Companies use technology to cut red tape in real estate
The real-estate industry is seeking technological innovations that let it cut red tape and reduce costs for clients.
Consumers wanting to buy a house in the south zone of Rio de Janeiro already can use an entirely digital platform in which there only is contact with a broker at the time of visiting the property and when signing the contract. Owners wanting to rent a house can use a site to do the entire management without the need of involving brokers in the process.
Since late last year, URB9 offers online different properties for purchase in the south zone of Rio, its most coveted area. The startup, created inside Nova Aliança, a real-estate company, received R$1.5 million in investment, took less than one year to start operating and has already surpassed 4,000 visits - for comparison, the website of Nova Aliança, firm with 25 years of operation in Rio, had a little over 3,000 visits at the end of last year.
When using URB9's website, buyer and seller can agree directly on a price and brokers only get in the process when called, as in the case of visits to the properties. When they begin a negotiation, the two parties are informed of all necessary documents and the costs for each.
"I have always been much dissatisfied with this market process. The broker always complaining of the post-negotiation and the client complaining of the post-sale, saying the broker gets the fee and then doesn't care anymore," says Johnny Guedes, owner of Nova Aliança, explaining what motivated him to invest in the creation of URB9. "It must be different, it must be better than this."
Leandro Bulkool, man in charge of the project, stresses that once in the platform, personal data of the parties are restricted to those responsible for URB9, pointing out that practically the entire process can be carried out by the platform. "Giving autonomy to clients is very important. They choose doing alone and we help. Since the beginning, you already know what the documents, prices and deadlines are, how to do and, if the client wants, we can do it for them," he says, adding that the site has specific tools that allow even the validation and publication of documents.
Mr. Guedes highlights the advantage of cost reduction for the parties. He says that while the average market fee is about 5% to 6% of the property price, URB9 charges 3% of the final sale price. "We charge a smaller fee because we have a lean structure," Mr. Bulkool says.
Now, Mr. Guedes is thinking the next...
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