InstaShow Plus Founder Al Romero On Automated Secured Showings

The REI Diamonds Show - Daniel Breslin | Al Romero | Property Showings

Al Romero, founder of InstaShow Plus, real estate veteran, and tech innovator, explains how his platform automates and secures property showings, a need amplified by the pandemic. He presents how Instashow Plus offers robust identity verification for viewers, integrating with smart lockboxes and optional cameras for enhanced security and detailed access tracking. They also discuss its benefits for flippers and landlords, including contractor oversight and remote property management, citing a Philadelphia case study where the system facilitated a lease entirely virtually.

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Al Romero & I Discuss Automated Secured Showings:

InstaShow Plus as a Comprehensive Showing Solution (01:17-02:45)
Advanced Identity Verification and Security (09:06-10:13)
Audited Access and Contractor Monitoring (14:02-14:46)
Integrated Cameras for Virtual Presence (15:03-17:17)
Flexible Fee Structure and Landlord Adoption (26:15-27:29)

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InstaShow Plus Founder Al Romero On Automated Secured Showings

Al Romero, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

I’m doing well. How about yourself?

I’m also doing well. You’re in PA. I’m in Chicago. I moved from PA to Chicago in 2015. Most of the readers know that. Are you a PA-born-and-raised kind of guy? What’s your story there?

I started in New Jersey when I was a kid. My parents brought me to Pennsylvania so I could touch more grass. I’ve been here ever since.

Is that North Jersey, New York kind of New Jersey?

Believe it or not, Wildwood, New Jersey.

How about that? Nice. I got a lot of friends and family out in the Jersey Shore points as we speak. I got my vacation booked for the end of August.

It’s gorgeous out there.

InstaShow Plus As A Comprehensive Showing Solution

You are the Founder of InstaShow+, which is an interesting take, at least from the research or my outsider’s view, on lockboxes. This was why it was interesting to me, and I decided we would do the show together. We have a ton of agents on the newsletter list and in the audience of fix and flip investors, commercial real estate, a lot of fix and flippers, and probably a lot more agents because we sell a lot of property and have a big brand with them. At first, it’s like, “Do we need another lockbox? Do we need a sentribox? We have this solved.” The more I looked into it, maybe not.

The other inflection point that you had touched on that I had noticed, which is this overarching trend in real estate, is that once COVID came, a lot of things went virtual. People were willing to sign leases and not move in. People, sight unseen, would buy houses. I bought my house in Florida sight unseen. I didn’t see it for nine months until I finally went down there for the following winter.

I don’t know if that is a blip or if it’s a long-term trend. I do know that we flip at least a few dozen houses a year in states that we never crossed the state line, and we do it 100% t virtually. We own VirtualOffer.com. We built that out with an app during COVID, as we couldn’t do showings, which is a little bit how InstaShow+ came to be. Rather than me butchering that origin story, I’ll hand it back over to you and let you do a Reader’s Digest of what InstaShow+ is and why it exists.

Thank you, and thanks for having me. My name is Al Romero. I am a real estate agent, real estate broker, and the founder of InstaShow+. My background is that I’ve been a real estate agent for over 25 years. About half of that, somewhere in between, I became a broker. In 2008, when everybody lost their shirt, I went back to tech, which is also my background, and worked for Google for a few years.

Real estate called me back. I became a real estate broker, and then turned around and bought a property management company. COVID hit at the perfect time. I had all of these properties that were vacant that I needed to fill for my customers. The state and the government were telling us, “You can’t meet anybody. You’re going to kill them.” I had to figure out how I could show these units, stay in line, not go to jail, and not hurt anybody.

I put together a rudimentary version and a very insecure version of what InstaShow+ is now. The great thing about it is that I got a ton of data. I filled those units fast. I also got a ton of information as InstaShow+ became more and more refined, where I’m getting the information from the customer. I’m doing a little mini background check on them.

We built in cameras with our self-guided tours, which we call open touring because it’s not just a self-guided tour system. It’s a full property showing system. It’s built whether you’re looking to use the open touring model or if you’re looking to identify people and get them to schedule so you can meet not a stranger that could potentially be a bad person.

