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Real estate title/escrow API for California (then USA, then world) Currently most title/escrow companies are local brick and mortar shops, largely due to sligh

by rgbrgb 11y ago

Real estate title/escrow API for California (then USA, then world) Currently most title/escrow companies are local brick and mortar shops, largely due to slight regional differences in how the process works and who pays what (these differences are mostly historical artifacts that we don't want to mess with) [0]. At Open Listings [1] we're building the slickest real estate offer/transaction platform in the industry but it involves a fair amount of offline coordination with other agents, inspectors, banks, and title/escrow companies. Essentially, we're building an API on top of a lot of human interactions and an interface for our clients and agents to drive that API. We'd love to be able to plug into a preferred escrow service to do the title transfer and replace one slow, expensive interaction with an API call. [0]: http://www.firstam.com/assets/title/ca/respa-reform-tools/who-pays-what.pdf http://www.firstam.com/assets/title/ca/respa-reform-tools/wh... [1]: https://www.openlistings.co/ https://www.openlistings.co/

mgreg 11y ago
No doubt the entire title insurance industry could likely be turned over though the laws would make this very difficult. I noticed that OpenListings is looking to try to disrupt on the buy side of real estate transactions. Curious why you wouldn't try to do something on the sell side where I think there is massive room to change things and it's pretty darn formulaic.
- mooreds 11y ago
  My guess is that they started with buyers because buyers typically are less wedded to an agent. Most agents start out on the buy side because significant numbers of buyers have no loyalties, and because buyers "pay nothing" for the services of an agent (as opposed to the sellers, who pay 5-6%), so customer acquisition is easier. (Of course, buyers do end up paying, it is just wrapped into a 30 year monthly payment.) All this only applies to the US market,not sure about international RE. Source: I worked for a brokerage for years.
- rgbrgb 11y ago
  Which laws? Regarding buyers: we heard a lot of frustration from savvy buyers... people either didn't see the point of their Redfin agent or wanted a simple way to go direct with the seller. The idea of making it less expensive to become a homeowner also really resonated with us.
dublidu 11y ago
Id love for title/escrow companies to go away. They charge a few thousand dollars and provide very little in return. The problem is, the seller picks the title company, but the buyer pays.

by rgbrgb 11y ago

mgreg 11y ago

No doubt the entire title insurance industry could likely be turned over though the laws would make this very difficult. I noticed that OpenListings is looking to try to disrupt on the buy side of real estate transactions. Curious why you wouldn't try to do something on the sell side where I think there is massive room to change things and it's pretty darn formulaic.

mooreds 11y ago
My guess is that they started with buyers because buyers typically are less wedded to an agent. Most agents start out on the buy side because significant numbers of buyers have no loyalties, and because buyers "pay nothing" for the services of an agent (as opposed to the sellers, who pay 5-6%), so customer acquisition is easier. (Of course, buyers do end up paying, it is just wrapped into a 30 year monthly payment.) All this only applies to the US market,not sure about international RE. Source: I worked for a brokerage for years.
rgbrgb 11y ago
Which laws? Regarding buyers: we heard a lot of frustration from savvy buyers... people either didn't see the point of their Redfin agent or wanted a simple way to go direct with the seller. The idea of making it less expensive to become a homeowner also really resonated with us.

dublidu 11y ago

Id love for title/escrow companies to go away. They charge a few thousand dollars and provide very little in return. The problem is, the seller picks the title company, but the buyer pays.