Realogy Partners with Amazon
It seems Amazon has its hands on everything. From easy online shopping, food delivery, and even selling tiny homes (as I wrote about previously), Amazon has now teamed up with the Realogy brand to offer TurnKey. TurnKey is a new venture that pairs consumers with agents within the Realogy brand, Sotheby’s included. Realogy is the nation’s largest residential real estate brokerage. Consumers then purchase a home with their agent and receive a “move-in benefit”. Benefit packages are based on the purchase price of the home.
TurnKey currently operates in 15 major cities in the US. A few of these cities include Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas/Fort Worth. According to some analysts, all 15 cities make up 20% of all home sales nationwide.
The process is fairly simple. You sign up for TurnKey and let them know which market you’re interested in purchasing. You will then get matched with a local Realogy agent and redirected to the Realogy site. You work with the agent to find a home. Once you close, you receive a benefit package courtesy of Realogy. As mentioned earlier, the package values are based on the purchase price of the home purchase. However, all packages include Amazon Smart home products and credit towards services like moving, cleaning, and handyman services.
People have been wondering when Amazon was going to tap into the real estate market. Analysts believe Amazon can easily foray into the iBuying market with the assist from Realogy. According to Amazon, they are not. For Amazon, they are promoting their Echo and other smart home products. They want to ease the stress of moving into a new home. Their packages also include installation of their smart home products.
Amazon hopes to expand TurnKey into more markets. This marks the second venture for Amazon touting their smart home products. In 2018, Amazon partnered with Lennar, a large national home builder, to create “experience showrooms”. These showrooms offer potential homebuyers an inside look at how the wi-fi ready Lennar homes can be easily connected to Amazon’s smart home products and see how they work.