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Show HN: 77 Year old launches SaaS platform today. Seeks feedback (propbox.co)
520 points by montgomster on June 16, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 273 comments
Richard Montgomery (rm@propbox.co). I believe PropBox is the first advertising platform to facilitate a home seller and buyer to directly negotiate and close real estate transactions within the platform and zero commissions entirely online. Looking for feedback to continuously improve the product.


I invested and helped with something very similar to this in New Zealand. We found the model is difficult to make work for several reasons.

Firstly for most people buying and selling a house it is the biggest transaction that they ever do, and they are simply not used to negotiating that large of a contract. They actually need a Real Estate agent to help drive the transaction to a close. So in our model we had a licensed agent as the founder and he spent considerable time negotiating deals to close, and sold a lot of homes.

Secondly when it comes to selling your home you want to advertise it to the biggest market possible, which in our terms meant being on the major real estate platforms, one of which required you to be a licensed agent. Your buyers are not really incentivised to find your site and will use the big sites.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the Real Estate game as you probably know is all about finding listings. That takes money and time, and $1000 per listing simply doesn’t make economic sense, well it didn’t for us.

Our business failed, gracefully

Suggestions (without reviewing the site):

Sell packs of home sale supplies such as yard signs, advertisements on platforms where you get discounts or access.

Try to get relationships with large sellers, in particular we found sellers of new apartment complexes /multifamily dwellings which were in demand were very keen on lowering their transaction fees.

Consider offering a Real Estate agent service for very low cost will you conduct all of your business on the phone and not in person. That may meet the regulations and dramatically undercut the market.

Consider a higher price, especially consider a transaction fee as that’s where sellers don’t mind paying.

The Real Estate industry, and our part of the world and I suspect and yours, had a wide array of inefficient practices that were begging for automation. That’s where the real value has been created, though I would say the real money is of course in selling houses.

Good luck with the endeavour.


Thanks for your feedback. A lot of your comments line up with the US. We suspect our market is the FSBO. According to NAR, about 10% of the market was for sale by owner(FSBO). If that number is correct, the FSBO market is twice the size of the largest real estate company. So about ten percent of the market here apparently doesn't need an agent. That's about 500k houses. We believe we have a lot to offer a "bare" FSBO. Only time will tell. Thanks for your feedback. It is appreciated.


> If that number is correct, the FSBO market is twice the size of the largest real estate company.

That's the most apples & oranges thing I've read in a long time

I recently used a real listing agent that I paid a flat fee of $500 to and they got the listing on the MLS given I filled out the forms and provided pictures (hired a photographer for $200). I was fine just having the MLS as the marketing vehicle as buyer's would find it without any marketing at all. It worked and saved 6%-$700 which on this particular property was about $35,000. (Oh I did do my own negotiating as a seller, but they offered to do that for an added flat $ fee that I don't remember)

I think that's the model for this. Don't try to create a FSBO market, try to find a RE agent that does above in every market and create a network of that type of service. Then you can skim a fee off at some point from either the agent, seller, buyer, or anyone else.


On the flip side I purchased my last home with a lawyer who's also a real estate agent. They only represent the buyer and provide all services for a flat fee that's tiered on the home price. It doesn't fix the Realtor problem with insane fees and idiotic sales tactics. But it allowed me to buy my home with far less out-of-pocket and at the end they handed me a 5-figure check as a rebate. This would have been his insane commission for doing very little. I don't understand how people still are just giving their money away to "Realtors" who, ultimately, unlock doors. The majority can't actually read or understand a contract (I sued Redfin because a Realtor working for them lost my earnest money when they failed to understand something as simple as a date), very few of them actually know anything about a home or what to look for and finally, these days, most buyers do 90%+ of the work to find the home they want. Do most people use travel agents anymore? Why use a Realtor?


You won't get any argument from me. PropBox completely replaces the need for real estate agents and MLS listings. PropBox enables you to sell your home fast with no fees - on a secure platform with a very easy process. It takes about 10-12 hours of your time and the seller saves based on home value $25K to $75K. One point you mentioned is there is an association called the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents.[1] They operate similar to your lawyer. What I like about them is that they cannot work in a traditional real estate office that takes listings. That is where the term a"exclusive" has meaning. They only represent buyers so they shun the listing commissions to remove any potential conflict of interest. This is why there are not very many of them. What this suggests to me is that they are of high moral character and their advice can be trusted. The downside is you may not be able to find one near you. If I were buying a home I would definitely interview one. Another tactic I have observed is the number of home buyer that believed they used a buyer agent but did not sign a contract. In my state and I believe many others, this means you were actually working with a sub-agent of the seller, or a transactional agent. Thank you for your input. [1]https://naeba.org/


What are those 10-12 hours?

Is there any way to get that time from 10-12 hours down to say 0-1 hour... while still maintaining the bulk of the savings?

If so, that might be a good value add.


Interesting thought. The breakdown of those hours suggests they are mostly small none repeating tasks. Like, how long does it take to unbox the yard sign and stick it in the ground. It may take less time now that it is fully automated. We will be constantly looking for ways to make it easier for our customers. Thanks for your question


> PropBox completely replaces the need for real estate agents and MLS listings.

Disclaimer: I worked for a real estate brokerage (as a software developer) for about 8 years, did a real estate based startup in the mid 2000s, and have transacted using real estate agents as well. It has been years since I was deep in the real estate business, but it does leave scars.

It is possible that PropBox displaces real estate agents. From what I've seen, there are plenty of crappy agents. Good riddance, get rid of them.

Good agents don't just open doors, they:

* know the local market and help you price a property correctly. Say it with me, 'real estate is not fungible'.

* are known in the market and can help find buyers (when it's a buyer's market and sellers are struggling)

* can connect you with trusted people who can help you assess and market the property, including inspectors, engineers, stagers, landscapers, etc

* understand how to get a transaction (with all the moving pieces) done. Especially in a difficult market, this can be the difference between selling a home or not, or getting a good price or not, or selling it in a reasonable timeframe or not.

Is that worth $35k (or 3% of <home price>)? Depends on what your time is worth and their incremental value, esp in terms of pricing and marketing. What is selling a house one week faster worth? It depends on your situation, stress level, etc. As others in other threads have mentioned, there are definitely other paths if you want to do more work yourself.

What drives me nuts about the $35k or other high figure mentioned by people when talking about real estate agents for "just opening doors". No one ever mentions the meetings with people who will never buy, the people you've been providing real estate advice for 5 years, or the lookie-loos who see 50 properties to and then decide "the time isn't right". This is opportunity cost that the real estate agent eats regularly. I don't know if 3% commission is the right number (I suspect it is high, based on how other countries do real estate buying) but that time isn't free.

I've also known that several real estate brokerages have tried to do things similar to the NAEBA (Redfin started out with realtors on salary) but that led to a lemons problem since great realtors who could help with the above migrated to brokerages where they could make more money.

Brokers have existed for high value, relatively rare transactions for many years because the stakes are high. I found this book very illuminating on the value of middleman like real estate agents: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-137-53020-2

It is simply not possible that PropBox displaces the MLS until there is a critical mass of listings on the site. Zillow took years and years to get there (maybe a decade) and they had the benefit of all the public sector data and a sexy Zestimate. I'm not sure that PropBox has that kind of pull.

And it's actually *MLSes*. They each are pretty peculiar fiefdoms that many people have tried to storm, only to be co-opted, because they control the listing data, and the access to the listing data is really the only thing that matters. (Well, maybe access to mortgages too.)

Anyway, there's tons of money flowing through real estate, so maybe I'm totally wrong and you'll revolutionize it and make a fortune. Good luck!


Interesting to read your take as working in a real office as a developer. You spent a considerable amount of time and thanks so much for your viewpoint. Your viewpoint is fairly common in the industry. I do believe PropBox completely replaces the need for real estate agents and MLS listings. Replacing the MLS is not the DropBox goal. The goal is to focus on early adapters, technical people, and for-sale-by-owners. There are enough of them build a profitable business and we believe we can do it. I have witnessed many companies fail trying to conquer the industry. My perspective is that not one of them had a product as simple and powerful as PropBox. While I realize the chance of failure is high, we are willing and able to take that chance. No one we are aware of has ever created a total online experience until now. Only time will tell. Thanks again.


> Why use a Realtor?

Just to inquire, do you mean Realtor® or just a salesperson/agent? Any salesperson/agent can get their license by taking a short training course, and can then subscribe to lead websites like Zillow etc. But becoming a Realtor is at least a bit more commitment to knowing how real estate actually works and advising your client on good decisions, in addition to being bound by the Realtor code of ethics. https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar/when-is-a-real-estate-agen...


Many real estate salesperson agents who are not brokers can become Realtors. The broker license requires more hours of study and some states require a salesperson to complete a certain number of hours or transaction before they can become a broker. All salespersons must hang their license with a broker so there are no salespersons wandering around if they are practicing. If they are between brokers or inactive they may not need a broker in some state. According to ARELLO [1] there are over 3 million real estate brokers and salespersons in the US. About half are Realtors. I hope this information helps.[1] https://www.arello.org/


I'm sorry but the Realtor code of ethics is BS. I've read what Realtors are bound by and I've found those folks doing shady things. Like a common practice is for a Realtor to not mark a property as pending before it goes contingent. This allows the Realtor to pretend to potential clients that the property is still for sale and can drag it out in case something like an inspection causes the pending buyers to back out. I found one Realtor in my area that never issued a Pending update to any of his properties and submitted it to the Realtors Association as abuse. In their own language an agent has to update the status within, last I checked, 48 hours. They completely ignored me. When I brought up sharing this with local news outlets as a common, and shady, practice they said they would "look into it". They never responded beyond that. Being a Realtor doesn't mean you know anything about legal contracts or are able to inspect a home properly. It's a self serving organization that's sole focus is on revenue. Not the buyer and not the seller. There's very little, if any good that organization brings to market - that is unless you're a fan of monopolistic organizations that will do anything to keep out competition.


