Two more multiple listing service boards have selected home showing app Instashowing as a member benefit.
Staten Island Board of Realtors (SIBOR) in New York City and Conejo Simi Moorpark Association of Realtors (CSMAR) in Simi Valley, California, are rolling out the technology to help its agents schedule home showings, coordinate multi-home tours and send and manage offers.
Instashowing is already used by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.
Based in southern California, CSMAR operates in Agoura Hills, Moorpark, Newbury Park, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village, its website states. The organization reported its coverage area experienced the highest number of sales in more than six years in 2021. The total of 2,429 betters the five-year average by 21 percent.
Staten Island is reporting that 2022 is already matching the performance of 2021. It stated that “new listings on Staten Island increased 22.2 percent to 473 in February in comparison to the same period in 2021, but inventory levels fell 40.1 percent to 1,057 units – creating only 2.3 months of inventory.”
Median sales price in Staten Island increased 15 percent from last year, reaching $650,000. SIBOR was founded in 1915 and currently has around 1,900 members.
Sandy Krueger, CEO of SIBOR, said that while scheduling software has been a common benefit for its members for well over a decade, “they were dealing with different procedures and wrinkles with every property listed with a different brokerage,” whereas Instashowing “allows them a consistent platform for showing homes.”
“In addition, the scheduling software allowed many offices to save money by decreasing the time they needed to be open. It’s an incredibly valuable service,” he said.
Instashowing was launched in early 2021 before the $500 million acquisition of highly popular ShowingTime by Zillow, was developed by William Schoeffler while he was attending college in Bend, OR. It earned a number of notable investors early, including, Trulia CEO Pete Flint; coaching company founder Tom Ferry; Howard W. “Hoby” Hanna, IV; former Contractually CEO Zvi Band; Pacaso founder Austin Allison; and Greg Schwartz and Carey Armstrong, founder and CEO, and CRO, respectively, of real estate technology startup Tomo.
The product has since expanded to enable two-party coordination of home tours, an offer submission and management tool and market statistics based on showing volume. It also announced in-app integrations with Bluetooth-enabled Master Lock lockboxes.
ShowingTime’s sale was seen as controversial by parts of the industry, mainly because it would allow Zillow, often seen as a competitor to agents, access to critical industry data, namely the when, where and type of homes being shown. That data can be used to determine how Zillow’s home valuation algorithm considers homes, what buyers are most often looking for and what agents to target for premier accounts based on zip code and market activity.
A number of new showing technology products emerged in response, such as Showingly, BrokerBay, and CoStar’s Homesnap Showings. The Houston Association of Realtors built their own alternative, ShowingSmart.
“These partnerships will no doubt benefit their members,” Schoeffler told Inman. “Their decisions show that outside vendors are important partners to agents, and that companies like mine, and others out there, are valuable to pushing the industry forward. We’re get excited to get them up and running.”
Schoeffler stated his company is currently in talks with a group of notable multiple listing services to raise an equity round of financing, but was unable to provide specifics.
More Realtor associations are finding ways to own pieces of the proptech sector, whether through internal development or collective investment, an effort some say was sparked by Zillow’s buy.
In December, 2021, California Regional MLS launched a venture fund, and made its initial stake in New York City’s Perchwell, a real estate data platform, Inman reported.
The fund was created “as a hedge against changing market forces,” CRMLS stated.
Remine, an MLS software provider, was acquired in October of 2021 by a collective of Realtor organizations, Austin Board of Realtors, First MLS, Heartland MLS and Miami Realtor. They formed MLS Technology Holdings, LLC to buy the company.