All of this turned into the full showing platform that it is now. Property managers are using it, as well as the realtors that you mentioned. We’ve got some cool things happening for agents. This goes all the way down for folks that are flipping houses and investors that are buying. Some investors will turn around and try to maybe sell it themselves before they bring a pro in. We’re giving them the tools that professionals are using to manage showings.

Let’s walk through an example. I am flipping a house. I assume this is like a lockbox. At its deliverable thing, it’s a lockbox. I put that on my flip. Dan Breslin is flipping this house in Philadelphia. From a simplicity standpoint, am I sharing a link for them to download an app? Am I sharing a booking link that is a little less barrier for the technologically challenged? What am I sending out? Am I throwing this in my Craigslist ads and they’re clicking the link, automatically doing a showing because they did a background check in the background, or am I approving each showing? Where does this come in that makes it valuable for someone if I’m in that situation, flipping a house?

I got a lot of yeses for a lot of stuff that you mentioned. I’ll give you an example. Backing up a little bit, it’s a software platform. We’re integrated with great companies. We have partners from Master Lock. Do you remember that combination lock you had on your locker? They’ve got an amazing lockbox. It’s a digital Bluetooth lockbox. It’s meant for commercial everyday use.

We also have partners like igloohome, which also make lockboxes. These companies also make smart deadbolt door locks and everything like that. There are a lot of different hardware options that we’ve integrated with our system, including property management and real estate-specific cameras, which are cool. I’ll tell you about those in a minute.

In your case, if Dan Breslin has a property and you fixed it up, you’ve got your ARV together, and you put it on the market, and Dan says, “I want to try to maybe save on a few fees and try to sell this myself,” part of the issue that a lot of folks will have is if you’re not doing this day in and day out, and this isn’t your job as it is for professional real estate agent, you are going to limit your traffic. You can only show it after hours, on the weekend, and so on and so forth.

This professional tool will allow you to put this system on. You’re going to have a sign out front that says, “Tour this home today.” You’re going to have a QR code where they can download an app, or you’re going to have it in your marketing materials that says, “To see this property, download this app.” The app walks them through everything.

Advanced Identity Verification and Security

Once they download it, you’re going to have a property code where they can put it right into the search bar or put in the address, and it’ll pop right up. It’ll ask them if they want to schedule to see it, and they click a button. It’ll ask them for their ID. They take a picture of their ID and take a selfie. What we’re doing is we’re connected to DMVs all across the country. We’re matching that ID to make sure that there aren’t any frauds, like somebody is using a fake ID, and that the person who took their selfie is the same person who has a picture at the DMV. We’re matching all of this. We’re also doing a little background check on them.

With all this information, the cool thing about this is that during the onboarding process, they don’t have to go through and put in their name and all this information. We’re verifying that because we got a ton of information off of their ID and the boards that we use. Within four minutes, we’re onboarding them and verifying their emails, phone numbers, contact information, and who they are and that they are who they say they are. They can start scheduling a tour right away. The onboarding process for the visitor or the person who is touring is super quick. On the marketing side, all you’re telling them is, “Use InstaShow+. Here’s the property code. Go ahead and download it.” We walk them through everything else.

That’s interesting. They are doing this showing. For me, we’re control freaks. We probably aren’t going to do it this way in most instances. In our brokerages, we don’t use ShowingTime. We don’t do outside listings either, so it’s our flips. We do a verbal vetting process where we’re asking questions and sizing the person up. We’re pre-negotiating before the showing starts. It may not be a great fit for us, but it is a great fit for someone who is not going to be that deliberate. There are probably times in my business where the team doesn’t have the bandwidth to be that deliberate, and something like this also works.

We’ll carry on with that example. Five people downloaded the app from our ads. One of them was out front of the house. I’m logged into the software, and I assume I got a few notifications on my end and in my email that said five people went through in the last 24 hours. What would I now do with what you’ve collected in InstaShow+?

Let me back you up a second here. With exactly what you mentioned, there’s an article about an issue. If you’re not Dan Breslin and you don’t have the intuition that you have when you’re talking with that person, that could be a bad guy. You’re going off your gut there. What we’re doing is the background verification. There are scam artists out there who are good. Sometimes, they can get around our spidey senses. What they can’t get around is the verification and the tools that we’re using to make sure that they are who they say they are, and all the terms and conditions that they’re agreeing to.