Your comments and your experience are one of the reasons we do not use multiple listing services. The other reason is that they are very inefficient and time consuming. The methods and operations originated over one hundred years ago. I have written a column [1]that better explains how agents work. It is a generalization as not all agents work like this. The real estate organizations are trade organizations. Their members are agents. They protect the folks that are paying good money to be members. [1}https://dearmonty.com/is-your-buyer-agent-legitimate/


I really hope you disrupt the industry. Even if, as you say, your target market is mostly FSBO. Taking anything away from the Realtor organization is only making things better. Good luck!


Thank you for your comment. We are not trying to disrupt necessarily. We are offer a third choice. Until yesterday's launch you had two choices: For-sale-by-owner (FSBO) or some type of real estate agent. We believe either choice has numerous pain points or friction. Now PropBox is the alternate third choice. It is designed to eliminate all the pain points. It is accurate, fast, efficient, and cheap. PropBox is a Tech Advertising Company not a real estate company. We use technology , standardization, and simplicity built into our Service As A Software (SaaS)product. Many don't pay enough attention to their largest single investment so they will be the last to realize and adapt. In my opinion that will take years.


Also, in the US, if you are the buyer, "your" Realtor is typically being paid by the seller, so it's hard to say who their customer is. After I found the listing for my current house, I had to practically force my Realtor to find out about it. I later found out from the seller's Realtor (for the whole development) that they were forcing lower commissions on the buyer's Realtor, so a lot of Realtors were not showing their customers the house.


there is an existing organization many people are unaware of; The National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents [1]. In my opinion, this is because they gave up the listing commissions in favor of the buyer. They cannot work in a real estate office that takes listings. It appears to me that these folks are the closest thing to perfection for a buyer. Their stance is the conflict of interests in representing both side is not acceptable. There problem is very few agents have that dedication, so they are hard to find. If I were buying a home and didn't know about PropBox an exclusive buyer agent would be my choice. [1]https://naeba.org/


You also need to pass a test (and find a broker to oversee your license) to become a real estate salesperson.


Correct. Thanks for pitching in.


Thank you for your thorough explanation on your experience. While I appreciate your sharing I come from a different perspective in that you were the customer and I was the service provider. I recently wrote a column that explains my role and a major consideration as to why I have undertaken this project.[1] Please check it out from an insiders perspective. It is always helpful. A mentor once told me "First seek to understand, then be understood."[1]https://dearmonty.com/selling-and-buying-a-home-today-is-eas...


Thank you for your feedback. There are many people that have a different opinion. WE can start with the 500k fsbos in 2022. But there are other folks like the college investor[1] that has done some research and wrote about it on a blog. You may be right. To the best of our knowledge no one has built a product like PropBox to tackle it. Lots of startups fail for a variety of reasons and we are aware that it is way to early to know if we will be a victor or a victim. Only time will tell.[1]https://thecollegeinvestor.com/9084/real-estate-agents-anymo...


How did you avoid paying the 3% (In your example) buyers fee? Did you just refuse to work with any agents? For most people this will not work.


Excellent question. PropBox is not a real estate company. It is a technically advanced media/advertising company that is specializing in advertising homes. The seller purchases an ad for a dedicated web page that benefits the seller and the buyer. They are in control, they make all the decisions, and they do all the work. A buyer can pay a buyer agent, a seller can choose to go a different route. We are not listing homes. We believe many home buyers and sellers are looking for an alternative to the the two choices that were available until we launched yesterday. Now there is a third choice, PropBox. A platform that provides both parties the same information and allows them to work directly together. We believe some customers will like the ease of use, the ability to speak with the seller who knows more about the house than any agent, and much more. Both parties will like the ability to better control and easily communicate with each other within the platform. PropBox is not avoiding the 3%, the customer is avoiding the 3%. I hope this answers your question. Thank you for asking.


Your marketing copy should communicate this.

>PropBox is not a real estate company. It is a technically advanced media/advertising company that is specializing in advertising homes. The seller purchases an ad for a dedicated web page that benefits the seller and the buyer.

1) What PropBox is in simple terms the customer would use.

2) How it works (from the customer perspective).


Wow. This is very helpful. Thank you.


Glad I could help! Good luck on your journey.


Thank you.


there's not any listings in my area, southern Utah. Have you thought of maybe using MLS so buyers can at least see all available options in their area. Then flag as premium/featured homes that are listed without an agent or FSBO?

If I go to your website today and see no homes, I'm probably not coming back even if you add 1000 in my area tomorrow. How would I even know?

Using existing data and listings as an aggregate with a special built in marketplace IMHO would provide more value to all parties.


Excellent question: How would I ever know? If you never came to the platform there are still ways you may know. In our tiny test market(tiny is 4 sales), all four buyers came from our unique yard sign. All four sellers came from word of mouth. If 1000 properties in your are listed, that suggests 50 will sell in a year. How many would use a PropBox ad is unknown, but you may see a yard sign. I understand you logic and believe some will not come back. But lets see what it looks like in six months.


Where I am at least, the 3% x2 commissions are just a customary commission share. Technically the listing agent charges whatever they want and shares whatever they want. Usually they charge 6% and share half. But there no obligation to offer buyers commission on the MLS listing. I put 0%. I felt like being on the MLS would sort this out, most shoppers would see the listing regardless and their agent can decide what to do at that point (I'd bet they'd show it if the buyer was interested)


If they're on MLS, they'll be on Zillow.

Buyers these days do a lot of their own searching. If a buyer finds the listing on Zillow via MLS, it won't stop them from viewing the house even if they have an agent.

Once they view the house, the owner could convince them to ditch the agent. I mean honestly, what does the average agent do for a client? Not very much.


Your observation is right on. The industry believes they perform a valuable service. PopBox believes that technology has already changed the playing field. Real estate agents job description, work environment, and compensation will change. Today they work in a 100 year old, inefficient system. PropBox uses technology to do the same work, with the customers help faster, easier and much more efficiently. This standardization and efficient process drives cost way down, and gives the customer what they want, a fast, simple, easy to use tool that puts them in control. Technology allows consumers to access the same information as the agent. This fact devalues the service, but has done little to devalue the price. We are hopeful enough customers recognize this and will save significant money with 10 to 12 hours of their time. If our test market hours of work hold up as we grow, our customers will save two thousand to six thousand dollars per hour. The customers success is our success.


PropBox is not a real estate company. PropBox is a tech enabled platform that sells an ad to home sellers. It is a uniquely designed ad that offers options, not advice, to home sellers and buyers. We believe consumers of real estate are smart and when they have the options in front of them can chose which one is best.


It appears as if PropBox has no users/listings.


Hello, Conductr. We now have one in Denver, and one waiting for a photographer on Seattle. The Seattle person is in this thread. He has a two million dollar home. If he is right, and the home sells, he will save $100K. Several more assking questions. We didn't expect to have any for a month or two. It will ramp up, slowly at first, tben begin to accelerate and scale. Hopefully. Doing a few things behind the scenes to throw a little gas on the fire.


> Once they view the house, the owner could convince them to ditch the agent. I mean honestly, what does the average agent do for a client? Not very much.

Most Buyer Agency agreements operate on the basis of "if we show a house to you, and you buy it, we are owed a commission regardless of if you terminate the agreement afterwards". Now, typically a real estate agent isn't about to sue their clients if they purchase FSBO, since that would mean suing them for a 2.5 or 3% commission the seller wasn't even offering to the buyer agent, but it does mean that you can't get agent 1 to show a house, then switch to another agent, without agent 1 getting paid.


When I began selling real estate in 1966 the legal theory in place was "Caveat Emptor" or let the buyer beware. There were many complaints and over the years the theory drifted to "Caveat Venditor" or let the seller beware. Most states have gone this route but I believe there are one or two states doing let the buyer beware.I cannot find information that quantifies the actual number of complaints, but my experience is that the complaints are about the same. This suggests that neither theory works in practice. I wrote about this[1] several years ago. The article gives you a common sense take on agency [1]https://dearmonty.com/is-your-buyer-agent-legitimate/


Even if someone was driving by and pulled in the driveway and saw the house without the agent present?

Do buyer agent agreements require you buy a house through them even if you find the house and view the house and negotiate the price with the seller yourself?

(I’ve never relied on an agent for these things, I did everything myself when buying my first/only house)


In my state if you sign a buyer agency agreement, describe the property you are looking for and it is dated. You are obligated to pay in most situations. If you can prove abandonment you can likely get off the hook. Every state has their own laws and rules so be certain know what those laws and rules are. Also read the contract carefully. In my state there is a clause that if the listing broker doesn't pay the buyer agent, or doesn't pay enough to satisfy your fee, you are obligated to pay. I never liked that sentence. Thanks for your questions


Some have exclusivity agreements that require that, but they're pretty unpopular (because it's also intimidating for a buyer to sign). What I described is a non-exclusive showing agreements, where they only get compensation if they helped in showing the house or completing the transaction (like drafting the contracts).


This matches my experience as a buyer as well. It won’t get you 100% of the buyers, but it will get you way over 50% and likely over 75%.

If I was working with an agent, I’m sure they’d discourage me from that listing, but as a seller in a reasonable market, I’m willing to give up a few possible buyers to save 5-6% on a 7-figure transaction. (I’ve also seen FSBOs that offer X% to buyer agents.)

I will say that agents did do some work to make the transaction complete on both of my house purchases. Negotiations after the inspection can be tense and a good agent can help both sides get to the closing table.


sokoloff, on the point about the second negotiation on the inspection. The industry has this backwards. We recommend the per-purchase inspection for several reasons. 1. It takes the liability away from the seller stating what the condition is and moves it to the inspector. 2. by sharing it with the buyer before they make an offer you save them a bit of money, earn some trust as showing transparency, and 3. eliminating the stress of the second negotiation 10 days before closing and no one is available to fix a problem. You are making your home easier to buy. The easier you make it for the buyer, the faster you will sell and the better your price will be. Most buyers want a home in great condition.


PropBox would be very happy with buyers at 50 percent of the market. PropBox believes that there are good agents but there are way too many not so good agents. It is hard to distinguish what kind of agent you have until you start working with them.


