that offers consumers a variety of ways to find homes and listing agents unique methods for positioning their clients’ properties.
It offers communication tools, offer submission features and the opportunity to buy specific features as stand-alone marketing add-ons. It’s ideal for brokerages looking for a technology partner to provide a ready-to-go mobile solution.
DirectOffer benefits from being carefully balanced on the edge of consumer search and brokerage marketing. The former is not an easy world in which to tread, the competition is simply too big. If you want to step into the category, have something good to offer.
I’m not saying that DirectOffer is going to in any way dethrone HomeSnap or Zillow (that’s not really the intent), but it’s come up with a couple of very sharp tools to keep users interacting.
DirectOffer’s InterestGrid is a simple, dynamic scale that graphs the number of pre-offers submitted according to price range on whatever listing users are viewing. Brevity is the soul of wit, and this subtle colored graphic communicates a lot in a little space, reminding buyers of the competition and sellers of what’s resonating with the market.
Ultimately, I like how DirectOffer took a common concept in sales (showing the competitive landscape) and found a unique way to put it in front of the market. More often than not, agents have to tell clients much information, and it’s often met with cynicism.
Audio Tours allow users of the app to easily record voiceovers for their properties. Or, as the company likes to say, “podcasts for properties.” DirectOffer makes it easy to record statements over any number of listing images. This can be a very valuable tool for those brokerages who want to offer an ADA-compliant search experience. The feature was in fact inspired by DirectOffer’s founder having a daughter with a reading disability.
Beyond the legal importance of creating accessible websites, the audio tools allow agents to offer a range of narration themes, from highlighting specific amenities to sharing what’s cool about the community.
It’s easy to do as well, requiring only a couple of taps to record, save or start over. And, for those non-writers out there, your voice can go a long way toward adding some emotion into sales pitch for a property.
Both InterestGrid and the audio tour modules can be purchased as stand-alone enterprise products for brokerages.
Home data is fed to DirectOffer through a ListHub account, but each brokerage’s inventory will surface to the top of respective searches from clients who are using their app.
Search results are presented with large image windows, assorted iconography for features and tools for quickly calling or messaging the appropriate agent.
Agents and their buyers can also be connected through the app, meaning pre-offers can be submitted on their behalf, ensuring a rogue buyer isn’t simply inundating sellers with non-qualified bogus displays of interest.
Listing agents can compile all pre-offers to share a report with their clients, and all users can view activity logs for each listing. There’s also an agent-to-agent search tool, something that will offer more valuable once DirectOffer is able to gain a larger foothold in the market.
Speaking of which, the company told me it is deep into discussions on a partnership with a major national brokerage.
DirectOffer was built to help brokers and their agents remain central to the search experience, and based on its feature set, I don’t believe that to be marketing speak.
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.
