Showing Solutions were rolled up under ShowingTime, who purchased many of their competitors. Nobody put much concern into it until Zillow Group – a brokerage – purchased ShowingTime. For many MLSs, Associations, and brokers, doing business with ShowingTime under the control of a broker poses issues for many.
The good news is that a handful of new showing services have emerged in the wake of this acquisition – Homesnap, TourZazz, Delta Media, Showingly, InstaShowing, SentriKey Showing Service, and others. Now BrokerBay joins that list.
WAV Group met with Fayyad Sbaihat, President of Supra, a division of Carrier (NYSE: CARR) who announced the acquisition of BrokerBay last week. What makes this acquisition so important is the interoperability between Supra lockboxes and showing software. By our analysis, Supra has more than 50% share of the lockbox industry in North America, with more than 1 million keyholders.
When Supra was looking at showing technologies to work with, they sought feedback from its customers; BrokerBay consistently surfaced to top of the list. Together, BrokerBay and Supra will provide a one-stop shop for real estate professionals that combines scheduling and mobile lockbox access in an intuitive, user-friendly showing experience.
BrokerBay is not new; they have been providing showing software in Canada for years and recently has been making headway into the U.S. with its solutions. They currently have more than 140,000 agents on the platform and will be announcing a number of large MLSs in America who are in the contract phase.
Like many showing solutions, BrokerBay is very focused on the listing agent and seller’s control over showings. They have a nice document management system for handling COVID related consent documents that are related to showings. They have a solid 3-D showing solution that allows for remote showings.
BrokerBay has a unique permissioning system that understands the notion of franchise – region – broker – offices – teams – agents. Depending on your role, you can visualize and manage showings related to the above hierarchy. They couple this with seamless analytics and showing surveys. They are working on a buyer-tour solution.
Call center is an optional/premium feature with BrokerBay.
Here is a screenshot of the BrokerBay Dashboard.
For scheduling inspections, BrokerBay is an absolutely TERRIBLE service, in my opinion. They have almost no options for scheduling inspections. Inspectors don’t have access to the app. They expect the inspector to call BrokerBay within their limited hours, then BrokerBay supposedly contacts the listing agent to schedule the inspection. They don’t email or call the inspector back to provide ANY confirmation that the inspection has been approved, and they don’t provide ANY access details. The inspector is expected to call them back at random times to see if the inspection has been approved yet. Then, the inspector is supposed to call the agent for access details. What is the point of even calling BrokerBay if in the end, I have to call the agent anyway?! So ridiculous!
One time, BrokerBay scheduled my inspection to begin at 10:30pm and finish at 2:30am! They didn’t even notice their error! The agent had to call me and then have me call BrokerBay to correct their mistake. Two other times, the inspection was never scheduled at all.
I miss ShowingTime so much, which is crazy because they had some flaws too, but NOTHING compared to BrokerBay.
ShowingTime had 24-hour phone scheduling with a live person.
ShowingTime allowed inspectors to register their license and set up an account so that they could easily schedule inspections.
ShowingTime had an app that inspectors could use to schedule the appointment themselves.
ShowingTime texted me back when the inspection was confirmed and approved by the seller, usually in minutes.
ShowingTime provided property access information.
BrokerBay has NONE of this!