> way too many not so good agents

This is exactly my experience. In shopping for my first house, I had a clear idea of what I wanted and a budget that matched that and the first four agents I worked with were nearly useless. (This was before web-MLS was a thing.) The fifth was a breath of fresh air and I would happily use them again.


Are you saving 5-6% but selling at 10% less than you could? In some markets bidding wars are common. The extra 25-50% of bidders pushes up the price usually worth more than 5%


Twice the size of the largest RE doesn’t mean much when 90% of the market is RE. People pick realtors, not companies, and companies have done pretty well to spread themselves evenly over the great US landscape. And you’re not primed to capture a market that is focused on spending $0 to list. That’s the reason they’re avoiding the real estate pipeline in the first place.


I see your point, but it is not universal. There are a number of reasons sellers choose FSBO. I have spoken with thousands of FSBO as an agent and as DearMonty on my website. Here are a few other reasons: 1. significant inside real estate knowledge who know how the system works. Examples are contractors, attorneys, title company workers, and there are more. 2. Poor experiences with agents. 3.A need to be in control. 4. They recognize the significant asymmetry and conflict of interest of the agent. Yes, there are bottom feeders and they need us more, but they may be harder to convince. Time will tell. I appreciate your feedback/


Pricing says $1 per listing for the first 100, then $995. If you’re targeting the FSBO market, doesn’t that mean you won’t be making any money most of the time? Am I missing something? Maybe the $1 per listing is temporary to kickstart it?


You are correct the low price is the kickstart it. The first 100 customers are beta customers. It is one dollar. They will help us iterate, they will help us get the inventory started much faster. We are frugal and we think it is smarter to benefit our customers than an advertising agency. Time will tell if it is a good decision. Good observation and thanks for sharing it.


> $1 per listing is temporary to kickstart it?

It's $1 for the first 100 people who sell a home on the platform, then full price after that.


Although it reads as though it's $1 ea for your first 100 homes you sell, then $995 after that.

And actually, probably need to make it $1/home for the first 1000 or so just to get the site to critical mass. Not going to get many buyers for 2 listings...


Davewasthere. In our tiny test market the yard sign produced all 4 buyers. The sellers all came from word of mouth. We think the 100 will be enough for people to see it works. 1000 is closer than 100 but may not be close to critical mass. We have a long runway and we are patient. as long as we see it growing and accelerating we will get there.


We believe 100 customer at $1 is very generous. When the seller has a number of benefits besides saving significant money, when they see how well this works for others the $995 is peanuts when your saving $50k. Time will tell. Thanks for your feedback. I hope you are not right!


We won't decide on the price change until after we hit 100. 101 could be full price, but it may lower. It is also unknown how long it will take to hit 100. good question, thank you.


Oh, I'm too used to SaaS pricing schemes to think that way...


Ha! If I get your drift, we don't ever want to be seen as scheming. Transparency is paramount to building a trusting relationship with our customers. We will be very careful to avoid any hint of scheming. Thanks for your comment.


Sorry, I wasn’t talking about scheming, I just thought it’s the standard free/discounted for the first X units you use (pricing strategy), and didn’t realize it’s meant to be site wide.


We actually have this website in Australia it’s been around for a while:

https://www.forsalebyowner.com.au/


This is the most cliched startup pitch in the world. “There is a $HugeMarket if we only captured $ASmallPercentage we will be successful”.

I was guilty of it too as one of the tech leads when the company I was working for was working to get acquired.


We've hit something similar with kitchens. It turns out most people need a designer or they won't buy a kitchen. When mitre 10 offers design for free it's hard to compete.


Every industry has cut rate companies. and every industry has high quality companies. It is battle. Sometimes the cut-rate companies are competing with other cut rate companies and it is a race to the bottom. Not sure where you are located but in my market it is just the opposite. Never give up. There is a way.Thanks for your comment.


By cut rate companies do you mean brokers? Brokers who take a lot of excess transaction cost


moneywoes, I mean any kind of broker, legacy, cut rate, flat fee MLS. Our flat fee is purchasing an ad. The ad page is unique. It is interactive and the customers are in full control. They negotiate directly online and close online. Our fee is for furnishing both customers an ad that creates a transaction.


Brokers and agents both. From the customers perspective the agent is the company. Some companies forbid the agent from cutting their fee. Some agents are offended if you ask. It's the wild west out there. Very fragmented industry which is part of their problem. Thanks for your question.


Not GP but no - cheap companies, with an implication of low quality, serving the most price sensitive end of the market.


OJFord. GP? not sure what that stands for. It sounds like you think we should charge more. If you looked at the platform, curious what would you pay for the ad as a seller?


Thanks for sharing this, in 2020 in US there was about 500k real estate transactions done by FSBOs. We will try to get share of this market.


What percentage of those were just unadvertised listings. For example I sold my condo to a tenant that was renting from me. Blindly ignoring his advice is why there have been a dozen startups fail in this category


According to NAR they were FSBOs. More than a dozen, I paid attention to all of them I could find. probably missed some -its a big country. thanks for weighing in.


I also worked on something nearly identical in US. It also failed with a bang. The site had a similar value proposition as the OP. $995 and off you go (we also tried other price points).

At the end of the day we just couldn't get enough customers. That is despite spending some serious bucks on advertising with Facebook and others.

I suspect you are right - home purchase/sale is too complicated for a regular consumer from a legal and practical standpoint and cost of failure is high. It's better to hand it off to a professional.


I'm in the UK and we bought our house direct. We needed a solicitor but not an estate agent. Saved a packet. Most people I speak to are too scared to go out alone in this way. If it became more of a regular thing it would take off.


I think fear is the main deterrent as well. I wonder if it can just be framed as "presale" - you list on this much cheaper platform, and if it doesn't sell, you can still go the normal route.

Homeshake [0] is a local company that does something similar to this, which at least appears to be having success.

[0] https://www.homeshake.com


I am familiar with Home shake. I wish them well.


Buyers' agents barely exist in the UK but sellers' agents are very common.


I don't know a lot about other countries but my understanding is the fee is much lower, which may explain why you do see many buyer agents. Good comment. Thank you.


Homie has seen good success.

I bought my last house through that.

First time buyers may need some help, but you learn a lot and quickly


Homie's flat fee for sellers is dramatically higher than OP's, and the seller still pays a regular commission for the buyer agent (even if the buyer is using Homie as their buyer agent):

Sellers Pricing: https://homie.com/pricing#buy-sell-tabs-first

Buyers Pricing: https://homie.com/pricing#buy-sell-tabs-second

The higher fee means they can actually pay for all the costs they incur and still remain profitable. Including the buyer agent fee means that they're in a position to attract non-Homie buyer agents to the platform, so they're not trying to bootstrap a market from scratch. It also means they can give half of that portion of the fee back to the buyer as an incentive to choose Homie, whereas in OP's model there's no reason for buyers to choose them.


I thought 'buyer's agent' was a weird Canadian thing, ypu do it in the US too?

Seems such a con. And your links imply it's built in to the system, there's always a 6% charge for that (otherwise why would they charge and give back half).

Short of multi-millionaires looking for an interesting fifth home without caring where it is, I don't see why you'd want to try to explain your requirements to someone else, have them sort of get it, show you things that aren't right for reasons you forgot to give or can't quite explain, and pay for the privilege.

In the UK we just find somewhere we like the look of, arrange viewing with the (sellers') estate agent, and potentially make an offer. What would a buyer's agent do for me except increase the price/decrease what I can afford?


Repeating a note by others, having advice on navigating a large transaction is comforting. Even though I ultimately found the house I bought myself the guidance of my buyer’s agent through the process was invaluable. No regrets on him making good money for his efforts. Also, surprisingly, it didn’t feel odd for him to help me negotiate a lower price while his pay is based on the sale price. His business is based on referrals to my next friend who needs such help.


If the fee structure was something like 1% list price + 50% (list - final), I could understand it as an 'I'm not used to negotiating, pay someone to do it for me' service.

(And I'm sure you could find someone to do that here if you wanted, especially for very high value properties, or by bespoke arrangement with some other real estate agent or salesman who's used to negotiating, but it's just not commonly done. I suppose for one thing you often end up paying more than the list price - and they might have to negotiate hard to get it for that, other times not at all. You'd need to somehow incentivise listing at a 'real' asking price (or penalise difference from it) I suppose.)

But the house-finding (and related apparent refusal to arrange viewing except through buying agent sometimes) and inversely aligned incentives seem strange to me.


We bought for the first time in 2021, when interest rates were at the very bottom and the market was absolutely insane. The only reason we got a house (and one we like!) was because we had a really good agent who helped us navigate the market.

Doing it a second time in a saner market, I would be more inclined to do it ourselves and negotiate a 3% discount on the house. But successfully buying a house at rock bottom interest rates was totally worth the cost.


I'm not sure I understand, you had an existing relationship somehow, and they said 'hey guys, really think you should buy right now' or something?


Hmm looks like they've changed their pricing model. Interesting


Possibly! That definitely wasn't the model I expected them to have based on their ads.


I think they might be able to act as a general buyer's agent

But you don't have to hire them for that even if the seller is using them


There are many cut rate brokers, some more successful than others. We believe first time buyer will like PropBox. We even make them aware of the 5 year rule. Thanks for your comments.


On the first house the Agent is critical. On the fourth not so much. iME, YMMV


Generally speaking yes, but lots of exceptions. Thanks for commenting


It seemed not so long ago most homes in NZ were going to auction too.


Not too familiar with NZ real estate but it makes me wonder why?


Auctions generally perform better in a seller's market (strong buyer demand), with interest rate rises prices have been dropping lately here (NZ)


Lots of demand and little supply. Why list a price when you can let people fight it out at auction?


How did your business fail?


It is not a good idea to ask for my location then set your database to that location. Mainly because there's a very low chance this will show any houses for sale, and this makes it look like your service is unused.

You've got the normal big challenge of creating a two sided marketplace - search for that term and you'll find any number of posts and podcasts talking about that. That is going to be hard to overcome.