If somebody is good and they say, “This is me,” and they even text you a picture of their ID, how do you know if it’s a real ID? You’re giving them a PIN code a lot of times. We don’t do PIN codes because we believe that they’re a worse security issue than even somebody having to copy a key. Copying a key takes effort. A PIN code can spread like wildfire with a text message. You have somebody who has a key to your property who can do damage. They may not have even been the person that you spoke to. The verification process is huge. The big part about it is that a lot of our competitors are making the verification process hard for that person to do. We’re making it easy.

PIN codes are the worst kind of security measure. It can easily spread like wildfire.

Let me pause before we get there. The security thing that you’re telling me about, forget about all things ARV and how they got it on five websites. I have fifteen different contractors going through with all of their helpers accessing it. There are drug addicted copper specialists who work for the painter.

I’ve had that happen to me.

Audited Access and Contractor Monitoring

The whole audience has probably had that once. Every one of them could potentially have ID verification. Quick question. Do we have a list of everyone who accessed the property and at what time?

Absolutely. When it comes to people accessing your property, you need it to be audited, tracked, and verified. That’s what we’re offering. You can use that for your contractors as well. Here’s the other thing. How about that contractor that says, “I was there for twelve hours,” and they’re charging you? You’re like, “You walked in at the property at this time and left at this time.” Consider the money-saving options that you have there.

Integrated Cameras for Virtual Presence

A flipper is very similar to a builder, which is one of our big clients as well. Let me tell you a little bit about the camera. We hooked up with a company called Reolink. We asked them to put certain things in the camera on their next manufacturing run. We built it for property managers. The brightest LEDs are on there. It’s two-way talk, like a ring camera. You’re greeting the folks when they’re walking in the door.

It’s not just a notification that you’re getting that Joe Schmo walked into the property or Joe Schmo left the property. You can pop it on. It’s got pan, tilt, and the whole nine yards. You can follow them around and say, “Joe, I see that you’re here. If you have any questions, I’m right here.” You can run ten of these at the same time. It’s not just a dark showing where you’re getting notifications. You can have eyes and ears on.

You’re saying, “We’re control freaks.” I get it. I’m also the same way. This is why when I saw the competition, I was like, “I can’t use that. I need to semi-be there at least digitally or be able to pop in when I need to.” For these cameras, you don’t need Wi-Fi. They’re all based on data like your cell phone. You don’t need power, even. They have solar panels.

You can put them right on the kitchen counter or wherever. We have builders who are using it to watch their work sites. In the same way, you can go, “Tim, you said you got there at 6:00 AM. You weren’t on the camera until noon, and you’re charging me for that. Also, you didn’t access the lock at that time either. I double verified that. I know that you weren’t there.”

Here’s the other thing. For the times that tours aren’t happening, you have a camera at the property that you can put there. You don’t need Wi-Fi. You don’t need all these things. It’s super easy to set up. They’re battery-powered. You can plug it in if you have power, but they’re completely self-sustaining. You don’t need Wi-Fi to run the system at all.

To be clear, Reolink would be another subscription model for that cell service.

Correct. Let me give you the economics here quickly. To be clear, the hardware is not necessary to use InstaShow+. We have folks that say, “Open touring is cool, but I’m never going to use it,” because they want that control, and they want to meet somebody. They’re using InstaShow+ for the scheduling system that fully automates everything end-to-end, and they’re using it for the identity.

Unfortunately, landlords and real estate agents get hurt or even killed every year, meeting a stranger at an empty house when it’s starting to get dark. All we’re thinking about is that paycheck, selling that property, or getting it leased, and then we’ll go meet strangers. What this does is it puts the safety in the part of the showing process as well.

Many landlords and real estate agents get hurt or even killed every year because of meeting a stranger at an empty house.

It automates it. My MLS access for my license, I don’t even remember the name of it, but I know there is an identity checking system. I’m sure that to use it, I have to collect the information. I’m like, “Text me a selfie and your ID.” I get the chance to kick the tires on a person, but not like the mobile notary structure that you have here in this app.

You hit the nail on the head, particularly with licensed agents. There’s a system that the realtors’ association pays for agents. Agents don’t even have to pay for this. Guess what? Agents don’t use it. It’s too much friction, and it’s not part of the process. What we have at InstaShow+ and what we built is that everything is part of the process, from the identity, scheduling, and access.

