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Home Savi is an automated buyer agency solution for homebuyers.
Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: Investors; experienced homebuyers; real estate offices looking to outsource buyer agency
Top selling points
- Very easy, consumer-centric user interface
- Integration of offer tips, advice
- Fast, clear negotiation tools
- Developed, led by licensed agent
Top concerns
The software would be best leveraged by buyers in moderate, high-inventory markets that don’t require a “high-touch” approach from agents. As of now, it’s only available in California.
What you should know
I’m a very staunch proponent of professional representation.
However, I can understand why some homebuyers would want to use Home Savi. It’s a smart, easy-to-use tool for submitting and managing offers.
There’s a partnership in place with DocuSign, but users aren’t filling in active blanks on a common electronic offer.
Instead, Home Savi distills each offer term into simple language on standalone pages using bold type, detailed explanations of each step and clear, large text fields.
The “TurboTax” experience is appealing and non-threatening, and it doesn’t carry the heavy legal formality of a standard state-approved offer form.
I spent several years writing for an e-forms company that did exactly what Home Savi does in other industries, and the benefits of eliminating visual and narrative distractions from a historically paper-based interface tremendously improves a user’s comprehension and engagement with information.
The evolution of the mobile phone has helped drive this trend in UX (user experience) design, and even though Home Savi isn’t yet as smooth in the mobile environment, its look and feel on a browser suggest otherwise.
After entering basic name and property identification terms, Home Savi asks about financing (cash or loan), strongly suggests getting and attaching a pre-approval letter, and moves on to the Pre-Offer Questionnaire, financing terms, escrow and title basics, contingencies and signatures.
No point is missed, from questions about down payment and deposit to water and sewer, pest inspections and all various addenda.
Again, it’s an official offer form, just dressed much more appropriately for the consumer ball.
Completed offers are viewable as a DocuSign PDF in standard format, ready for finalization and signature. Users can attach a personal letter if desired.
A submitted offer is delivered via email to the listing agent, who is invited into Home Savi to respond, whether that response is an acceptance or rejection and counter.
An offer management dashboard lists offer status, action items and critical dates.
Investors who are comfortable juggling multiple offers will enjoy these components of Home Savi. It’s a nice breakdown of current and previous offers, and provides an easy look into where everything stands.
There are tips at every step, as well as a knowledge base of articles resting in the software’s top navigation bar. The company’s blog is there to help, as is a chat-powered assistant.
I asked co-founder and COO Trey Evans why a licensed agent would create and champion a tool that, in essence, replaces an industry profit center.
“If you look at the market as a whole, there are very difficult transactions and very simple transactions. This isn’t for the hard ones,” he told me.
“Buyers are now researchers, often only engaging agents at the point of wanting to make an offer, so we do see the role of buyer agent being somewhat diminished.”
Evans isn’t wrong. Some deals are very easy; others can be time-sucking pits of awfulness.
For the former, Home Savi is as good as it gets.
Please don’t hate me.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