I think that sites should take you directly in to the data - don't force people to read some generic page of benefits - show don't tell. Put all that guff on an "about" page.

If you are going to make your age a selling point, then drop visitors straight into the data browsing page, make sure there are some houses there - and put a picture of you up top and say hello and point out you are 77 years old and you wrote this. It's something unique, so why not?

Also you should fill your database with houses - use AI or some sort of random data generator to generate them and just make sure there's a small but clear note on the listing saying this is AI data. It's not ideal but it is better than an empty database. Give people something to look at.

Great work though.

What is it built with? Who wrote it? You?


    Also you should fill your database with houses - use AI or some sort of random data generator to generate them and just make sure there's a small but clear note on the listing saying this is AI data. It's not ideal but it is better than an empty database. Give people something to look at.
This genuinely made my stomach turn. If this is the future… I don’t know if I want in.


Fully agree. Once I'd see the 'this is fake' disclaimer at any house, I'll skip.

Perhaps a demo.probox.co would be a good idea for a dech demo.

Also: this site seems implicitly us-centric, best to make that explicit.


This kind of idea is always a telling stand-in for business incompetence.

Yes, seeding something like this is difficult. It takes work. Arguably it’s the main part and any sort of app is just the implementation. This is why oftentimes these things start off covering a small region and grow in time.


Hello,Waterluvian. I missed your comment, sorry. Still have a few to reply. If I understand your initial statement, to me it means incompetence drives innovation. You are correct that many start small and grow over time. The difference here is this platform is has been built to handle volume and we can handle a larger area because the feature are built into the site.So we are starting small by only opening in 13 states to interate. When we see an accelerating adoption we will likely open much faster. This all assumes customers like what we are offering. We shall learn soon enough. Thank you for your comments.


Isn't this the PAST... something along the lines of: "spent some time to fill the database with data; any data; make it up if you have to". This would've worked long before AI, except now just a bit more efficient?


Hello, sverhagen. I am not understanding your comment. But allow me to address what I sense you mean. PropBox is not the past - it is the future, today. We don't want "any data" we want accurate data. We want the best data. I cringe at the thought of " make it up if you have to." We do not think it is AI dependend. We will watch AI for awhile and experiment a bit with it. If it actually works for us we will incorporate it. For us one of the problems with AI and real estate is there is so much inaccurate, misleading, harmful content out there we don't want to contaminate our material.


It wasn't cool then either.


It probably wasn't, just not sure why AI, for all its faults, got blamed here :)


Yeah, it’s seems weird to have a not real listing there. Maybe to start with you could partner real estate companies and have both house that are direct sells and ones that redirect you to a realtor. At least they would be real houses, and then people decide to buy a house you could message them asking them if they’d like to sell on the platform instead.


Hello,johnnypangs. We planned on launching empty. When I started my first real estate company, unlike the typical method many new real estate companys use, which is to hoard and pocket inventory while they are still with their soon to be former company, so they can open with inventory, I began with zero inventory. Let's see what happens in the coming months. We have one now, soon to be two. lets see what it look like in six months. We believe we can be successful independent of the industry. As an insider and an operator very few consumers understand the financial risks associated with real estate. All service businesses are far risker than people realize. Doctors, lawyers, car mechanics, auto sales, and many others. the problem is asymmetry., where the seller knows a lot, and the customer knows litte.


Maybe youre right.

In the other hand an empty database there’s nothing at all to see and you bounce straight back out.


Not necessarily. I think if the only way to make your business work is to start off by manipulating your customers, that's a problem. I would suggest one possible alternative is to target sellers and give them the tools they need to easily list their home and promote that listing off the platform. If sellers can see the value add, it shouldn't matter so much that there's no existing listings in their area.


michaelmior.You are correct, for the most part. If the only way to make the business work was to manipulate the customer we would not be doing PropBox. We believe being transparent with our customers is the way. I'm curious if you spent any time on PropBox, because it does exactly what you suggest it must do. We promote the buyer and seller working together with commomly shared data to reach the common goal - a successful transaction. Take a peek if you have time and tell me what you think. PropBox.co Thanks fro yoru comments. Richard


> Also you should fill your database with houses - use AI or some sort of random data generator to generate them and just make sure there's a small but clear note on the listing saying this is AI data. It's not ideal but it is better than an empty database. Give people something to look at.

Don't do this, please never do this.


Hello, dangoodmanUT. I have responded to this directly above in a couple different ways. We want to begin with accurate data. We have two customers so far and we are talking to others. We are patient and have a long runway if we need. Lets look in six months. Thanks for weighing in.Richard


Hey, great idea and I wish you lots of luck!

Some thoughts:

- I can direct list my home on Facebook, Craigslist, and Zillow. Why would I want to list it on your "exclusive" platform? Will you at least cross list for me on all the other services?

- The supported regions need to be more prominent. I didn't find out that my home wasn't in an onboarded region until I tried to calculate the cost of selling a house - that's a bit too deep. If LA is all you support then say, "buy and sell homes in LA" - and make sure all your marketing and advertising spend is focused in conquering your initial target market.

- "Commission free" does not mean it's cost-free. The cost calculator needs to be simplified. If it is simplified enough, it needs to be more prominent as well - after all, you're asking the home owner to do all the hard work, and pay you up-front. So, why not sell me on how much I'd save by putting in the elbow grease? Sell me on how realtors make way too much money for not a lot of work. Sell me on how the platform will guide me each step of the way - it'll be as easy as following a cookie baking recipe or something.


Hello, givemeethekeys. You are right on. We received many similar comments and you will start seeing big improvements in the message in the coming weeks. What would you think of a calculator that tells you what you should price your at to have it sold in ___ days? Check us out in six months and see how we're doing. Thanks for chiming in. Richard


Hello, Givemethekeys. Just wanted to let you know we are in the process of opening the 37 states we left out. If you haven't sold your home, we should be ready for in a week. Check in then. You can reach me at rm@propBox.co Thanks


Super cool. I really like how clear, clean, and concise the main landing page & pricing page are.

Also, as a 36 year old developer, this product and you yourself, are inspirational. This sort of thing certainly lifts my spirits as I begin the job hunt after a sabbatical.

Thought I'd mention as well-- I heard about this Japanese developer who made an iphone app at age 84 and even met Tim Cook. [1]

[1] "Meet the 84-year-old Japanese app developer who inspired Tim Cook" November 23, 2019. Nikkei Asia. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Meet-the-84-year...


Thank you for your comments on the platform. I appreciate it, and the small team that did the work will appreciate it even more. I disclosed upfront that my iPhone gives me trouble sometimes, but I'd be happy to meet Tim Cook as I have a small issue with it now. I am hoping that we are successful for many reasons, one of which is to inspire seniors not to quit working if they want to work. I have noticed there are many seniors with a lot to offer that seem to feel obligated to stop, or are badgered into retirement by family members or friends. Anecdotally, the famous broadcaster and writer, Paul Harvey was asked "When are you going to give it up." He was in his eighties and still showing up very early every day to work on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story." In that unmistakable voice, he proclaimed, "I'll tell you when I'm going to give it up. I'm going to give it up the moment I find something I like to do better.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Harvey


I really don't like clickbait titles like this. Is yours startup's killer feature your age? Why not describe what your service does in the title?


I respectfully disagree with the latter part (as for the former, you’re obviously free to like or dislike anything :)). I think we should each play to our strengths - and this is especially true in marketing. If this is what ends up grabbing someone’s eye where they would have otherwise ignored it, then good for the author. It’s unusual to launch a startup at that age, and therefore (in my view) interesting and merits discussion.


Agreed, if anything, I actually would have liked to hear a little more about the author, given the title.

A lot of startups have founder backstories weaved into their pitch. 'Who are you, and why are you doing this?' can be an interesting story to tell.


Hello, yaseer. Thanks for your comments. Actually,here is my linkedIn profile.[1] I have had a wonderful life to date. Like everyone else, wonderful achievements and devastating disappointments. Life comes at us hard sometimes. For me I have always believed I did the best I could with the information I had available. So when something bad happens, its never the end of the world, so it isn't the event that is important, it is how you respond to the event that is important. I'm happy to wake up in the morning and realize that I am just a small grain of sand on a very big beach.Thanks for asking. [1]https://www.linkedin.com/in/dearmontydotcom/


I think it was interesting too. I'm going to mention to my parents and a neighbor who is 78 (and btw goes out skiing once or twice a week and races with the younger people).

And nice to see that apparently I'll be able to work into my eighties, no problems


Hello, cutemonster. Yup. You can when you enjoy what you do it is not work. Go for it. Richard


Hi,yuvalkarmi. Thanks for weighing in. I appreciate it. Richard


Thank you but I know how clickbait works and I prefer my hacker news without it.


Hello ris58h. We wanted to make the front page of Hacker News. In studying the rules and the comments and reading the tips they offer. They stated that many readers like social type comments for a bit of diversion. I don't see it as click bait. I am 77 and soon to be seventy 78. One of comments I get regularly at home is "What! I've never heard of someone you age starting a business." I see a lot of my friends with a lot left to offer that are forced into retirement by the company, or by family members. I feel that PropBox is a product thats time has come and I hope if it works it will inspire other senior to follw a dream. The title size is limited, and I felt the social message had a better chance of 1st page. Thanks for giving me a chance to explain by sharing how you felt. Richard


I'm looking forward to more Headlines focused on entrepreneurs' race, age, weight or other distinguishing physical characteristics. /s


it has been common place to mention it if the developers or entrepreneurs are exceptionally young. eg. an app made by a 15 year old.

There is a case that this is actually more impressive than for a young person to be able to do this.

it is definitely inspirational for me.


Hello, madsbuch. I feel the same way. Not so much about me, but I think in many cases young and enthusiastic cannot compete with old, patient, and experienced. Thanks for your comment. Richard


A nice looking site. How are you navigating the mandated broker licensing requirements, error and omissions, seller/buyer fraud...


