Show HN: 77 Year old launches SaaS platform today. Seeks feedback
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, gracefullySuggestions (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.