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More than 217,000 real estate agents in California are now able to access a technology solution that was in development and stealth mode for three years before taking its place in the market in the summer of 2022.
The California Association of Realtors (CAR) has signed an agreement with technology company Milestones to provide its homeowner resource solution as a member benefit. The organization made the announcement today.
In July of 2022, Milestones introduced itself to the real estate industry with a $10.3 million Series A funding round. Its pitch, “an all-in-one homeowner portal that makes it easy for consumers to buy, move, sell and manage their home,” summarizes software that begins with lead generation and continues with long-term home asset management portals.
Dustin Gray, Milestones Founder and CEO, said in a statement that homeowners need assistance being homeowners, and that agents are ideally suited to provide that help.
“Gutters need to be cleared, water filters replaced, concrete sealed, dryer vents cleaned and so on. Milestones has checklists for all of it, complete with DIY videos or access to professionals who will do it for you,” Gray said.
Milestones’ approach, the company said, reflects the methodology used by financial planners or healthcare plans in that it considers the whole of home ownership, from initial search to fixing a fence gate three years after closing. It’s all connected, and each vendor has a role, in the same way a health insurance company wants to ensure a customer is eating right, or provided the proper medication.
The product’s features include home-value monitoring, home search and intrinsic transaction management. It offers the benefits of CRM relationship building with post-close, pre-sale lifecycle management. Inside Real Estate’s CORE Home offers comparative features and benefits.
In a company video published upon the funding announcement in July, Gray said about agents, “they should be a fiduciary advisor for all things real estate no matter where someone was in the process of buying, moving, owning or selling.”
Multiple listing services are constantly looking for ways to use to technology to encourage member participation and bolster consumer relationships, some have even created their own venture funds and, as a result, become de-facto software company owners.
“Through Milestones, members will be able to invite clients into web-based homeownership hubs to manage home maintenance, view home value, monitor home sales in their area, search for property and even identify mortgage refinance or HELOC options,” the release stated.
CAR has linked arms with a number of notable of technology vendors, such as Lone Wolf, RentSpree and DocuSign.
“This new member benefit is being launched at an opportune time,” said CAR President Otto Catrina, in the release. “Milestones addresses some key strategic goals of our association, which includes investing in new technologies that enhance a deeper advisory relationship between our members and homeowners.”
It will make the Milestones software available on October 11, according to the release.
