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The battle for the homeowner’s attention during the years, between closing and their next sale, has vexed the real estate industry for decades.
Many don’t put much effort into it at all, relying instead on the occasional referral from said homeowner. Others send closing anniversary postcards, birthday emails and other pretty ineffectual methods of outreach.
The team at MoveEasy tends to agree with me because they added to their very well-regarded relocation management solution, a powerful and relatively hands-off module to keep homeowners engaged between moves.
MoveEasy CEO, Venkatesh Ganapathy, said in a statement that the owner now only needs a single platform and agents are at the center of it.
“Whether you’re remodeling your kitchen, replacing your roof, or upgrading your home to solar, there are a variety of factors you have to consider,” Ganapathy said. “MoveEasy empowers real estate agents to act as the trusted advisor, surfacing insights and discounts to save clients money regardless of where they are in their journey. This drives a significant increase in client engagement with stronger loyalty and client satisfaction.”
The company shared its new technology in an exclusive demonstration to Inman. The new portal enters the “home management” space through a different door, the same one through which you lug all of your boxes.
MoveEasy’s primary value is in moving services, and I reviewed it initially in 2017. It offers agents a white-labeled (totally custom, if desired), resource for what they need to settle into their new place.
It’s not just a list of area phone numbers and vendor websites, it’s fully integrated as a reseller of utilities, security system providers, landscapers, internet providers and pretty much everything a person needs to ensure a smooth move, all under the fully branded auspices of the agent or brokerage.
Using APIs (application programming interfaces) and custom-programmed integrations, MoveEasy users can connect everything through the portal. Oh, and they add in personal concierges to answer questions and ensure all the hookups go as planned.
It should be noted that MoveEasy has a very small account cancellation percentage; so impressive is their rate of retention that they’re allowed to offer discounts few other third-party referral networks can.
MoveEasy’s latest update leverages that same flexible connectivity to offer homeowners live insights into regional market home values, their mortgage balances, refinance products and HELOC offers. It also juxtaposes financial market data with the user’s ability to buy a second home or income property, going so far as to break down the estimated costs of each.
In a press release, the company described its latest homeowner-centric features offer as “a holistic view of every decision they need to make as homeowners — whether they are buying, selling, moving or managing their existing home.”
Of course, local affiliated broker and banker brand cards are ever present for easy communication.
As for the nitty-gritty of home management, MoveEasy built a crazy-sharp interface for extracting home inspection data from an uploaded report and translated it into a detailed list of home repair projects. It’s a damn clever way to avoid manual input of the ever-present tasks that come with home ownership. They pull in regional repair costs, similar to Inspectify, PunchListUSA and Plunk, to help users plan for what’s down the road. This data can then be leveraged for the “360º project planner” to help orchestrate home upkeep projects.
Categorically, content is separated by Utilities, Home Protection (insurance, warranties, security, etc.) and Home Inventory.
Yet, at no point is the homeowner inundated with task lists and pesky irritations about milestones or information within each section. Well, at least that’s not what the software’s success depends on.
MoveEasy uses all the move documentation and transaction closing information to build out the comprehensive homeownership marketplace and management hub, so it doesn’t rely on too much user input. No good software product should.
MoveEasy also constantly monitors utility usage and provides cost reports and savings recommendations as part of the proactive cost of living module. Agents are sent activity breakdowns of each user, detailing what aspects of the portal have piqued their interest of late.
It helps that the company hired a marketing executive who for years specialized in consumer engagement. The company looked into how groups like TrueBill and Credit Karma — resources you really only need sparingly — manage to have such impressive user engagement. Like MoveEasy, the two tech companies blend soft-handed consumer approachability to deliver critical financial information.
To briefly summarize, MoveEasy does a terrific job of finding new ways to reuse what’s already there, in a sense, then presents it through palatable content in a frictionless environment.
A slew of technology companies push the agent into “gifting” technology that tracks appliance repair dates and gutter cleaning milestones while hoping the agent’s picture and contact information will resonate eight years down the road.
I don’t know. Maybe it will.
What I do know is that I don’t want to scan receipts for oven parts, notate when I changed an air filter or be reminded I need to “winterize my garage” or whatever. A gift? Sounds like a burden.
MoveEasy doesn’t push engagement, it merely nudges it.
It makes it, well, easy.