Even on the real estate side, it’s an open secret that you don’t even have to schedule to open a lockbox as a real estate agent. You can go to any property and pop a lock open without telling anybody. With InstaShow+, you can’t do that. The person who is going has got to be known. They have to schedule, they have to be approved, and then they can open the lock at their designated time.

We’ve had several examples where the tools got removed. We’d be like, “Who took the tools?” We wouldn’t even need the camera. You probably would need the camera if you had fifteen different people go through to dial it in, but you certainly could hand the fifteen people off to the police, who are inspecting the issue.

Even better if you could hand them the video. That’s what we did with InstaShow+ here. What you’re talking about are multiple factors of verification. It’s like the multifactor that you use with digital technology with your phone, where you verify that it’s you. What we did was that the chain of custody was accessed via video. We even used geofencing to make sure that you’re at the property and not trying to log in from somewhere else.

Here’s the big part. No PIN codes. Since you onboarded with your face, your ID, and so forth, when you get to the property, we’re going to go, “Are you at the property?” We have a geofence that was built automatically in the background. Secondly, we’re going to say, “If you’re going to start your tour, let’s take a little selfie of you to make sure that it matches the person that we approved and background-checked.” We send a signal to the lock, and it unlocks. They can start their tour.

Too many times, we’ve heard from folks who are working with our competitors that said, “I showed up there, and the person who got verified or had their picture on there was not the person in front of me.” It’s the same thing. They can get verified, but they have an alibi because they’re sitting over here under a camera somewhere else. You’re meeting somebody else who they were colluding with and getting hurt. We put all of these checks together with experience to make sure that they’re not getting around the system.

I was told to ask about the Philadelphia case study that you guys have.

It’s interesting. We hired our chief salesperson. He came from another vendor. When we were interviewing him, he said, “I love this, but I need to make sure that this works.” He lived in the Philadelphia area. He had a nice house there by the water. We’re in York, Pennsylvania, so we’re about 100 miles away from Philly.

He went out there and put the sign on the property. It was something very similar to, “To tour the property, download that QR code.” He put a lockbox and a camera on. Our system syndicated it to the MLS. He had, within days, agents and people off the street coming on and getting verified. He had about eighteen showings on a property that was $5,000 a month in rent, which was not cheap rent.

Real estate agents, first of all, don’t pay anything to tour or anything like that, but folks off the street were getting verified and getting through the property. He then turned around and sent them an application. He did his own background check. They DocuSigned the lease and sent him Zelle on everything. He completed everything and said, “Al, I put the system 100 miles away. All these showings happened. I got it leased, and I haven’t even met these people.” He’s scratching his head. He goes, “I’m in.” He’s killing it

If you’re going to sell anything, you have to believe in it. The truth of the matter is, it works. We’ve gone through it. We have everything from a property manager and folks who have sold their own houses, like a flipper who uses a professional tool to manage everything. You have the open touring on top of it. You can have a property that you’re in a different state. How are you going to manage it? If you’re not as good as Dan Breslin at having the intuition to figure out, “Is this a bad person or a good person? Can I trust them to give them the PIN code or not?” You need technology to be able to give that to you.

If you do not have the intuition to figure out if you are transacting with a good or a bad person, you need technology to help you out.

To be clear, we never give the lockboxes out to anybody. The people on our lists who see this probably know that. We don’t even care if they’re a bad person as long as they don’t act badly when they get there. We’re hoping they pay a lot. Step up and win the bid. I’m kidding. Not about them paying up. That isn’t bad. We don’t want to deal with bad people.

Not at all. If they got green, we’ll take their money.

Hide the bad part. Let’s shift gears and segue a bit into the landlord’s use itself. The Philadelphia case study is helpful. You mentioned that the agents don’t pay. Do tenants pay some kind of fee to get verified?

Flexible Fee Structure and Landlord Adoption

Absolutely. We have different customers. This is what we used to do, and this is how we changed. All of the data boards that we’re hitting, the DMVs, the background, and all of the AI verification of the ID and everything like that are a hard cost to us. To tour a property and get verified, it’s $5. That’s your tour fee. We used to always have the tenant pay for that.