Excellent Question, Tagami. First off the site has build in features that protect our customers, both buyer and seller from exposure to fraud and E@O. The customers work together because they both want the same thing - a successful transaction. They share the same information -transparency. Unlike the real estate industry that keeps them apart. All we do is introduce them and give them information that is generally available from public sources. we empower them to make their own decisions. 10% of the total market is the FSBO and we hope to capture a lot of them. This is simply an alternative choice to FSBO or a real estate company. I hope this helps. Thanks for the question. Richard


You use the acronym FSBO on the web site (and here) without indicating that it means "For Sale By Owner". Spelling that out on the site might make it easier for the average person to understand.


You are absolutely right. I get lazy or in a hurry sometimes but we can fix those. Thanks


Is that your home address in the ToS?

If your company is in Wisconsin, how come it references the Department of Consumer Affairs in California?

Governing Law section has some blanks not filled in.

If you copy/pasted a template from somewhere else it might be worth having a lawyer do a quick review to make sure it meets your needs.

Would also be nice if the hyperlinks on that page worked.


Yes,that is my home address we all work remotely.

The platform is currently operating in 13 states and California is one of them.

Good find on the blanks

No templates at least two lawyers have reviewed

We are working on the links


You might consider looking into one of those UPS mailboxes or something similar. They have normal-looking addresses unlike PO boxes.

As an aside, your terms pages both don't allow selecting text, which feels odd and is quite annoying. (I frequently select text as I'm reading it to help keep my place. It's also just annoying when pages block selecting text in the first place.)

You also can't print either of them beyond the first page due to how the pages are structured.

Apart from the legal pages, you filters on home type are currently too broad, IMO. (In particular multi-family homes should be a category -- I personally would be hard-pressed to consider a duplex as it's important to my that I don't share walls with people.) If you're modeling off of Zillow's tools, make sure to note that Zillow's filters change quite a bit when you indicate you're looking to buy rather than rent. (In rental view it doesn't disambiguate house vs duplex but in buy view it does.)

In general the filters are lacking (lot size is another big one) but I imagine that can wait.

A proper gallery view of all the images of the house that I can scroll through would be important to me. Clicking through images one by one is quite annoying.

Rambling aside, best of luck with PropBox! Seems like a tough business to get going but I've always though something like this should exist.


Hello, Pathogen-David. Lots of good feedback here. It is a minimum viable product and as we grow we will likely consider all of your comments. I may not make them all, but we will consider them all. I am not an engineer so they decide on what is best for the platform. For example, load speed is super important it has to load in a fraction of a second, I don't exactly, but they a benchmark they don't want to be over. Thanks for taking the time to think about us. Richard.


> Yes,that is my home address we all work remotely.

Consider getting a virtual office (e.g. regus) for mail. You don't wnat random people rocking up at your door, and you don't want to have to change every address if you ever move.


Thanks for your comments


That's required if you work in State of California. For our ToS we use Termly.


It looks like the relevant state law is missing in the ToS:

> These Legal Terms and your use of the Services are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of ________ applicable to agreements made and to be entirely performed within the State of _______ without regard to its conflict of law principles.

Also, not sure why you are loading your ToS in an iframe and making it non-selectable and non-copyable? Seems rather user-hostile.


Hello,DeLopSpot. Many ToS docs push skirmishes into one state. We are thinking it is easier for the customers to argue in the state the property is located. This is under advisement. The blank line is simply an oversight. Out of curiousity I will ask IT about the non-selectable/non-copyable comment. I suspect it has to do with speed. I am not technical. Thanks for your observations. Richard


not op, but most states have standardized forms that real estate agents are required to use. This is probably a place holder until those forms are ready, but given that the entire point is to make a legal transfer, that should probably be looked at :) another way to look at it might be that this is for the early adopters who are interested in splitting what would normally be 6% commission, like other 'for sale by owner' sorts of sites.

(in other words, this isn't really re-treading new ground, which is probably a good thing... there are tons of other sites that focus on actually closing a sale with very little commissions involved.)


gunapologist99, the forms are built into the product. They are simple forms to read and understand. I have answered thousands of consumer real estate questions and it is apparent by the questions they ask that many consumers are not reading the contracts. They turn to their trusted advisor and ask them if the doc is OK to sign. This is s very poor practice for consumers, brought on in part by the internet. The bulk of consumer do not read Amazon's ToS, or any other site. We don't think we can force people to read them, but if we make the purchase doc simple, and easy to read, they will read it. IMO, PropBox is breaking new ground. There is zero commission. Sellers are paying for an ad that makes the transaction easy by bringing the customers together instead of keeping them apart. A real estate transaction can be a win-win not a tug of war. Thanks for your review and your interest. Richard


Dunno if reported already but this copy doesn’t seem right:

**

Caution: Home buyers or sellers engaging a real estate agent may be subject to additional fees. Understanding the pros and cons of your options as a buyer or a seller if this circumstance arises is here. A LINK


Hi. not sure exactly how to answer your question. May I ask what doesn't seem right?


I noticed the same thing. Is "A LINK" is supposed to be a link to another resource? It sounds like place holder text.

"Understanding the pros and cons of your options as a buyer or a seller if this circumstance arises is here." Simplified, this sentence reads, "Understanding...is here." The sentence doesn't make sense.


Ah, good find you two. I will try to get that fixed soon. Thank you


The text towards the end. :)

I saw another comment that addressed it. Apologies for the duplicate bug report.


No apology necessary. I'm happy that you are commenting. When several people see the same problem it gets more attention. Thanks for commenting


Hello, Hacker news readers: This is Richard Montgomery that started this thread. I am overwhelmed with the response. We were expecting it would be a couple of weeks before we would have many responses. I want to answer every question, and I will, but it may take a day or two or three. We have the sign order in, but we are waiting to receive it. we expect it shortly. The help and suggestions I am receiving is fantastic. I appreciate your patience. Thank you all, and please continue if you will with feedback. Thank you


Its great to hear of someone of your age starting an online business like this. Its a real inspiration to a lot of us older people here to keep believing that that we can do this as well, or that we're not barred from participating in the online world just because of our age.


Keep on truckin'drumhead. When you are doing something you love, it is not work. It's a hobby. ;) Thanks for your comment. Richard


Main feedback: There’s no way I’m trusting an online third party to facilitate my home purchase/sale. Also: when doing FSBO, most of the work and difficulty is manually dealt with—negotiation back and forth verbally or on simple standardized legal documents. Then an escrow company takes over. Hard to see the benefit a third party in the middle who isn’t taking that off my hands (i.e., a human agent).


Hi, jamesgill. We realize not everyone is going to agree early. We think consumers have been trained by the internet to expect things fast, easy, ans cheap. The is a lot of evidence that demonstrates the trend. PropBox will fill a need for many people early because it is fast, easy,and cheap. There is a customer on this thread that is waiting for a photographer before he posts, who will save $100k if the home sells for anywhere near what they believe it is worth. Time will tell, but we are working for a bright future. Thanks for sharing your beliefs. Richard


A bunch of videos from people who used the service would put a face on it.


I'm guessing this is a USA-based website made by someone in the USA? The tell is that the website does not offer any information about the market it serves, or intends to serves, and most Americans don't realise there's a global audience on the internet.

Maybe add something that says "Australians, this isn't for you."


Hello joshuawithers. Thanks for giving me a chance to respond. If an australian owns a home in the U.S. they are a potential customer. Or if they live in Peru and want to buy a home in the US, they are a potential customer. You are correct that we only offer it in the United States. Thanks for your comment. Richard


Looks great! Thank you for sharing, you are an inspiration building this at 77. I can only hope to still love what I do and have the motivation at that age.


Hey, totallywrong, I love the Clint Eastwood story. He was playing golf with Toby Keith a few years ago and Toby asked on the course how he could keep going writing, producing, and acting at his age (like 90?). Clint was about to swing, he paused, and said "I keep the old man out." That is my inspiration. Whenyou love what you do and you have a purpose it is never work. Thanks for your comment. Richard


I was the CTO of a startup that tried this; it's extremely difficult because most people (it turns out) want a real estate agent or someone to help them. Additionally, it's a real chicken or egg situation-- without inventory, no one will use your app, and with no one using your app you won't get any inventory. There are two ways around that, one is to pay for data but then you'll have to deal with local MLS requirements. The second is copious amounts of money ($150-200 million) to burn for years in advertising to acquire eyeballs.

Your app looks great, and I truly wish you the best of luck! I'd love to see someone succeed doing this...


Wow, rubyn00bie, I'd love to talk with you. I wonder who you were with and how long ago. We anticipate that will be an issue for awhile, but we have a jar full of ideas how we will overcome that problem. Kind of the coke recipe. Thanks for your feed back and we will take all the luck we can get. Richard


I'd be happy to setup a call sometime, do you have an email address? I've seen a whole helluva lot of that space (though it has been 5-6 years now since I was there). The company was called Househappy, before I left the company pivoted into being a home ownership platform instead a buy/sell platform. I'm still quite sure that we're started the trend, on housing websites, of a photo driven approach :)


My standard formula (tempted to call it a standard joke) is to build an aggregator that lists the competitors offers, in your case as many properties from as many agencies as possible.

Some you have to pay for their data, some you can do for free, some want to pay for better listings.

On a different note, without an agency one can leverage the lack of artificial urgency. ATM, with few listings, the longer listings last the better it is for you.


It's much easier and cheaper (in terms of time/money spent) just to use https://www.listhub.com/home.html to aggregate the data. Many MLS are run on old beige boxes living in closets.

I sort of disagree with the analysis about having things sit longer. One of the issues is that if it sits too long, because markets are hot, sellers will just go with an agent and never use your platform again. Additionally, many buyers will assume that the data is stale because its old. It's really a difficult situation with so many non-obvious layers of complexity in how it works.


What ended up happening to the startup, did they pivot?


Yeah, they ended up pivoting into home-ownership space after burning through cash and doing a CEO swap to secure new investment. Now it's sort of "car fax" and concierge experience for owning a house. It's a good idea, but real estate is a really hard industry for tech (IMHO), and it's just capital intensive to make any progress.


