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Home IQ is an interactive listing information app for Amazon Echo.
Platforms: Amazon Echo Show
Ideal for: Listing agents; new home agents; on-site sales teams; agents who specialize in spec homes
Top selling points
- Compelling marketing tactic
- Open house advantages
- Appeal to seller clients
- First-adopter cache
Top concerns
A knowledgeable buyer’s agent will beat this app every time (or should, anyway).
What you should know
The biggest takeaway from my demonstration of the Show Pal Home IQ app for Echo, which came shortly after I filed a column about a new skill for Voiceter Pro’s Echo app, is that this real estate technology niche is officially no longer a niche.
Home IQ is conceptually simple: a listing agent creates an account, sets up a property for $59.99 each, and places an Amazon Echo Show on the home’s counter.
Directions are left next to the device to instruct agents and prospective buyers how to get started asking Alexa things about the house.
“Alexa, ask ShowPal to tell me about this house.”
“Alexa, ask ShowPal to tell me about nearby schools.”
An informed buyer’s agent should have this information at the ready. However, once people take notice of the tool, they may find it hard to resist trying it out.
Currently, each property is set up in the ShowPal backend. The company is working on partnering with MLSs and feeds to streamline the process of linking properties to the software.
Each listing is given a code that the Echo uses to securely identify each listing in its database. This code is also used to begin a person’s session with the device.
Adding a bit of coolness to the software is its optimization for the Echo Show, a version that comes with a color video monitor. Alexa can display bulleted lists of a home’s details instead of just repeating them back to you.
It can also deploy a QR code that can be scanned by a user’s phone to display essential documents, a listing web page on Zillow, for example, or floor plans.
I expressed my concerns with Show Pal’s CEO Chad Torstenson, explaining that a sharp agent touring the house with clients should know everything about the house.
He agreed but told me that the skill can be easily modified to share an array of information well beyond the basics. He also shared its benefits to an open house unattended by a licensed agent, model home tours and urban high-rise showrooms.
Torstenson also made sure to say that he doesn’t see his software as a replacement for agent insight, but more as a supportive tool with marketing benefits.
As was mentioned in the update on Voiceter Pro and this Inman column on the device’s growth, the real estate industry has to be taking notice of opportunities that exist within the ever-expanding lexicon of these consumer devices.
Like the internet itself, the Echo and Google Home (and soon Apple’s HomePod) are more than trendy content delivery tools. I argue they’re on the cusp of becoming trusted consumer resources that could change the way we use computers and mobile phones in the home.
The future is now.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