There were some property management companies, especially in the DC area, that were getting $4,000 or $5,000 a month for some of these units that said, “We want the traffic. That’s why we’re using this. We’re going to absorb those fees. That’s the cost of a lead to us, and we want them to tour.” They know the value of the more traffic that you have to something, the faster you’re going to sell it, lease it, or anything else. That works across the board. Whether you have a website or you’re selling cars, you want it in a highly trafficked area.

The more traffic you have to something, the faster you will sell it.

You have the opportunity to go, “I want to pay for that $5 to get folks through the property, or I want them to take care of themselves.” There’s another case for that because some landlords will consider, “If they’re not willing to pay for a cup of coffee to go there on their own time at their convenience on their own to come see the property, I don’t know if I want them as a tenant.”

We give you the option on how you want to do that. I’ll give you a little interesting tidbit on that. We used to have the fee at $1, and we got complaints from folks. We raised it to $5, and our traffic went up, and the complaints went away. It gives you an idea of the value of something. It’s a nice little interesting tidbit that we found.

It’s fine when the market is in favor of landlords, tour fees, tenants be damned, rents are going up 10% a year, and there’s competition. If you’re dealing with a higher vacancy and falling rent situation, the landlords are going to change their tune quickly. Is there any opportunity for the landlord who does have volume to maybe buy search credits at a lower cost?

Absolutely. We take care of our landlords. Anything more than five tours, where you buy five tour tokens or five tour fees at a time, we’re starting to give out discounts. The more that you buy, the discounts get much lower for the landlords and property managers.

I’m doing the math. There are probably fifteen people who need access to the property during a renovation or a build. There are many verifications. What does it take to get them to $1 a piece?

It is going to take a little bit of volume to get them to $1 a piece, but we can get them there.

Is that volume 1,000 or 5,000?

You’re starting to get up into the thousands. I can tell you this. This is a cool thing. You’re talking about people who have to go in and out. If that same person comes back and they want to do another tour, they’re not paying again because we’ve already done the verification. It’s the same thing if you have anybody else that you don’t know you’re letting through, like an unknown contractor. You want to get them verified.

Here’s the other thing. We also give you known access. Let’s say one of the folks who works for you is either on your team, or maybe you have a painter that you trust and know. You can give that person a PIN code. The locks all have PIN codes for that reason to allow those known folks to get through the property without having to pay or even get identified, because we give you a full management system on that side.

It makes sense. It could get steep for $5 tours, and all of a sudden, you’re $300, $400, or $500 a month. I could see that being a little bit of a resistance barrier.

Correct. The volume systems go up, and the economics end up working all the way from the bottom up. You have to be a large property management group with a certain number of doors before the economics don’t make sense. If you have somebody who has ten doors, for example, who is managing the property themselves, and they would love to use a system like InstaShow+, our plans go down to $20 a month. You can use this system. It’s very economical for the small person. When you start getting into those larger tiers, it ends up making sense.

All About Software Backend Lead Management

It does seem nice, if we’re flipping a house in Tennessee, having something like this to track who went through and paying even if it was ten times the access for $50 to know the backgrounds checked out. We don’t know who these photographers are or anybody that we’ve hired. It’s scary now that you pointed it out. Let’s talk about software backend lead management. Back to the original fake example we were running with early on in the show. There’s a fix-and-flip house, and five people have gone through it. I’m logging into my dashboard in InstaShow+. What should I be doing there?

For example, you’re looking to sell or lease something. The big piece of this is the lead. When we’re talking about whether it’s an agent or a property manager, this lead is important. The one thing that we’re doing is we’re verifying contact info. A lot of times, in a lot of these systems, somebody can make up an email, and they send it to you and go, “I want to see this property,” or anything like that.

When you go to follow up with that person, that email is getting bounced, or it’s never coming through. We’re verifying these emails, contact numbers, and everything like that as part of the onboarding process. When all those five people went through, you have emails and phone numbers. You know who they are. You can dump that information into your CRM or make that phone call.

The great thing with real estate agents, for example, is that the leads are very important. Those leads can be lucrative for a real estate agent. When you have a buyer that goes through one of your listings that’s unrepresented, which is why they’re looking to schedule, that’s a lead that you have that wasn’t auctioned off by a web portal that sells the lead to another agent or anything like that. The tool that we have gets around all of that to make sure that this person books with you, so then you have a real, actionable follow-up with them. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a model home. They have a little logbook.

