Irish Portal MyHome.ie Claims World First as Property Sold Directly on Portal

MyHome.ie may have given property portals around the world a glimpse of the future as it claims to have sold a $650,000 upmarket house in Dublin directly through a bidding engine hosted jointly by the portal and the selling agent’s site. 

The sale was achieved in less than an hour and saw 28 bids placed through technology supplied by fellow Irish PropTech company Offr. The home in question, located in the Southwest of Dublin, ended up selling for €35,000 over the reserve price.

Offr’s technology qualifies potential bidders through a series of financial consultations and forms before they are allowed access to the screen on the portal where bidding takes place in parallel with the agent’s own website. Those who are not qualified on the platform are still able to watch the bidding process.

Online bidding technology is gaining traction in Ireland and the UK as Offr recently announced funding and plans to move to the UK. Beagel in Ireland and Clicktopurchase.co.uk are two companies working along similar lines who will be hoping that the idea of socially distanced house buying catches on. MyHome Managing Director Angela Keegan said of the auctions:

“Buyers will be able to register, book viewings, place offers and bid in auctions, directly from the MyHome listing page, further speeding up the process for agent, buyer, seller and solicitor. We are delighted to be partnering on this pilot collaboration with Offr –  as the world’s first property portal to allow agents and buyers to transact digitally, end-to-end, from expression of interest through to offer right the way to exchange.”

In related news, MyHome.ie also released a report around buyer sentiment in Ireland. The headline numbers from the portal’s report seem to be broadly in line with consumer sentiment reports from the UK and elsewhere, with 71% of those surveyed planning to buy in the next 12 months and 40% believing that prices will drop by up to 10% in that period. Interestingly, in a country that has not been as badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic as some others in Europe, 73% said they still feel safe viewing properties in person. Remarking on the results of the survey, Keegan said:

“Even though consumers have not seen the price drops that many predicted when Covid-19 emerged, demand has stayed strong throughout Q2 and Q3. It appears that many prospective buyers have not been hit by the economic fallout from Covid-19. MyHome.ie had its busiest ever month for website traffic last July, and this is reflected in the fact that seven out of ten respondents are planning on purchasing a property in the next year.”