Pat PilcherPAT PILCHER mistakes an app for a Eurovision song contest band while looking for an app that can save house buyers a load money.
They say the three most stressful experiences you’ll ever have are getting married, buying a house and dying. I’ve yet to shuffle off this mortal coil but have been through a wedding which was actually quite fun – at least until I saw the bill.
I’ve also bought and sold several houses. There’s no escaping it, the whole real estate thing is stressful. The ridiculous thing is that it doesn’t have to be.
This has obviously also occurred to the clever chaps and chappettes who crafted Yelsa. (Is it just me or does Yelsa sound like a Eurovision song contest band?).
Yelsa is an app that could transform how we buy and sell homes. The funny thing is that Yelsa works a lot like the Tinder dating app. It matches sellers to buyers using algorithms.
Mike Harvey, Yelsa CEO, says sellers can browse registered buyers, and invite them to look at their home. Sellers pay a one-off fee of $129 to list their home. This allows them to invite an unlimited number of buyers to view their property.
For those who’ve never sold a house before, you’re likely to be thinking ‘What the heck? Just a hundred and twenty-nine bucks?!’ This is actually a fraction of what you’d normally pay for photography, marketing and so on. Sellers can also talk to buyers registered in the system. Harvey says this helps cut down on marketing and commission costs.
Another benefit is that with Yelsa, sellers can see how many buyers are in the market. This allows sellers to gauge the potential interest they’d get if they were to sell their house.
It might sound like a Eurovision song contest band, but Yelsa is also a great fit with the Covid-19 situation. Visiting open homes isn’t ideal with social distancing. Yelsa affords sellers control over who views their home. Buyers can get qualified before they visit to check out the sellers home.
Tech might have gutted the publishing and travel industries, but Harvey says there’s still a need for realtors. “Agents can register on a directory of affiliated agents. Homeowners can get agent support for a guaranteed 1 percent plus commission.”
At the end of the day, the success or failure of this Eurovision song contest real estate app comes down to money. The good news is that the numbers look excellent. With median house prices in Auckland at $910,000, the Yelsa PR bumpf says sellers stand to save anything up to a whopping $35,000 with Yelsa.
Although it’s early days, 1000 purchasers are already signed up plus over 150 home sellers have listed properties for sale on Yelsa.