"PropBox is a company of humans" in the about me is quite convincing that this company is, indeed, not a company of humans


Interesting comment. PropBox is a SaaS product and we expect the tech savvy folks will navigate it without ever speaking with us. But we are also committed to excellence with customer service, especially being brand new with a new experience. I'll will take your comment under advisement. Thank you sharing it.


Am in the middle of listing my house using propbox.co because I happen to be the ideal use case: high end house in a pretty good market that should almost sell itself. When I say "in the middle" I haven't taken pictures of the property so the listing hasn't been completed and may not until weather here in Seattle approves. Another thing that makes this option tailor-made to me is that I'm friends with the real estate agent who sold it to me years ago and I don't necessarily want it to appear in the MLS yet, where she'd instantly know.

The site's UI is pretty smooth, with some very minor bugs (at the moment you can't add blank lines to the house description textbox). For an MVP it's very very clean and a pleasure to use. There's an unobtrusive "Seller tips" box that has a fantastic checklist for prepping the house. I mean, I knew to replace the tile counter with marble but I never thought about replacing the doors' weather stripping.

In the too-good-to-be-true dept: chatted with the founder and this appears to be a legit deal. Certainly they haven't charged any money, and he obviously knows the applicable laws: he's been in every possible position from developer to broker and everything else. In lieu of a big market spend he's just going to lose money on every sale early on. It really does cost only a buck to sell, and they do plan to send a distinct for sale sign. I suggested he make images of that sign prominent b/c the site is a little generic and that will set them apart.


Thank you for your comments, Tom. There are many high value homes in Seattle. If a home sells for $1m the savings are $60k less about $2000.00 for the ad plus a home inspection and a Photographer. If a home sells for $2m that is $120k! We believe there will be many people with high end homes that will try PropBox. If they are not computer literate, they can pay their kids, neighbor, co-worker or a close friend to place the ad, install the yard sign, hold an open house, show the house, etc. If the ten to twelve hours of "Work" holds as we add more homes, a million dollar homeowner would earn almost $5000.00 per hour. I am not aware of any part-time jobs that have that pay rate.


This is a cool service, and I would certainly use it as a buyer, but to get me as a seller it would need to have an option to get an MLS listing as well. Is there any reason that wouldn't be possible eventually as a feature?

It's just that the majority of potential buyers will be looking for homes through MLS, so you are drastically reducing the pool of potential buyers. Number of interested buyers is going to be a huge factor in selling price, especially if you get a bidding war going.


Hello, UniverseHacker. Good question. MLS is part of the problem. It could be more efficient; anybody with a license can join, and one of only two choices currently available to consumers. The other is going for sale-by-owner. PropBox is a brand-new advertising alternative that removes all the pain points. It is fast, accurate, simple to use, and inexpensive. For example, I write a syndicated weekly Q&A real estate column. I have answered thousands of consumers' most pressing questions over 12 years. One of my learning experiences is that when I get a new question, it is easy to discern that many people don't read the contracts. Why? Because the contracts are so long and difficult to understand, customers turn to their trusted advisor and ask, " Well, <name of agent>, what do you think? Should we go ahead?" The majority of agents will reassure them to proceed. So they ask a person with a significant conflict for permission. This is a big mistake. At PropBox, we are trying to correct this by making the form simple and easy to read. For example, the basic offer-to-purchase has over ten thousand words in my home state. The PropBox basic offer-to-purchase has just over one thousand words, written in easy-to-understand language that meets all the legal requirements in the state. Our legal counsel has agreed that it is legal. Now a customer can read it and understand it. This short and easy read will improve a buyer's confidence and avoid depending on someone else's opinion. It also minimizes the chance of a future misunderstanding for the seller. Our customers will recognize and appreciate this simple fix.


Good luck with your launch!

I would suggest a few things:

- figure out some way to do some kind of quasi-official vetting of listings, perhaps as an add-on for sellers. Especially pay attention to pricing, because FSBOs tend to be wildly out of step with fair market value. You might consider refusing the official seal of approval if a property is listed at a price that doesn't reflect well on your platform (we've all seen a FSBO that's priced 50%+ over market; you don't want to endorse that). Platforms like AirBnB offer similar services - for example, they will even send a pro photographer out to take pictures and a top host to help with your copy. Having a way to distinguish listings where a professional has at least looked at the listing to ensure it is sane would be a big value for buyers.

- Many people have pushed back on the notion that folks want to deal with a person. I tend to agree; our last realtor saved us a giant bill on water repairs by making some observations borne of experience. However, the flat percentage model doesn't make sense given how expensive many homes are today. I would suggest having a market of referrals to attorneys (and others?) who can help advise buyers through a transaction. This can allow folks to save a lot of money while feeling supported through the process.

Really hope you're able to make a dent in the existing monopoly!


Hello runako. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. If PropBox existed when you experienced your last transaction, I believe the concerns you had at that time would not have existed. The giant water repairs would have been exposed prior to the time you made the offer. PropBox recommends a per-sale home inspection, and requires the seller to complete a seller condition report. PropBox also provides all sellers with a range of value like other sites do today, but the seller shares that information upfront to the prospective buyer. PropBox is an advertising platform so there is no stopping a seller from getting help if they have a question the platform hasn't already answered. We are hopeful the seller will have a pre-sale home inspection, professional photography, and we require a seller condition report. Here is how I summarize what will happen and why:

PropBox believes transparency builds trust. Trust between buyer and seller has been absent in real estate for over 100 years. Astute home buyers will recognize your advertisement's value and respond favorably to your efforts. You empower the buyer to decide to go ahead when you share information upfront that they would only see after they made an offer, if ever, in a typical transaction. They avoid the cost of a home inspection, and they learn the condition from an independent professional trained to find any flaws, as opposed to you accepting the liability. They review your condition report, which helps them understand what to expect. They can act with confidence because of your efforts.

You benefit with a greater chance they will make an offer because they have seen the virtual presentation, know the condition, and communicate with the people who know the house and neighborhood best. You will likely receive a higher offer and enjoy a far lower risk of issues post-closing. You are leading the effort to make a real estate transaction fast, simple, inexpensive, and valuable to both parties.


+1

Having a "network" of inspectors in each state which have a quality level of your choosing to pre-inspect every property would make me very happy.

Also, criteria search for things which are not listed. Will allow you to find areas to target for searches. For example: I know for a fact I want to buy >5 acers of land in PA. If something came up at a good price I'd be on the market.


hello, gravypod. In the bootstrapped MVP, we lack the capital and therefore manpower to intergrate a vetted home inspector, but we recognize the need and ifand when we get some scale, it will attract human resources and capital. Your thought is spot on. Thank you.


Lots of comments about how hard of a market it is to get going. Of course it is but just wanted to point out it is possible. Here in Quebec there is "du proprio" [1] which is pretty successful and are getting significant market share. Anyone I know looking to buy is looking at both MLS and duproprio listings.

But I can tell it must be a very tough business. For one they have run continuous TV ads for years. The ads are targeting sellers only almost, and the main message is to save on realtor fees. So I'd suspect it's the listings that are the challenge, in a seller's market, the buyers will come.

Their offers/pricing for sellers is very thorough. Yard signs of course, but also pro photographers sessions, 3d virtual visit thingy (check it out its neat), full legal services to complete the transaction... Their online listings and overall experience is much better than MLS/Realtor websites.

In the end the platform was bought by PurpleBrick which is a slightly different business model I believe, and PurpleBrick was bought by a large credit union that might simply advertise mortgages? They never attempted to expand much outside of the quebec market afaik, but the platform looks like it's here to stay and going strong here.

[1] https://duproprio.com/en/


Is it just me or is Quebec an a anomaly? Appears they have all sorts of distinct rules


Kinda, in Québec, there are many more consumer oriented protections like the "legal warranty" that allows someone to request repair outside of the 1yr/2yr warranty usually provided by the manufacturer.

The duration of the "legal warranty" is related to the price and the usual life expectancy of an appliance. (7 yrs for a std washing machine).

It's also illegal to make a loan with too high interest rate (above 30%).


Looks like a letter is missing in the phrase "The title company will follow the contact instructions" in the "Frequently asked questions" section.


Ah, I see it contract not contact. Thanks much.


Bug: “Understanding the pros and cons of your options as a buyer or a seller if this circumstance arises is here. A LINK”

There is no link


Hi, jagged-chisel (love the handle) thank you for spotting it. Great find. Richard


We will fix it right away.


Great work and great concept - I found the copy to be clear and communicated the value proposition effectively, and I would certainly consider using this when selling my house since I could potentially get 10s of thousands of dollars more. I will also check back to see if there are different listings here than on Zillow, but will probably forget if you don’t send me a reminder.

One small UX bug: on mobile the hamburger menu obscures the Sign Up form, and I missed that I needed to click the X - closing the menu when I click an item would solve this. Other than that, it was pretty easy to use!

The idea of being able to get information directly from the person living in the house is appealing to me.

I understand the up front fee to sell, but wish I could de-risk by being able to get it refunded if I don’t sell.

Very interesting, I hope to keep an eye on your company!


Looks great. What type of feedback are you looking for? [1]

Also curious what got you interested in building this specific product?

Either way seems like a great start

[1] https://marc.io/ask-for-feedback


Great question marckohlbrugge. I will read your link a bit later I seem to have a lot of questions which is blowing me away. I am looking for critical, helpful, honest reactions. You cannot offend me. I am nearing six decades in real estate with an unusual history. Initially I was a huge supporter, and it took me 25 years to begin to turn contrarian. I believe real estate has many problems and I have tried to fix them from the inside. I wrote a book, I answer consumer questions on my dearmonty.com website, I finally realized to have an impact I had to do something much larger. Thank you for your questions. I appreciate it. Richard


You might want to have someone proofread your site. Maybe hire a professional copywriter.

> Unlike FSBO websites with flat fee listings, no MSL listing or co-broke fees exist.

That's not a sentence, and the rest of that paragraph is pretty bad as well.

> About us

> PropBox is a company of humans with shared beliefs ...