They have a sign-in page.

That’s how they get their leads. Most people are writing Mickey Mouse 555-1212. You can’t do that with InstaShow+. You have an actionable, real lead that you can follow up with. We even ask them, “Are you working with a real estate agent?” You know that when they say no, you have a verified lead that you’d better hop on because they’re looking at houses and are looking to buy.

How would that differ, if at all, for the real estate agent who decides they want the system?

You mentioned a tool earlier on your license side called ShowingTime. ShowingTime is zoned by a company called Zillow, which we all know, but their business model is selling leads. They did a big survey, R&D, and they figured out that buyers wanted to see pictures and a little information on a house, but the biggest thing that they wanted to do was schedule and go tour of the house without having to talk to anybody.

Zillow ended up acquiring ShowingTime, which is a system that a lot of realtors are using. Unfortunately, when agents implement that, those leads are usually going to somebody else instead of the agent themselves, where they can disseminate it to their team or somebody within their company. They’re being siphoned off or redirected somewhere else.

Everybody else on Zillow who is looking at houses in their PJs found out that they’re anywhere from 12 to 18 months to never buying a house. They could be dreaming. The person who hits that button to go tour the property is 30 to 90 days away from closing on a listing, which is a smoking hot lead. If you can get that lead before they do or compete for that lead, that’s real money in the agent’s pockets.

Is that a button that’s on Zillow that they’re looking to do the showing? Is that somehow tied to ShowingTime?

Yes. If you look at Zillow at any listing, we call it on the website the call to action. What’s the biggest thing with the most color that draws your eye to it? There’s a big button that says, “Schedule to tour this house.” That’s ShowingTime. Agents loved it. It’s automated. It contacts your seller and says, “This agent wants to show this property,” behind your back. Now, they’re booking it directly with your seller. Another agent takes a client that should have been yours, and they’re showing your listing. You have to split that commission where that could have gone to somebody in your team, you could have referred it out, or whatever the case may be there.

I have it pulled up on Zillow as we speak. I have the option to book for Friday at 9:00 AM. If I were to click through Next, and I got this by clicking the Request to Tour button, you’re telling me that these times are what is available according to the ShowingTime of the listing agent.

It’s because the person who listed that property has that availability in ShowingTime.

If I click that, it’s going to send me to another buyer agent who Zillow has charged for the lead.

Unless that agent themselves is paying for that ZIP code, or they’re somehow paying Zillow to make sure that this lead goes to them, which is very expensive.

We need an antitrust suit there.

Agents have had way too many lawsuits for the past couple of years.

We need one against Zillow. This is BS.

Here’s the thing. You can either fight them in court, or you can adopt systems like InstaShow+ so you don’t have to give them your leads. That’s the big part with agents here.

When that showed up, does that mean that the agent who had that Williamsport property listing activated ShowingTime in their MLS?

Yes.

If they didn’t do that, we would put an InstaShow+ short link into the description to show and direct them?

Yes. You would have that information in the marketing materials, like your remarks and things like that. Everywhere that you advertise, where your signs are out there, is saying, “This is how you see this house.” Buyers, if they want to see that house, have to remember that it starts with the pictures and information, and then they go on the tour.

If they look at the pictures, they’re looking at the information. As that person is saying, “Contact me here,” you are saying, “This is how you tour this property. Download this app.” They know that the agent is saying, “This is how you tour.” They’re not even going to click that button up top. Some may, but here’s the thing. When you don’t put ShowingTime on this, you end up breaking that button. The only thing that happens is it’s not automatic anymore.

Maybe another agent will get a message, “Contact this buyer. They want to see this property,” but remember what I told you in the beginning. They want to schedule without having to talk to anybody. They’re going to go, “What’s going on here? I’m not going to wait for that call.” They’re going to go ahead and use what you told them to use to see this property. It’s a way to start getting your leads back. You want to market it everywhere else.

In this instance, the agent is Brian Girio. He puts his phone number in here. That makes sense. That’s a pro tip for any agents who aren’t already doing that to get around ShowingTime. Here’s how you double-end the commission. Will the public remarks section in MLS allow a link to be displayed for InstaShow+?

