Revolutionising the real estate industry

8 September 2016

World-first 100% online service expected to revolutionise real estate industry

Sellers and buyers alike will benefit from a new real estate platform that is the world’s first fully on-line service.

The service – Proppy - is the first licensed real estate agency in New Zealand to offer online property auctions, digital signing of legal documents and the ability to complete a property transaction all online.

Proppy was launched in the Auckland market at the end of August and will be rolled out to other centres progressively. Initially it will be available to residential and lifestyle block sellers but will later be expanded to include commercial property.

It is expected to revolutionise an industry that has remained virtually unchanged for decades. In a similar way that AirBNB and online music sites disrupted their industries, Proppy cuts out the middleman and connects buyers and sellers directly through its website.

Every aspect of the process – from listing and viewing properties, through to completing the sale and doing post-sale paperwork – is done online thus saving sellers and buyers time, hassle and money. The online auction is a new unique way to buy and sell property and other methods of sale include buy me now, with online tender and negotiation coming soon.

Technical support and REAA-qualified real estate advice will be available to sellers and buyers who have questions or need help in using the platform.

Proppy also differs from other real estate offerings in other ways, including charging only 1.5%* commission. This is far cheaper than traditional agency commissions, which are typically around 2.95%* – 4.0%*. This means that someone selling a $1 million property could save up to 21,000 in commission – the equivalent of a new boat or a family holiday overseas.

A range of marketing packages will be available to sellers, with marketing cost options being similar to or lower than those offered by other real estate agents. However, the marketing packages will all have a key point of difference in that all sellers will be required to provide a Proppy-approved building inspection report and valuation with their property listings.

To ensure transparency, fairness, integrity and a level playing field for buyers and sellers alike, Proppy only accepts building reports from approved BOINZ-accredited building surveyors, and valuations that are from bank-approved valuers. Sellers are required to get a valuation but they can choose whether or not to include it with their listing.

Providing buyers with ready access to unbiased information will facilitate faster, easier and more cost-effective decision making because they do not have to purchase reports every time they want to undertake due diligence on a property. It is also easier for sellers because they will only have to go through the building reporting and valuation process once and it increases their buying pool.

Proppy’s flexible approach enables sellers to manage the open home process, choosing open home times that work for them rather than having to fit in around a real estate agency’s schedule.

When attending the open home, buyers can ask questions about the home from the people that know it best – the sellers. Although they can attend physical open homes, buyers also have the time-saving option of doing everything – including viewing open homes - from the privacy and comfort of their own homes, or from anywhere that they choose.

The service was developed by Auckland couple Tyson and Hannah Walker, who came up with the idea after spending a morning in an auction room unsuccessfully trying to buy a property.

“It was a really time-consuming and stressful process,” they say. “It not only took all morning, but we felt under a lot of pressure because there was no way of bidding anonymously.”

Furthermore, the couple were tired of paying lots of money for building and other kinds of reports only to have that money wasted when they subsequently missed out on buying those properties.

“We discussed our experience when we got home and decided that there’s got to be a better way to buy and sell property, which is how Proppy came about.”

The Walkers commissioned focus groups throughout New Zealand, and in particular Auckland, to gain market insight. The findings left them in no doubt that the market was ready for Proppy’s offering.

“It showed a widespread longstanding dissatisfaction with traditional real estate processes amongst property sellers and buyers alike.

“People’s experiences were the same no matter whether it involved buying or selling a one-bedroom unit in Onehunga or a five-bedroom mansion in Takapuna.”

Issues typically included variable service from real estate agents, variable levels of honesty about the properties, lack of control for sellers, and prohibitive expense for sellers and buyers.

“Buyers in particular complained about the lack of a single information source to do due diligence without losing half their hard earned deposit.”

The Walkers left their jobs to concentrate on bringing the venture to life after spending two years developing the platform.

Both say that they want the Proppy experience to be as pain-free, inexpensive and seamless as possible, while supporting buyers and sellers to have total control over the whole real-estate process.

“Most people are used to buying and selling things online these days so many aspects of our online platform will already be familiar to them, selling property online is the way of the future” say the Walkers.

* Excludes GST

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