ListingSpark Delivers $500 Million in Real Estate Transactions in First Five Years
ListingSpark began in 2013 as a way to empower people to sell their homes faster and keep 3% of the sales price in their pockets rather than paying agent fees. Sellers can list their home in as little as 10 minutes and the process is simple and intuitive.
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After the economic downturn in 2008-2010, the co-founders of ListingSpark launched a platform to update the industry and facilitate a new paperless sales transaction process. The resulting technology saves sellers 3% and speeds list-to-close time.
To help sellers get their homes on the MLS as fast as possible, ListingSpark needed to digitize the entire workflow, which includes signing many multi-page forms. Many MLS sites make deals with DocuSign. But ListingSpark found this wasn’t optimal for their process, as it led to a disconnected workflow with the signing process having to be done in DocuSign.
Making customers leave the workflow to sign documents via a link in an email caused customer churn and impacted revenue.
“We needed to automate the entire workflow for sellers, ensure it was all integrated in our site, provide secure data collection and storage for legally binding contracts, and enable document completion in seconds versus minutes,” says Travis Carona, technical co-founder.
Our process is 100% online and integrated. Not only do sellers complete the entire process in one browser window, but we are able to facilitate them getting their listing on the MLS in about 10 minutes.
“Our sellers could be on a job site in the middle of a demo day. We need an integrated eSignature API that was mobile-friendly so our sellers could complete and sign multi-form documents where ever they happened to be,” says Travis.
ListingSpark also wanted to shorten the sales transaction process and speed the time to get a listing on the MLS. To accomplish this, they needed a solution that enabled auto-fill of editable templates. Additionally, an audit trail for legally binding signatures and data validation was a must to facilitate multiple compliance requirements.
“We evaluated DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and Dotloop. DocuSign required the contract signing process to be completed in their platform, which was confusing for some sellers because it took them out of our process. Dotloop was not a robust API and it didn’t support mobile needs or keep customers in our workflow,” says Travis
ListingSpark chose the HelloSign API because it is both startup and developer friendly. “HelloSign’s enablement tools, like video tutorials, helped us implement the API in a couple of days and get templates created in less than two hours,” says Travis.
Reduced List to Close Time by 28%
ListingSpark’s digital transaction management foundation enables them to deliver a completely online and integrated process. Before implementing the HelloSign API, Travis says “It could take a listing agent a couple of days to get a listing on the MLS for their seller. Now, with our seamless process built on HelloSign, the auto-fill capabilities, and editable templates, we’ve had sellers sign up with our product, list on the MLS, and receive and accept an offer with all forms completed in less than one day.”
According to Travis, “Part of our sales pitch to prospective sellers is that our process is 100% online and integrated. Not only do sellers complete the entire process in one browser window, but we are able to facilitate them getting their listing on the MLS in about 10 minutes.”
Higher Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Revenue
A lot of “For Sale by Owner” websites require sellers to print documents, sign in ink, fax or email the forms, and upload them to the site. “We’ve found that a lot of sellers don't want to do the print-sign-scan-fax workflow, so our HelloSign integration is definitely a differentiator that helps us delight our customers and get our NPS as high as possible.
“ListingSpark’s revenue has grown since implementing the HelloSign API, as eSignatures have been a great facilitator of our market expansion,” according to Travis. Additionally, ListingSpark is able to save sellers an average of $7,200 per transaction, as they retain 3% of the sales price.
Reduced Dispute Volume
Real estate is a highly litigious industry, so ListingSpark is required to carry errors and omissions (E&O) insurance. With HelloSign, all documents are integrated into ListingSpark’s product, which has enabled them to nearly eliminate dispute claims. “With HelloSign’s audit trail we can verify all data entered by the seller so if there is a dispute on a listing, we are able to pull all documents on that property in seconds,” says Travis.
Improved Workforce Productivity
ListingSpark is not only facilitating a great customer experience, but they’re also increasing operational efficiency with a scalable solution. By taking document management out of their customer success team’s hands, “We can have three people deal with thousands of documents instead of one person trying to handle tens of documents. Operational efficiency is one of our biggest wins with HelloSign,” says Travis.
What’s Next for ListingSpark?
In its first five years, ListingSpark has sold $500 million USD in properties. They’re in the process of expanding to Colorado, Arizona, and Washington state, and are on track to reach a big milestone by the end of 2019: $1 billion USD in sales.
Ask Us About HelloSign!
HelloSign is the easiest way to send, receive, and manage legally binding eSignatures for business. Learn about our industry-leading API by looking through our developer documentation or build and test for free by creating a free developer account. If you’d like help figuring out which HelloSign product is best for you, schedule a demo with Dropbox Sign’s API team to see how we can streamline your business.
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