That sounds great if your target market is Marianne Williamson, but I think most people would look at the About page to find out more about the owner(s) of your company and their experience in the real estate market. A home is the single biggest asset that most people own. Are they going to trust the sales process to a nameless, faceless URL with no discernible address or contact information?


I couldn't agree with you more. The problem is that I am bootstrapping this project and my son says he doesn't want me bagging groceries at Wal-Mart when I'm ninety. While I have done well financially in life, I have also had some major hiccups. I have learned more in projects that failed than I ever did with the successful ones. I am hopeful that consumers will come to understand the real value of PropBox so when it starts to scale, lots of people will want to invest. YC has turned me down at least 3 times. On your nameless question, I am willing to be named as the founder, but the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have been battling the industry since the 1950s.[1] In one of the reports they published, I recall it was named the Butters Report, they interviewed cut-rate brokers, some of whom mentioned threats of personal harm, property damaged, a building set on fire. If people were doing that in the fifties, it could be much worse today. I don't want my developers endangered trying to do the right thing. I may be a bit over the top, but the real estate industry is a bit like a union. One cut rate broker recently called NAR a cartel, and they haven't found Jimmy Hoffa yet. I also am a low key person, and the culture we want want to build isn't around me. But you make a good point. I will take your suggestion under advisement. [1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/339/485/


> Unlike FSBO websites with flat fee listings, no MSL listing or co-broke fees exist.

what's wrong with that sentence? subject is "fees", verb is "exist".


I agree with you. I answered a similar comment directly above yours. Paul Graham says don't try to make the site perfect, get it out the door as fast as you can. Hopefully it will begin to scale and we will hire a designer to help. Thank you for weighing in I (we) are listening, and responding candidly. We will behave the same way with our customers. This is good practice. ;)


Hang in there Montgomster, congratulations on your SaaS!


As I see it, it is missing something like:

>Unlike what is common on other FSBO websites with flat fee listings, no MSL listing or co-broke fees exist.

Without it, it seems that in the first part of the sentence the subject is FSBO websites, so that the implied subject of the second part of the sentence is "this site".


You're right! I had the worst time parsing that sentence. I read it as a series that lacked an Oxford comma.


Yes, please check out the two posts above. We take every comment seriously. I am overwhelmed with the help the Hacker News community is providing us. We deeply appreciate it. Thank you.


Interesting site. Few notes:

1. Why did you choose to put the fees on the seller side? You say its 0 commission, but really its a flat fee commission on the seller. This is fine, just curious why not split? Makes it an unpleasant surprise for the seller.

2. It would be good if you be more upfront on where your service is active. Maybe during signup. I made an account just to find out you can't serve me. Double whammy

3. Its not really clear what sellers get from the platform besides flat fee commission

Overall cool site. I'm always for innovation in real estate space. My experience home buying was super annoying.


Thanks for your questions they are good questions. Here are the answers: 1. We debated your question. There are several factors that influenced it but the major factor is the seller is paying $995 + a photographer and a home inspection so depending on where you live and the size of your home another $800 to $1500 say $2000. On a $500k home the seller saves $28,000! The other reason is the seller wants to make the home easy to buy. The low friction homes sell faster and for more money. We are hopeful buyers will recognize this and gravitate to PropBox. 2. good point. We can fix it. Were you in the process of signing up? send me an email and let me learn more - maybe we can add a state. no promise but I'd like to know more.3.The seller will have little stress, they are safer, they are far less likely to be litigated against, it is easy. Thanks for your comments and questions


>> but really its a flat fee commission on the seller

No, it's nothing like a commission. It's a fee due whether the house sells or not.

Basically FSBO sellers decide where,and how much, to spend their marketing dollars. Of course related-party transactions have no marketing costs at all, but the rest figure they can market themselves for less than the commission.

This $1000 is really just an ad placement.


"... sellers savings are between $22,000 and $60,000"

This must be talking about multi-million dollar properties? 60k is a deposit for most home purchases! And if you're talking about million+ dollar homes then don't waste your time, those people won't just sign up to a site and put their properties up themselves. Just by giving it to the right estate agent will give them tens of thousands over a price that you could potentially get from individuals browsing a site for buying.

Sorry but this a waste of time.


I’ll look past the rudeness of your comment and actually address your point.

At least in Canada - I would assume the model is similar in the US - standard real estate transaction commissions using an agent are 4-5%, so your home wouldn’t need to be over a million to save $20k by avoiding an agent.

Also, in many metros, the prices of homes are so high that a million dollar home ain’t what it used to be. We can’t and shouldn’t assume that someone selling a million dollar house is a sophisticated and wealthy actor.


Sorry if my comment sounded rude. Harsh, yes, but didn't think it was rude.

Of course you will get lots of negative feedback, especially when you put something in front of thousands of strangers. It looks like you're handling that alright but just to give you a bit of comfort that's very expected.

Agent fees in the UK are typically 1.5-2% - so even for a property of 500k, 2% is 10k. And average property prices are well below 500k.


6% is typical in the US (3% for seller's agent, another 3% for buyers agent).

6% of $500k is $30k. $419k is the median sale price in the US according to Redfin.

It's possible to negotiate the percent down, but typically that is only common on particularly expensive listings (not super common below 7-figures).

I purchased a house in New York last year. I found it on Zillow and showed up and bought it without an agent. They still charged the seller 6% (the seller agent got double the commission because I didn't have an agent, and they made themselves my agent of record for the purpose of the transaction - interestingly this is legal in NY, but not legal in all states). And because the seller agent knew they were getting double commission if they sold to me, they did a good job fending away other potential buyers (which I'm not complaining about as a buyer, but would be pissed about if I were the seller).

There are lots of reasons to ditch real estate agents. They charge way too much relative to the value they bring most transactions.


I found the house we live in now on my own, toured it at an open house, and once I decided I was serious, I engaged an agency on the terms that I would get a 75 basis point rebate if I bought that specific house through them. They agreed, the agency and agent took their 225bps, I got 75bps (of my own money) back and the agent got a relatively easy sale under her belt.

It might not always be possible, but it was worth the trouble to try to set up. (Redfin also offers a similar structure in some markets if you don’t want to try to negotiate it on your own.)


25% rebate isn't bad but you should be getting more for the little work the agents do.

I did the same in NY and got back 75% of the buyers commission. There is a big business opportunity to setup a network of agents in all states (where leagl) that advertise buyers rebates for home buyers that want to do all the work.


Wow what a rip off! Joys of capitalism hey. And when you try to just deal with buyer/seller directly you'l hear all sorts of made-up reasons as to why it's "important" to do via agent. Most people are too scared to take any amount of risk, which gives companies chance to rip people off. 30k just to sell a house is ridiculus!


I like it, from a quick hallway-test point of view; especially considering I'm your perfect customer right now, I saw the "$1" listing opportunity and immediately signed up to find out you don't service Minnesota.

`WA, CA, AZ, CO, KS, TX, MO, IN, TN, KY, OH, FL, WI`

You could make this more clear on the front page, of offer an Address/Zip based search, it's in my opinion a so-called "dark pattern" by requiring a login with email to do any basic searching like that.


I would love this for low cost land plots (sub $50k). I see a lot of people listing land like this on Facebook Marketplace; feels like this platform could be ideal for that.


“If that time holds true as we grow the sellers savings are between $22,000 and $60,000 or event more depending on your home value.”

Should be ‘even more’ I think :) nice site!


thank you, we'll fix that!


Amazing that you built this at your age. And it honestly looks good. I do have concerns about the sustainability of the business model though, because I'm not sure how much sellers (who are mostly agents) would be willing to spend for this on a per-listing basis.

The only disappointment I had when using the website was seeing a spacious home listed in the heart of LA for $900k, only to find that it was a test listing.


I can't provide much more context than anyone has currently, but I just wanted to say I love what you're doing with the "zero commission" approach. I think it's sorely needed in alot of markets. Wish you the best luck.


I’m fairly certain I saw a startup a few years ago with this exact idea, but I can’t find it after quite a bit of searching. No idea if they’re still around.

They also supported transactions with one side having an agent, but in that case it wasn’t free. I don’t recall how they made money (or maybe they didn’t, and that’s why I can’t find them).


Few minor accessibility issues.

https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://propbox.co/

Bunch of front-end security issues. Some of these are trivial, but also... if you are going to do something, why not do it right?

https://securityheaders.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fpropbox.co%2F&f...

The Privacy page is a nightmare, as others have pointed out. Why do this? Won't work with screen readers, won't let users copy text... it's bad.

https://propbox.co/privacy

None of the social links in the footer work.

Missing meta description and social medial share tile meta tags.

https://socialsharepreview.com/?url=https://propbox.co/

https://propbox.co/robots.txt gives 404

https://propbox.co/sitemap.xml gives 404

Bunch of trivial stuff that sort of says, "My web dev is a little junior."

But cool concept!


Hello, dbg31415. This is very good feedback and we work at eliminating and fixing, you are being helpful and all feedback is good. In my developer's defense, he quoted Paul Graham who said don't spend a lot of time trying to make it perfect, get the site out there. Who am I to argue with Paul Graham. Thanks for your feedback and we will work to fix it. Do you by chance know of a vendor that handles privacy and terms of service that you find acceptable? I would like to hear from you if you have the time. Thanks, again, dbg31415. Richard


My email is in my profile.

Happy to send you some suggestions!


Thank you for the feedback


I listed my Denver townhouse in prime golden triangle location 2 blocks from all of the happening bars & clubs off Broadway.

https://propbox.co/homes/100001/details


$925K to live in Denver? Times have changed


The artificially low interest rates and low inventory created high prices in many parts of the country, and they seem to be holding in some areas. Times have changed. Thanks for commenting.


wow, how was your experience?


Good example of a two-sided market, which are quite tricky but there’s a lot of material out there on strategies and techniques. I’d recommend focusing on one area/city at a time to get enough buyers and sellers.

Nice work, very inspiring. I’m 50 and looking to start something again.


Thanks for your comments and suggestion I'm happy you like it. Never give up.


Why not flat-free MLS listing?

Not hating on this (and give huge props to actually releasing something), but why spend $995 when it costs only $100-500 for a flat-fee MLS listing?

