Over $2 billion in real estate sales; 100 auction events; 15,000 homes sold.
The stats above show the reality that HomeSearch.com is here to shake up real estate. It seems as if all the home auction competitors are making their own plays to be atop the market. However, CEO Kal Raman, ex-Groupon/Amazon executive, has wasted no time bringing in top talent and making real estate purchases with one-click a reality.
Raman spoke with GeekWire in early February, where he was clear about his vision for real estate. He wants to redefine the homebuying process and make purchasing a home easier than ever.
Speaking to the point of bringing in top talent, Raman has brought on Deva Kannan to become CIO at HomeSearch. After reading an inspiring LinkedIn Pulse article by Kannan, I reached out to him for an interview.
Kannan, who also spent time at Groupon and Amazon, opened up early when asked about why he left Groupon. Kannan says, “Buying a home is an American dream, and there is a big opportunity to enable this industry by building products and services that will make the customer experience a lot better. Our goal is to bring transparency, simplicity and value to our end consumers.”
With a ton of complexities in real estate, moving at light-speed toward an online marketplace seems like a daunting challenge. Addressing this Kannan says, “We want to make real estate easy for everyone in the ecosystem starting with buyers, sellers, agents, brokers, lenders, banks, servicers, and there are no other companies out there that focus on making the end-to-end experience of real estate better.”
Still, with real estate usually being the single-largest purchase in someone’s life and the average online consumer purchase sitting at $184.94, HomeSearch has a steep hill to climb — transforming buyer behavior is no overnight task.
“A lot of people buy their home furniture online these days,” Kannan says. “People buy cars online, which can be a $20,000 transaction — so people are already getting used to making larger transactions. As long as consumers get the selection they want, with the best possible price and the convenience they deserve, we believe the trend will swing toward housing.”
With over $2 billion in sales through 100 events, it’s hard to argue with him. Not to mention, before Kannan and Raman came on with HomeSearch.com, their parent company, Solutionstar, was busy acquiring companies in the real estate space. Solutionstar spent over $54 million in acquisitions to get Real Estate Digital and Title365 late in 2014. This roll-up of technologies/data primes Solutionstar, and more specifically HomeSearch.com, to close the loop on real estate purchasing.
Is this the future? What do you think about the consumer’s ability to click and buy a home? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Jordan Scheltgen is the founder of CAVE Social, a marketing agency based out of South Florida. He’s obsessed with everything to do with online marketing, startups and football.