Amazon.com Inc. made a move into the real estate business yesterday announcing a partnership called Turnkey with US Real Estate Group Realogy (NYSE: RLGY).
The collaboration is intended to seamlessly connect consumers wishing to buy a home with ‘making it home’.
The program hand matches a real estate agent from one of the Realogy Brands to a consumer in order to assist them to purchase a home.
Once settled, the Amazon team take the lead in providing up to $5,000 back in Amazon Home Services and fully installed smart home products.
This may also include furniture and accessory assembly, painting, cleaning and more.
Realogy brands in the US include Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s International Realty and ERA.
Amazon Home Services was launched in 2015 as an on-demand service for all types of home chores, from routine cleaning to TV installation and painting, plumbing and assembly.
The partnership strategy is to boost sales for both Amazon and the Realogy brands in a bid to improve competitiveness with tech-based companies such as Compass and Redfin.
| Home Value 150k – 399k | Home Value 400k – 699k | Home Value 700k+ |
| Amazon Package Value $1,000 | Amazon Package Value $2,500 | Amazon Package Value $5,000 |
| $450 credit towards moving and cleaning services | $1,000 credit towards moving and cleaning services | $1,500 credit towards moving and cleaning services |
| + Amazon Products Echo Dot, Echo Show and 1 Ring Doorbell II | + Amazon Products 2 x Echo Dot, Echo Show, 1 Ring Doorbell II, Sonos Beam, 1 eero Wifi | + Amazon Products 4 x Echo Dot, 2 x Echo Show and 1 Ring Doorbell II, Z-Wave Connect Camelot Deadbolt, 2 Fire TV Cubes, 2 Sonos Beams, 12 Kasa Lightbulbs, eero Wifi, 1 Smart things hub |
(All figures quoted in USD)
From an Amazon perspective, this should ignite interest in their Home Services product.
From a Realogy perspective, franchise commissions have been in decline, partly because agents are generating a larger share of their leads from sites like Zillow and also through their own digital marketing efforts.
Realogy CEO Ryan Schneider told CNN, “There are so many ways you can get low quality internet leads out there if you are an agent or a franchisee.
“Realogy and Amazon together delivering high quality leads through the Turnkey program is going to be a great differentiator for us.”
The program launched yesterday in 15 major US markets including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas Chicago and Washington DC.
Realogy’s share price has struggled as shrinking margins in the residential sector in the US have also collided with a slowdown in the housing market.
The company’s stock price has decreased over 80 per cent in the past year, but were up 16 per cent to $6.18 following news of the Amazon deal.
At present Realogy properties for sale will not be shown on Amazon.com, there was no comment about its future plans.