With a flat-fee MLS service you get the added benefit that all realtors will see your listing because it’s on the official MLS?


Main difference is that you pay flat fee $100-500 + you pay 2-3% commission to buyers agent. So let's say you're selling house for $500k and you go with Flat Fee MLS. You pay $100-500 and then you also pay $15k(3%) for buyers agent fees. With us you pay only flat fee $995, no commissions.


Folks, you can check out test house at this link

https://propbox.co/homes/100000/details

You cand send offers,chat, negotiate etc.


I came across this property on my own just by zooming out the map from my location — you might make a more clear example listing like “123 Test St” with lorem ipsum in the listing description

I thought it was a mistake to leave this data in production, not an intentional example listing.

Congrats on the launch! The site looks great


Website seems clean although relatively bog standard. Dislike the not-so-subtle emotional play by stating your "advanced" age. Let the product stand on its own.


Your "how likely are you to recommend" prompt from helps out pops up on the first field of selling a home flow. Not relevant at all at that time.


Did you work in real state before?

Can you provide some info about the tech stack? Did you wrote the code or you hired someone?


I found this website linked on their website under “Blog”:

https://dearmonty.com/

It seems they do have quite some experience in real estate


Hello arjonagelhout. I feel accomplished, but I learn something new every day. There are over 600 posts on the dearmonty website. I write a syndicated Q&A column every week, so I feel it is helpful. Ann Landers was my hero and she answered every letter. I have done the same. lost count but over 5000 replies. This is how I learn more about the problems people have. Thanks for the plug. Richard


> Access denied Error code 1020 You do not have access to dearmonty.com. The site owner may have set restrictions that prevent you from accessing the site.

Hm, seems inaccessible for me.


Hi,gus_massa. I have worked in real estate since I was 21 years old - never had another job. It has been an amazing ride. On your tech stack question, I can barely handle my iPhone. But if you would like to know more I can ask my co-founder if he can talk to you. Might be awhile we are both putting in very long days right now. My email address is on the top. Please get in touch. Thanks for your questions. Richard


Looks good. I’m interested in selling a high-end house. I can’t tell if it has MLS listings as part of the deal.


Hi,tomcam. We have a few sales in a tiny test market. We don't use the MLS but we sold every house without mls. That is a long story, but we use state of the art SEO, and a unique yard sign. We are hopeful that as we grow more an more people will come to understand. If you want to talk, the platform has phone, text, and email built in. Or send me an email. Thanks so much for your interest. Richard


I'm 36 and have been building websites as a hobby all my life and this looks better than my stuff :S


This is 1:1 components copy pasted from https://tailwindui.com (nothing wrong with that, that's what it's for) but you don't have to feel bad for your UI skills.


Gotta feel bad or we'll never fix these things!


Folks who are providing feedback. Pls go further than home page, try to list property,chat, send offer, etc :)


How are you navigating regulations? Are you vetting listings? Is there a legal expert in your team?


My two cents: The copy doesn’t sound professional. I’d hire someone to assist with that immediately


Good luck!

Just FYI: There’s a style issue with the site on an iPad Mini.

When viewing vertically, the About and Sign In buttons overlap.


Purplebricks


For anyone not in the UK, Purplebricks was an online-only estate agent with a similar (but not identical) model to this platform. The market had high expectations for the company, but it didn't do particularly well and was sold for £1 recently: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/17/online-esta...


So AirBnb for property selling?


exactly!


Looked really cool but the search in the map for buying homes doesn't work


I guess this is for the US, but I can't tell, why not put that in About.


This looks great!

Something I found: In the FAQ, under “Caution” there is an orphan “A LINK” text.


Maybe focus launch in a single market first to iron out some bugs quickly


when i click "about us" you look pretty young for 77!


Check out Duproprio (in Quebec, Canada) - similar use case


Why is the picture not centered on the top?


The picture appears to be centered.

The house appears to be centered in the picture, more or less.

However, since there’s another house right very close to it on the right side and empty space on the left, I believe this creates a little bit of an illusion of the house not being centered.

Personally, I think it looks fine.

Side note: If I was buying a house that nice I’d want a bit more space between my neighbor. :)


Hi, sabujp. There was discussion about that but I do not recall why it ended up there. Just curious, is there a reason we should move it? I'd like to hear your thoughts. Only a designer would ask that question, right? Thanks for the question, I wish I could answer it for you. Richard


ahh i see, it's only on a super wide browser window that it doesn't look correct :

https://imgur.com/a/0NkPqiE

You may want to limit the absolute size of the top banner/image so it doesn't go past the width of the text area


I like your landing page, what did you use?


tailwindui and tailwindcss, vue 3, and bunch of js libraries :)


Hi,tmountain. I am pretty sure the next reader answered your question. What he describes sounds correct. I will thank them in a minute.:) Thanks for your question, Richard


tailwindui and tailwindcss, vue 3, and bunch of js libraries :)


looks like tailwind/react combo but custo


Hello, dreadlordbone. Thanks so much for answering the question above. You saved me there. I am glad you looked at the site, and I hope you liked it. Let me know if you have any comments. Richard


Truly inspirational. Best of luck!


are listings on propbox syndicated to Zillow, Redfin, and other real estate apps/sites?


No, they are not. We have not approached any other sites. Because we have zero commissions they would likely turn us away. Good question. I also believe we will do ok without them. Thanks for your question.


Very clean design, best of luck!


For me, a startup is a business first, technology second.

So my first question are always:

1) What does it cost to aquire a customer (CAC)?

2) How much does a customer pay (REVENUE)?

3) How many customers are there (TAM)?

4) How much does it cost to service a customer (GROSS MARGIN)?

Let's answer these:

1) No information provided, but it's probably not cheap given there is plenty of competition. You can try to rely on word of mouth/focus on the FSBO niche... but this is a critical question to answer. (High CAC?)

2) This is easy, you charge $995/listing. Is this less or more than 1? No idea. (Low REVENUE!)

3) We can estimate this - you mention 500k FSBO happen each year. Let's say you're really successful, and capture 50k sales a year. (Low TAM!)

That's a $50M/year revenue stream. As an induvidual that sounds large... but as a business that sounds pretty small - for context redfin spent $158M in marketing alone in 2022.

4) Cost to service customer... I imagine overtime and scale this could be reduced, but to what level? (Possibly okay GROSS MARGIN).

As presented, and filling in the blanks, I think this is a currently a weak business model - high CAC, low Revenue and small TAM... this is going to make everything you do harder than it should be.

----

Notes on the website:

The website doesn't really sell the value of using your service.

The headline says 'Zero commissions'. This doesn't actually add any value to the seller.

Your bullet points for 'sellers' are questionable:

Set your home apart? Really? Who will see these listings? How will they know it's easy?

Deal directly with buyers? This sounds like work. Why do I as a seller want more work?

Close and Save? How does this help me close? What am I saving?

----

A different approach. Keep in mind I don't know your target customers, but here are some idea's:

1) Charge 10x as much - $9,995. Maybe on a success only model.

This instantly 10x's your possible revenue and TAM... and focusses your time on early adopters who see value in your service, not cheapskates who are not going to do the work and leave bad feedback. Use the extra funds to market and hire!

Alt: Keep cheap, but go deep into viral + addons. More complex, so not my preferred route.

2) Work on understanding the customer and figuring out thier pain points. Adjust marketing to fit:

E.g. Save $X0,000 and be in control with PropBox!

E.g. All the control of FSBO, but none of the paperwork!

E.g. Sell your home faster, on your own terms, with PropBox.

3) Serve customers via concierge model until marketing/CAC is dialled in. Then focus on automation.


Phenomenal analysis and suggestions.

I’d love to learn what other metrics and decision frameworks you follow to build this type of intuition


Nothing crazy - though I have studied 'startup' methodology and worked in some which has helped shape my opinions.

For example, learning to pitch a startup is valuable IMO. At the start it doesn't seem to make much sense - why these details, but not others... but by the end you start to understand the questions investors want answered:

1) What is the problem?

2) What is your solution?

3) How do you make money?

4) How much money could you make?

5) Are you the right people to actually build this?

6) What is this going to cost to invest in?

https://www.ycombinator.com/library/2u-how-to-build-your-see...

The rest of it is from running a business, and understanding that businesses need a way to attract customers (typically paid) and idealy make, or have a plan to make, more money than it costs to aquire and service a customer.


Nice. By the way I saw a 98 year old man who drove his wife to the doctor the other day. There are no age limits (assuming good health!)


Hey,quickthrower2. A lot of my friends think I'm crazy. I certainly agree with you. Thanks for the compliment. Richard


A seller can post a listing on Zillow/trulia for free and get massive exposure. What is the advantage here? Is this somehow complementary to those marketing efforts?


Great question, Multiplayer. There is a huge difference. I believe the largest difference is that the companies you mentioned client's are real estate agents. PropBox clients are the customer. We work for the buyer and the seller. But there are many more differences, those companies have no control over what the agents do with those leads. PropBox builds many features into the platform that is very helpful for both customers. PropBox takes all the pain points and friction out of the process. I believe our marketing is faster, transparent, simple, safer, and a lot cheaper. We are a new alternative the FSBO and the agent, and we are hoping a lot of people will try it, and if they do they will never go back. It is a good question, and I appreciate you for asking it. Richard


Posting a listing of a home for sale is entirely different from actually selling the home.

Ironically, most states have standardized real estate forms, so really it's just Realtors® that are clogging up the works and demanding 6% commissions. (Actually, it's just NAR; most realtor agencies get 3%, for working their half of the sale, and then the actual realtor only gets half of that, or 1.5%. All of the rest goes to the middlemen, because historically buying and selling homes was highly labor intensive.)


Hello,gunapologist99. PropBox fixes that problem. Zero commissions,Really. PropBox is a tech advertising company where sellers buy an advertisement for a flat fee of $995 upfront + a home inspection and a professional photographer with a money back guarantee. Your observations are accurate, gunapologist99, you even got the Capital R and the ® correct. Thank you for your comments. Richard




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