In a bid to challenge ShowingTime’s near-ubiquitous place in the market, Homesnap has rolled out a new showing-management service for its Homesnap Pro agents.
The portal company, which is owned by CoStar, on Thursday announced the rollout of Homesnap Showings, billing the service as “a direct replacement product” for its Zillow-owned rival ShowingTime.
“We designed Homesnap Showings to be a modern showing tool for the modern agent,” Homesnap Senior Vice President of Product Strategy Guy Wolcott said in a statement. “Agents are always on the go and need a tool that can meet their immediate needs and solve problems quickly. Every aspect of Homesnap Showings takes this goal into account.”
The new service is integrated with MLSs, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook, and allows agents and brokers to schedule property showings with direct input from sellers. These sellers can be added to the listing details to access their showing activity.
For buyer’s agents, the service offers instant booking and multi-stop itineraries based on listing availability, location and client schedules.
The service will be free to Homesnap Pro users through their MLS membership, and run on desktop and on Apple and Android mobile apps.
This rollout marks the latest step in CoStar’s brewing conflict with Zillow, which has intensified in recent months.
After acquiring Homesnap late last year, CoStar announced in October the launch of Citysnap, a direct competitor to Zillow’s StreetEasy service.
CoStar’s CEO had once downplayed the idea that the company was in competition with Zillow. But as CoStar has acquired more services and launched more products, he has ramped up the rhetoric.
At a recent Inman Connect conference in Las Vegas, CoStar CEO Andy Florance went so far as to liken some of Zillow’s business practices to “hijacking” and “mafia”-style extortion.
Now, the company’s Homesnap business is going after one of Zillow’s top products for agents.
“ShowingTime has monopolized the showing services space for the better part of 20 years,” Homesnap said in the informational materials accompanying the rollout.
