But finding the right location meant repeatedly taking time out of their day to visit sales offices, only to find out what they wanted wasn't even a possibility.
"We must have visited seven or eight homebuilders in the community," said Dave. "We'd have a conversation and then ask, 'can you accommodate a three-car garage?' They'd say 'nope," and so it was like, 'OK, I guess we wasted our time.' "
After one too many unsatisfying experiences, the Baileys stumbled upon Ownly, an online shopping tool for the new home market launched last year by a pair of
While the advent of e-commerce and mobile technology long ago changed the way Canadians shop for everything from clothing to vacations to food, the real estate industry has been slower to embrace digital innovation. For most people, buying a house remains a cumbersome, time-consuming process that involves multiple in-person visits with agents, lawyers and bankers.
But that's beginning to change, with a growing number of homebuilders, real estate brokerages and financial institutions offering digital solutions aimed at modernizing the buying and selling process.
The Baileys also used Ownly to play around with different upgrade packages and get a ballpark price quote. By the time they actually set foot in the sales office of the builder from whom they ultimately bought their
“Building a new home is a huge financial decision," said Kim. "So being able to look at everything before you go out, and being able to tell if this is even feasible for you, it reduces some of that disappointment."
“Startups are definitely thriving in this space and we’re beginning to see the industry really find its footing around it,” he said.
Most homebuyers are familiar with commonplace digital real estate tools like web-based listings, virtual tours and online mortgage calculators. But tech innovators are now partnering with real estate companies to offer everything from digital sales offices to artificial-intelligence enabled search tools to virtual-reality-led property tours.
Advocates say taking advantage of
The use of
“Our salesperson didn’t have to upsell us at all. Anything that we upgraded came directly from us, not from them,” Kim said.
While
But
"I think we’re much closer than people realize to being able to complete the entire process online," Cassano said. “I don’t think we’re too far away from seeing that, which is transacting digitally from start to finish.”
In fact, Ownly says that within the next year, it hopes to expand its own platform to provide a complete end-to-end new home-buying service online.
“We would never replace the service we’re offering now. There are going to people who aren’t comfortable doing the whole sale online. But I want to make it available to those who are comfortable," Gowans said.
"We (the home building industry) are one of the last industries to have everything online," she added. "But if you think about back when you first started being able to buy clothes online, that seemed really weird too . . . So I think we are getting there, and we're only going to get better at it."
This report by
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