OfferForm hits target in goal to turn over offer creation to buyers: Tech Review

OfferForm was built in response to the often redundant and very tedious task of creating offers, a process made even worse in fast-paced markets.

Are you receiving Inman’s Agent Edge? Make sure you’re subscribed here for the latest on real estate technology from Inman’s expert Craig Rowe.

OfferForm is a web app for helping home buyers create and submit offers.

Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: Agents, homebuyers, brokers

Top selling points:

• Engaging UI/UX
• Flexible form creation
• Built-in buyer education and resources
• Highly transparent
• Offer summary page

Top concern:

As of now, OfferForm is a stand-alone digital forms product, which may have a hard time competing for attention with existing tech-stacks that contain similar products.

What you should know

OfferForm is a sharp, creative digital forms product focused on helping consumers complete offers on homes of interest. It’s not without agent involvement, however, as agents customize and save initial templates for their clients to use. It was developed to create transparency in the offer process and help agents generate more offers faster.

OfferForm was built in response to the often redundant and very tedious task of creating offers, a process made even worse in fast-paced markets.

The software helps agents feel confident handing over the offer completion process to their clients.

With a wide selection of language and design controls, contextual field displays, content customization, clause-specific educational descriptions, included video explainers and a modern, consumer-first interface, it becomes very hard for a buyer to not get it right.

Agents can categorize multiple offers through OfferForm’s card-view display summarizing each offer under an image of the listing. Buyer name, earnest money, offer price, offer status and estimated closing date are all available at a glance.

The meat of the product is in its offer-building experience. Yes, it’ll take some time for agents to assemble a template library, but the software does come stocked with off-the-shelf versions. It may also take some time for agents to be familiar enough with the process to start confidently sending links to buyer clients, but it shouldn’t take long. When ready, secure form-submission URLs can be sent via text or email.

Forms can be built paragraph-by-paragraph at first, saved for regular use then customized as needed. You can add and remove inspection and financing contingencies, add additional buyers or insert a list of fixtures you’d prefer included.

Everything is flexible within OfferForm, including the explainer videos that help buyers understand closing costs or what a gap clause is. Agents are free to record video of themselves explaining any hard-to-understand terms and legalities.

Loan types are explained, estimated monthly payments displayed in a clear breakdown, and pre-approval letters and proof of funds documentation can be easily uploaded.

It can link to title companies, explains loan types and, if it’s a cash offer, OfferForm will ask for the source. Seller closing costs are discussed and options are provided regarding who’s paying them.

In short, if it needs to be in an offer, the software can do it. If a buyer has a question, one of the links, descriptions or videos can answer it.

Once everything is ready to be submitted, OfferForm deploys a complete summary page of all terms and conditions. If anything stands out as incorrect or needing to be changed, it can be quickly edited from the summary and updated throughout the system.

The detailed cover page can serve as a serious overture to sellers, much more than an email of intent or voicemail.

The company is considering integration options with popular digital document providers such as DocuSign and Skyslope to enhance final output flexibility, including auto-population of official state forms. As of now, agents manually translate form data into state forms. I’d love to see the circle closed by making this automatic.

OfferForm was co-founded by Cody Tuma, a Bend, OR agent with 541 home sales. The pace of the recent market found him frustrated with how often he was working with buyers on something that most of them could handle with a little coaching, especially those buyers who have gone through the process a few times.

Additionally, I see value in letting consumers have more control over the common tasks within the transaction. This can actually help agents promote their value because it’s not found in typing numbers into empty form fields. Delegate.

Tuma’s software remains a few weeks from full deployment (they’re targeting an end of Q1 release) but upon its official launch, should become a valuable bit of kit for any agent who sees value in automating business processes in the same way Compass did when it acquired Glide.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.