One month on from the launch of SmartVal, the property valuation tool, Boomin says that the platform is proving popular with estate agents.
Boomin says that agents have so far received over 10,000 SmartVals, helping to boost the number of market appraisal bookings for agents.
The property portal says that the aim of the tool is to harnesses the expertise of local agents to provide a more accurate, real-time online valuation than any other valuation tool on the market.
Visitors to the Boomin platform can request a SmartVal from local agents who are online and available.
Supplied with information from the property owner, and supplemented with detailed market data, the selected agents will have all they need to provide a valuation within a fixed period of 15 minutes.
Only once the SmartVal is submitted the agent will gain access to the full contact details of the customer.
Early data reinforces the benefit of speed to the overall experience for sellers and landlords, according to Boomin.
The portal reports that on average it took local agents less than seven minutes to deliver a SmartVal and less than ten minutes before they are engaging directly with their active customer.
This reinforces the portal’s belief that agents are best served if they register their mobile number on Boomin so that they can be the first to receive valuation alerts.
Michael Bruce, CEO and founder of Boomin, said: “SmartVal has got off to a flying start and has exceeded our expectations, attracting over 10,000 requests in the first few weeks.
“It is delivering on its promise to provide more high quality instruction opportunities for our agent partners and drawing more people into the property market, with strong demand for SmartVals, alongside an increase of over 280% for in-home valuations in the same time period. SmartVal is proving to be the most effective way for agents to get in front of sellers coming to the market and landlords looking for a great letting agent.
“As part of our ambition to open up the market, we will continue to analyse feedback from both agents and customers as we work on V2 of SmartVal and other innovative features of our platform, some of which are expected to go live in the coming weeks.
“We are the true home of innovation and the smart choice for agents, who are looking to reset the balance of power in the industry, something which in my mind is absolutely crucial for the future success of independent agents who are currently seeing uncontrollable and unsustainable demands from other portals on fees.”
As a Boomin Agent, this SmartVal is completely a waste of time, firstly you are trusting that the logged in user is the owner of the property, there is no data given on the person before you give out all the information, ( Some Not The Property Owners) Most Investment or Remortgage ect!
No Client Due Diligence (Something We As Agents MUST do Know Your Customer …
A Text 5 min to act Now! For the SmartVal- Due to dealing with on site customers or on valuations you miss these.
What about the ones you have done in speedy real time?
You finally get an contact an email the clients name, you send your contact details and the no response.
It’s isn’t any differences, to all the time wasters we get on Zoopla ( on thing os they now have the valuation Information without you setting foot into the property or even speaking to the agent.
Who is the winner ? Not the agent emailing clients at 10 pm
Do you not thing are working week is long enough ?
How many hours do I do you ask ?
As a self employed estate agent I start 7 am and finish at 11.45 pm or sometimes it’s gone 1 am 7 days a week..
Due to all this high tech clients only contact us after office hours now! Unless your chasing solicitors which seam to have the easy job of Part time hours, they speak to FTBs liked ****! They stop a client from speaking in the tracks and hang up on them. Solicitors have become younger and have no respect of the title.
sorry moan over!
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As a self employed estate agent I start 7 am and finish at 11.45 pm or sometimes it’s gone 1 am 7 days a week..
These are seriously long hours. Hat off to you.
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Interesting response.
I am convinced that no matter what label or spin the portals and tech companies put on these “online valuation services” they are a waste of time.
I am convinced someone looking to list their property within 3 months, will call 2 or 3 local agents (rarely 1, but it does happen) and they will be the agents they know in the village, or they have seen the boards, or done their own research by asking friends and looking at reviews etc.
These 3 agents will get called regardless in my opinion as serious sellers start to look at who they want to use as opposed to “what might my house be worth according to a computer”.
They know when the time comes to list, they can get the best advice from the hoomans! In my opinion.
I wonder if more damage is done by allowing ANY 3rd party to have any input in this important part of the process.
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As a Boomin Agent…switched off at that point
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Boomin get a lot of information about the customer before booking the SmartVal. Homeowners have to go through a verification process, something which definitely doesn’t always happen when agents speak to customers on the phone. Vals booked online are now common place and what many customers want .
The five minute window has proved great for consumers (the customers we represent) so they get an experience and an agent starts an engagement they are not getting elsewhere. The five minutes has been working but has increased to fifteen minutes this week as a test and actually so far agents are reacting faster and not taking advantage of the extra time based on stats provided by Boomin.
SmartVal is so flexible. It is not intended for you to be available 24/7. It is intended for you to benefit when it works for you. Agents are making themselves available when they are free and toggling off when they are not. Instead of walking around in the rain delivering leaflets you can do a number of SmartVals that fit around your day. if You are keen to get valuation leads SmartVal is showing what the consumer wants. It is our job to embrace it or become irrelevant compared to those who dI embrace consumer desire .
You would be unlucky with no response. If you are just emailing them and not picking up the phone you will get less response. The hungry agents will win the business. My clients are coverting between 30% and 46% to traditional valuation appointments.
I understand about the working week. It is not intended to extend it. It is intended to complement and fit in with it. If it doesn’t work for you there is the ability to turn yourself off but that just passes the opportunities to your competitors for a product homeowners are engaging with and enjoying . Not everyone will be perfect but it is technology intended to help agents and drive leads and instructions. We can’t stand still and survive .
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Think you need to have a conversation with leelee30 (& the many others who have similar thoughts as expressed on various forums).
As the old adage goes, ‘You can put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig’.
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30% to 40% conversion rate to a traditional appointment is POOR… ValPal leads get converted at about 80% which is also poor…
You become a busy fool, getting an online val tool user to agree to a 30 minute no obligation face2face appointment to confirm the stats are perfect with no obligation. It is so easy to convert we stopped calling the ValPal leads. My opinion, someone playing online should be left online… if they are serious they will start to hunt for the humans.
I am not disputing the use of Online Valuation tools is not popular with homeowners, but those ready to list their home… they will look deeper into the process.
The stat I would like is: What is the “Online Val tool to Sale Completing”
And how many agents had a person use their online tool, who then listed with another agent.
One service provider uttered the horrid words to me yesterday of “it only takes one to pay for itself” imagine that… I would have every tech/print/gadget in the world if it was that simple.
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Having done a ‘dummy’ valuation since reading this article, i would disagree that a lot of information is obtained prior to the valuation. i contacted three agents and they all provided difference prices, even though we only purchased it a few years ago. Of course this could happen with an in person valuation but just knowing the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and whether it has a garage is not the basis of a valuation.
I do not see how this is in any way accurate and if a very inaccurate price is given, would put a seller off going back to that agent. This could be a very good agent but purely a wrong valuation given down to lack of information.
Know one can do an accurate desktop valuation within 5 minutes and get the price correct every time
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Mmmm. Building big data me thinks at the expense of agents time. Since 1st April we have had three tenant leads, so clearly tenants are not flocking to Boomin. EA friends have had few if any buyer leads. How come all these owners are requesting Smart Vals, when the vendor / Landlord leads from the other portals are miniscule by comparison to buyer / tenant leads? It doesn’t make a lot of sense really.
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“10,000 requests”, circa 6300 agents signed up, (“Boomin reaches more than 6300 agency branches…” – PIE 10/06/21), less than two per branch, more than likely zero for many branches not located in high density areas – not sure how we classify “flying start” these days, but this looks mediocre at best to me.
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These are the number’s I love to see! Thank you for highlighting this 🙂
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In one month too.
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