Wouldn’t it be nice to know the repair and remodel history of a house you’re thinking of buying, much like you can look up the accident history of a car before you buy it? Well, if the burgeoning home-improvement startup Porch continues to gain steam, getting ahold of this information might soon be easier than ever.
For those who might be unfamiliar, Porch is basically a service that makes it easy to find home improvement professionals in your area and hire them for specific tasks. Since its initial launch about a year ago, the company has gathered up a massive database of historical records about home improvement projects, repairs, and other work done at residences all across the US – and it’s still growing.
On its website, the company makes this data available on a neighborhood level, but thanks to a new partnership with Realtor.com, prospective homeowners can now request detailed reports on any of the homes listed on the service. These reports, which will be available for every home that is actively for sale, will include information about projects done around the house, their cost, and even before/after photos uploaded by the professionals hired to do the work. The service is completely free and reports will be delivered via email.
In addition to the repair/remodel history of a given house, the reports will also include details about the neighborhood, as well as info about the service professionals who regularly do work on houses in the area. The bulk of this information will come from the 1.5 million professionals whose projects Porch currently indexes, which the company says amounts to roughly 98 million projects
From a business standpoint, this is a win for both Porch and Realtor.com. For Porch, this partnership expands its reporting service past the neighborhood level and gives it a greater reach. For Realtor.com, the partnership gives the company access to information that isn’t available through competing services in the online real-estate industry, which will likely help differentiate it and attract more users to the site. And, last but not least, it gives homebuyers far more insight into the state of a prospective property.
For more information, or to request a report on a house you’d potentially like to buy, head over to Porch’s website
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