By Glenn Scott
Advertiser Staff Writer
At the Honolulu office of Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, managing director C. Scott Bradley recently clicked his way through a promising new Internet program to show some real estate agents how their old way of negotiating home sales is about to change.
Bradley held the demonstration as his office became the first in Hawai‘i to apply an Internet program through developer Homebid.com that Bradley said will simplify and speed up tense sales processes by allowing buyers and sellers to trade offers and counter-offers online.
"Look," he said as he moved through a hypothetical case. "In less than a minute and a half we’ve just submitted a counteroffer."
The dozen agents in the room let out a small, spontaneous cheer.
More of those little eruptions of relief are likely in coming months as other organizations introduce online programs that aim to save time and improve customer service to improve the conventional — some say dated — methods of real estate sales.
In another example, RE/MAX agents in Hawai‘i are tailoring a different program through CloseYourDeal.com that is expected to be in operation by the second quarter this year. Instead of focusing on sales negotiations, the RE/MAX system aims to use the Internet to streamline the many transactions that take place in a home sale, from financing to inspections to title searches.
The Honolulu Board of Realtors is getting into the act, too, hoping to pull other businesses into an online program to serve as regional standard. Last Wednesday, officials introduced plans for their new, locally produced online system for a group of about 200 agents and related service providers, such as lenders, appraisers and appliance dealers, at a presentation in the Ala Moana Hotel.
Board president Peter Freeman described the RealCentral.com offering as a business-to-business platform that will open up opportunities for e-commerce and will simplify transactions "so the Realtor doesn’t have to operate the fax machine any more." He said it should be available in April.
In all of these cases, industry leaders here are following a national trend in shaping up business systems with Internet-based efficiencies in an industry that has relied primarily on personal contacts and, as Freeman hinted, the ubiquitous stacks of paper forms.
As with other online initiatives, these early programs may not seem to mesh as sponsors bring competing systems into the market. But those promoting these online applications say the real key is that consumers and professionals make the leap to online systems. In what RE/MAX Honolulu president John Harris termed the "friendly competition" among agencies, specifics likely will get ironed out over time.
Bradley predicts that it will take a year for most agents and clients to grow accustomed to the practice of bidding and buying homes online. But as people adjust, he said, they will appreciate how the higher-tech methods will improve an industry that has been slow to abandon its old reliance on mounds of paperwork. Coldwell Banker holds exclusive rights to use the Homebid software on O‘ahu, but Bradley said he wants to share the material because, as in many online applications, benefits grow as users increase. The company is issuing software CDs so agents from other firms can take part.
"This is the front end of what we anticipate to be the entire transaction process," Bradley said.
Harris is helping to shape a software system that streamlines the back end of the process — the lengthy step-by-step process that continues once a seller accepts an offer. He said Re/MAX may add a bidding program later, but the first goal is to create a clearer and quicker method to conclude a sale.
"We’re using a system based on what was done 20 or 30 years ago," he said. "The old rules aren’t really valid anymore. We need new models."
Those new models are coming. Bradley’s Pacific Properties is one of 14 Coldwell Banker offices in 12 states adopting the system concurrently. Meanwhile, all of nearly 300 RE/MAX California offices and seven in Hawai‘i are employing the online transaction system, said Dick Purvis, regional director.
Harris said productivity gains will be difficult to measure as RE/MAX goes to its new system, though he suggested the savings could be significant. More free time for agents, he explained, means more opportunities for sales and for following up with clients. For customers, faster deals mean less cause for hesitation — and more opportunities to reinvest capital.
"For people who are selling a home, time is really money," he said. "If they can close that transaction a few weeks earlier, that’s money in their pockets."
As active homebuyers know, Internet tools already have become a familiar part of homebuying. Consumers have access to national listings of properties, some with virtual tours. Today’s buyers also benefit from a menu of related Web site services. Web surfers, for example, can explore all kinds of data about a home, from the neighborhood’s crime rate to the average test scores of the public school district.
The latest programs provide background and invite actual negotiations and tracking of the transaction process. In the program that Bradley demonstrated, pre-qualified potential buyers can send legitimate offers to buy homes merely by clicking on a series of boxes — and sellers can answer by submitting counter offers. The system makes the bidding process more transparent by posting information for other registered users to see.
One advantage: Agents can post or check offers from e-mail-equipped portable phones.
Only those who have pre-qualified and registered to use the secure software can see the exact online offers and contingencies, Bradley noted. But anyone can log into the agency’s Web site to monitor the unspecified offers for a property.
Freeman said the board already makes available extensive online data for member agents. The new online program, developed by local firms DTP Holdings Inc. and CyberCom Inc., will be marketed to agents for a nominal fee, he said, and promises to serve as system agents can access to share information and to route requests.
"We think they’ll be interested in ours," he said, "because we’re sort of the repository of the industry."
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