Coldwell Banker Real Estate has launched a new iPad app to help its agents win listings by wowing sellers with big data and on-the-spot home valuations.
Using data collated from a variety of public and private sources the free app, CBx, delivers insights on homebuyer trends and profiles for specific locations. While at listing presentations, agents affiliated with the Realogy brand can whip out their iPads and show sellers who they would market their homes to based on the proprietary data the app delivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ZM8cHENzc
A teaser video for the CBx app, designed and developed by Coldwell Banker agency partners TK Interactive and Convidence.
Data sources include digital analytics firm Experian; real estate data firm Onboard Informatics; the National Association of Realtors’ data initiative, Realtors Property Resource; the U.S. Census Bureau; and geographic information systems company Esri.
In addition, the app features a sophisticated comparative market analysis program that allows agents to deliver customized home valuation estimates to their potential seller clients, Coldwell Banker Chief Marketing Officer Sean Blankenship told Inman.
Sean Blankenship
Agents can customize the CBx-powered CMAs on the fly by noting specific features of homes, like an upgraded kitchen or a retiled bathroom, along with their nuanced knowledge of particular neighborhoods, Blankenship added.
“Using big data in a very visual way, the application takes what Coldwell Banker-affiliated sales associates are doing every day and adds insights and innovation that allow them to engage the seller in a confident discussion about the price of their home and how to sell it,” Blankenship said in a statement.
The app is not a white-labeled version of another tech vendor’s software, Blankenship said. Agency partners TK Interactive and Convidence custom-built CBx for Coldwell Banker.
Android and Microsoft Surface versions of the app are in development, but Coldwell Banker has no desktop version planned at the moment, because the whole purpose of the app is to “help agents close sellers when they’re in the room,” Blankenship said.
CBx’s current features just scratch the surface of what Coldwell Banker hopes to do with the app and the big data behind it.
“We have a strong desire to get into the predictive modeling business of big data,” Blankenship said.
CBx allows agents to show sellers where homebuyers who purchased homes in the sellers’ neighborhoods predominately originated.
The app currently uses data from Coldwell Banker’s seller-focused website it relaunched in November, but Blankenship envisions it eventually taking data from the firm’s lead system and merging it with buyer activity info in specific markets.
He also sees Coldwell Banker’s big data initiative helping its agents target their marketing to homeowners might who will most likely to sell soon.
Several firms already play in the big data-powered predictive marketing arena, including SmartZip Analytics and Benutech’s ReboGateway.
