Last week, Qualia CEO, Nate Baker, joined realtor.com® CRO, Ben Rubenstein, for a virtual discussion at Inman Connect. The pair discussed how realtor.com is leveraging Qualia’s technology to deliver choice to consumers and real estate agents, and ultimately, a better home purchase experience.
Digital transactions gained momentum in 2020
Last year at Inman Connect, Baker predicted that fully-digital transactions were about 3-5 years out. Shortly after Baker’s Inman panel in February 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the United States. “Now, digital closings are actually here. The digital transaction is happening to a large degree right now and that’s changing the consumer expectation meaningfully,” Baker said. “The consumer now comes in with a completely different mindset. They are expecting a nice, simple, and easy experience.”
Rubenstein agreed. “COVID-19 let the genie out of the bottle. There was a lot of movement toward digital closings and remote notarization [before the pandemic]… with social distancing it has accelerated significantly and it’s not going back.”
Offering digital closings will become “table stakes”
Right now, real estate agents are setting themselves apart from the competition by offering fully-digital closings and technology for a seamless experience. “In the future, this will be table stakes,” Rubenstein said. He used Amazon’s two-day delivery as an example of how quickly consumer expectations shift. Once rapid delivery was introduced, consumers expected it for all of their e-commerce purchases.
With the new realtor.com experience powered by Qualia, agents in realtor.com’s ReadyConnect Concierge network can find and select to work with title agents who are on Qualia’s platform. This relationship will give agents and their clients a unique ability to collaborate online in real-time with their title provider of choice as part of a fully-integrated digital closing experience. “This changes the bar moving forward for the entire industry,” Baker said.
Flexible infrastructure will empower consumers and agents with choice
The realtor.com and Qualia relationship was born from a similar vision to build greater choice for consumers and agents through technology. “The ethos of Qualia and realtor.com is similar. We’re not building a closed ecosystem where you have to use our title company or agent or provider,” Rubenstein said. “We’re building choice for consumers and agents.”
Both realtor.com and Qualia have a similar goal to create a flexible infrastructure that powers choice. “Qualia and realtor.com are both taking the approach to enable [digital transactions],” Baker said. “Many [businesses] are trying to do it alone, but our technologies aim to enable the industry to go forward together.”
To learn more about how PropTech companies are leveraging Qualia’s technology to create seamless digital closing experiences, click here to explore Qualia’s Partner API and other solutions.
