Windly is a tool for agents who work only with buyers. Agents use the app to stay abreast of market listings via list or map views, and to send and manage offers when a buyer is ready.
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Windly is a home search app that comes with a native electronic offer submission process.
Platforms: iOS
Ideal for: Agents who work only with buyers in fast-moving, competitive markets; agents looking to streamline buyer agency processes.
Top selling points
- Colorful, intuitive interface
- Buyer contact tracking
- Quick, easy-to-access offer documentation
- Smart phones auto-populate offers
Top concerns
Buyer’s agents already entrenched in a CRM with mobile document signing capabilities would have a hard time justifying the use of Windly.
What you should know
Windly is a tool for agents who work only with buyers. Agents use the app to stay abreast of market listings via list or map views, and to send and manage offers when a buyer is ready.
In targeting exclusive buyer’s agents, it’s safe to say that Windly is shooting for a niche. Executive director of the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents Kimberly Kahl told me they don’t regularly track their membership by individual agents because membership is only given to entire brokerages.
“We have about 130 brokerages across the country in 43 states and most major metropolitan areas. But in terms of our numbers against the total number of licensed Realtors, we’re talking portions of a single percent.”
Buyers, however, do not use the app to browse the market or communicate with their agent.
This concerns me a little, as Windly is putting a lot of faith in the idea that an agent will use other desktop tools and apps to manage their business — like a CRM — then turn to their phone to send an offer and manage the process.
Offers are quickly prepared using the included MLS listing data and the buyer’s contact information. I want to see Windly connect to common CRMs to avoid manual entry of customer information.
Forms appear stripped-down in the app, presenting only the most essential data entry points, such as price, dates, contingencies and signatures.
That information is then perfectly transferred into a standard contract with everything conveniently completed in all the right places.
After that, the offer to purchase is sent to the buyer for signatures and then zips to the listing agent as a standard PDF offer.
In the best case user scenario, the listing agent forwards the original link to the seller, who would then sign digitally, thus keeping the process locked within Windly.
The app’s intrinsic smart e-form technology isn’t new.
For many years, I worked for a company that sold a very similar digital completion technology, although we didn’t apply it to real estate.
Instead, we focused on human resources, healthcare and retirement community resident admissions. It’s obvious that this technology is ideal for detail-heavy, compliance-critical documentation, like real estate offers.
While not particularly new, the tech is very proven and efficient.
Windly uses built-in business logic to know when additional documents — such as lead paint and HOA addenda — should be included in an offer.
The app includes features to track when both buyer and seller have viewed and interacted with an offer, view a clear summary of offer terms and integrate Google calendar for date and milestone tracking.
It’s a good looking app with a sharp user interface; bold, ergonomic action buttons; and a clear workflow.
Windly was obviously developed to make things easier for agents.
However, I’m not sure the developers are aware of how many transaction tools do exactly what they’re doing. They’re jumping into a deep, chum-filled pool. Still, I believe that the pocket-ready access to an offer submission process will indeed help streamline deals in fast-paced markets.
SkySlope, merely one example, allowed me to submit an offer and sign all additional documents from my iPhone in moments while traveling through remote southern Utah. The offer functionality led me to every required signature field, created alerts and notified me when it was received by my agent. It couldn’t have been easier.
Windly’s demo video suggests that many agents aren’t up to speed with what’s out there, and it portrays the current process as clunky and time consuming.
I don’t doubt that some agents are still working this way, but most stand alone e-signature platforms like HelloSign and DocuSign have long integrated with CRMs and board-provided tools.
Everything is connecting with everything.
To summarize, Windly has the skeleton in place to support a much heavier body of features, but has decided to enter the ring well below its weight class.
The app is currently connected only to the Austin Board of Realtors feed, but Houston and Dallas are in its sights. It’s now available for iPhone; an Android version is underway.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
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