Yes. Take note of this. You’re hitting a very important point. NAR, which is the National Association of Realtors, has these ethical rules that we agents all have to follow. One of the rules is about access to a property. Those ethics say that access to the property is whatever the agent and the seller agreed to. If a seller is saying, “You told me about InstaShow+. That’s how I want my house shown because of the safety features. I don’t want anybody barging in here when they’re not supposed to be. I want to make sure everybody who comes through my property is identified. This is the only way that I’m going to allow you to show my house.”

Since there are some rules that are a little outdated, where they say, “We don’t want advertising in here,” you have to tell them to use InstaShow+. The consumer can schedule with the agent. We’re having folks put that information into their listing agreement with their seller, saying, “This is how I want my house shown.” We’ve had situations where some MLSs have contacted the agent, going, “You’re not allowed to put an advertisement in here.” They’ve sent them the listing agreement and said, “This is how my seller requires it.” Most MLSs have gone, “No problem.”

I was wondering if the live URL in there would be a bit of an issue. In this Zillow example, they probably would have to copy and paste that link to get it to activate.

It’s not even the URL. It’s the instructions, like, “Download InstaShow+ in your app store.” Everybody has an app store now. You then say, “Enter this code after you download the app.”

That makes sense.

We’re not putting URLs. In your marketing materials, we do have those links that we give everybody, like the QR code. We have this link that we can give everybody, and maybe you want that on your website. It has a button on your website that goes right there. We have agents and property managers who are doing that as well.

Are they allowing that QR code to be in the photos?

We’re talking about the MLSs that have weird rules around that, but here’s the thing. It’s not just the MLS. If you’re renting a property, you have HotPads and Zumper. You have all of these sites that we syndicate to. If the MLS doesn’t allow it, on the past syndication sites, you can go claim your listing and usually put whatever you want because they don’t have those rules. The buyers aren’t using the MLS to find a property. They’re finding them on the syndicated sites, the consumer-facing websites. That’s where we’re having agents go, “I’m going to make the change there and not have to worry about this.”

Addressing The “Apply First” Business Model

That makes sense. What else have I not considered or we didn’t touch on here that might be important to the developers, fix and flippers, landlords, and agents who tune in to the show, and this topic is relevant?

For the landlords, there’s a little piece here. I’ve been in the game for a long time. I’ve been a property manager. It’s the shift that’s happening in a lot of markets, and not everybody across the nation is experiencing this. We found that a lot of landlords and property managers are having a harder time turning their units. The units are sitting vacant a little longer.

A lot of landlords and property managers are having a hard time turning their units, most of which have been sitting vacant for so long.

I wanted to give a little bit of insight into the research that we’ve done. We’re going to be putting out an article on this. Some landlords have not been in the game long enough to understand the changes that have happened. You’ve been in the game a little bit. When we used to rent apartments, we used to have people show the properties first, and then if they liked them, they would apply. They’d pay the $40 or $60 fee for the application.

When COVID hit, everybody was fighting over the unit. We had 20 to 30 people in line to try to get into the unit. We changed to an apply-first model. Meaning, we said, “You’ve got to apply for the unit first, and then we’re going to pick the top applicants. That’s the person who’s going to get it.” We needed to manage that volume.

How many apply-first active listings are we talking about? Is this 50 to 100 or 10 to 20, or in the thousands?

Over 90% of property managers earn an apply-first business model. Here’s the thing. You almost had to do it because of the volume that we had of the influx of tenants. Do you remember the housing shortage that happened?

Yes. You’re telling me that for 90% of them, there’s $40 to $65 application fee being charged to show the property?

Upfront, before you even get to see the unit. Due to the housing shortage, there was a call to arms to builders, especially in the South. You had a lot of build-to-rent communities. They popped up everywhere. All of a sudden, it’s supply and demand. You added a bunch of supplies, which lowers that demand pressure. What do you have? You have a buyer’s and seller’s market in the rental space. The real estate cycle is a little bit bigger.

You’re coming back into a little bit of a tenant market. They have options. They’re like, “I have ten units I can go see.” If you’re saying, “I need you to pay $40 or $60 to go see it,” they’re going to go, “I can go see that one right now. I don’t have to pay for that.” You have properties that are sitting on the market. I know folks are out there going, “I’m not going to hire ten property managers to show these units first.” You don’t have to. You can go into what we call a hybrid model. This is how we’ve helped property managers.

