Homes listings site Realtor.com has tied up with closing-services vendor Qualia to give agents and their customers a contactless way to complete home transactions.
Qualia hosts escrow and title services on a platform that allows buyers and sellers to complete the last steps of home transactions without meeting face to face. Its integration with Realtor.com will extend the service to more than 140,000 agents who use Realtor.com’s ReadyConnect referral service, formerly called OpCity, according to a Realtor.com statement.
Realtor.com® and Qualia join forces to deliver simplified digital home closing.
If agents work with title and escrow providers in the Qualia network, they and their clients can manage and review documents, keep track of transaction processes and communicate with their chosen title company online. Consumers can sign closing documents, and in some states some participants can have them remotely notarized, as well.
Realtor.com and Qualia will launch their collaboration in February in seven states: Florida, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. The companies plan to roll it out nationwide later this year.
The service is no extra charge for agents who use ReadyConnect, a referral service that charges a fee on closed transactions only. Realtor.com doesn’t publicize the fees, saying only that they vary depending on a number of factors and are set at the broker level and are competitive with industry peers.
Qualia, a proptech firm found in 2015, says it is used by half a million real estate professionals.
Realtor.com, with 137 million visits in December, is the No. 2 homes listing platform in the U.S. by traffic after Zillow, according to SimilarWeb.