If you use a system like InstaShot+ with open touring, for example, or even if you use it half and half where you might meet half the people on certain properties and the other properties may be a little further away or it makes sense, for those properties, especially if it’s competitive, you can get people through the door. They can go, “I like this unit. How do I apply?” You’re getting those application fees. If you think about it, in InstaShow+, we’re doubling the amount of traffic that’s going to a property because they can go on their time. It’s the Uber and Amazon effect. We want to be able to do it in an app.

You’re removing this resistance. In your system, and maybe you have data to track this or maybe not, what would be the total number of properties listed for rent, whatever the time period is, and then break them down to “This amount used open touring. Their average time on the market was this. This percentage of the total listings decided they were doing it the hard way. They’re just using this for verification scheduling, but they have to show up there. They took longer or shorter.” Do you happen to have that math done already?

Here’s the thing. I experienced that math. That’s something that we’re looking at with the data with our customers. Our customers are telling us, “People are coming through. I’m running them faster.” Let me give you an example of an experiment that I ran when I was doing this. We have those properties that are mirrors of each other.

For me, they were a line of duplexes, and the end units were exactly a mirror of each other. It was a two-bedroom duplex. The price was exactly the same. The condition was exactly the same. For the first unit, you had to either email me, call me, or come into the office so we could set up an appointment to go see it. For the second unit, it had big posters on the front that said, “Download this app. See it today.” It was on all my marketing. I rented the second unit out five times faster than the first unit. The second unit was rented out in a week. The first unit was still on the market three weeks later. I experienced that myself.

I imagine it would be. There are probably not a lot of landlords who would have enough properties on the market to do an A/B test at any one time. The guy or gal might have three on the market if they’re good and got to 100 or so units. Your landlord with 8 to 10 properties. I hope they only have one. If they’ve got four on the market, they are in dire straits. It happens.

Here’s something that we have for you and your audience. We have it open. Go to InstaShowPlus.com. For that guy, he might have ten units and only have one property pop up. They can create an account with InstaShow+. Especially if they’re going to go show it themselves, they’re not doing open touring, and they’re not using cameras or lockboxes, they can download it and use it on one property for free. The only thing that would be charged is the touring fee, whether for the visitor or if they want to absorb it. There’s no monthly fee if they want to try it on one property.

We have it on. It has built our customer base. We have this math. The person who downloads it and uses it on one property, about 45% of those people, which is a very high number, are turning into paid users within about one year. If you’re looking at that 10 or 15-unit user, it lines up whether they picked up another property or they have 1 or 2 listings that are vacant that they need to get folks through there.

Sign Up To InstaShow

That’s interesting. As we wrap up here, I know you plugged the site once. Do you want to plug the site one more time for the folks who didn’t catch it yet?

Absolutely. If you’re looking to automate your whole showing platform, you’re looking at your leads back, you’re looking for safety so you’re not meeting complete strangers at a vacant property, and you want to be able to expand your territory so you can buy, lease, or manage a property that’s 45 minutes away or further, go to InstaShowPlus.com and sign up for free. Download the app, play with it, and become our customer.

Why Giving A Benefit Of Doubt Is A Game-Changer

This is the final question I ask all guests who come on the show. What is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

Honestly, giving me the benefit of the doubt, whether it be on a loan or a deal. It changed my path. I can be a little hard-nosed on things. If you think about it, open touring and all these things that we talked about are game-changing. It’s hard to wrap your mind around it and give up a little bit of control to get more efficiency. That doubt has turned into an industry where folks are competing with me as opposed to vice versa. The kindest thing somebody has given me is that benefit because it has made me a better entrepreneur and somebody who can give more to this world because of it.

I appreciate you coming on the show. I have a couple of pages of notes here. This is a very interesting product, and you have cool things you’re doing there.

Thank you. I super appreciate you having me on.

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About Al Romero

Al Romero is a seasoned real estate agent and broker with over 25 years of experience, who also leveraged his background in tech to found Instashow Plus. Driven by the challenges of property showings during the COVID-19 pandemic, he developed Instashow Plus as a secure and automated platform for managing property access and viewings.