How Real Estate Agents Can Win More Listings With a Better Seller Experience

Cody Bartkoski (00:00)
Yeah, so that’s been the most exciting part. You know, when we when we had the idea to build Home Handoff, we knew it would be something that we would like, but we were we didn’t know how it would be, you know, if it would be universally accepted or if if it was something that other people were having the pain point. So we launched a a market survey and we went out and surveyed buyers and sellers and said, you know, would this be something that you would see value in? And the results were blew us away.

You know, that that was when we’re like, okay, we have to do this. You know, it came back and said that 89% of sellers said that not only would they see value in it, but it would actually influence their decision on which agent they picked.

Scott Bursey (02:11)
Welcome back to the *Real Estate Pros* podcast, powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today we have Cody Bartkoski of Home Handoff in the Studio. Cody has completely redefined the seller experience, focusing on eliminating the friction that usually plagues the home selling process, making him a true expert in operational efficiency for residential real estate. Cody, welcome to the show.

Cody Bartkoski (02:37)
Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Scott Bursey (02:41)
It’s awesome to have you here. And could you kick things off by telling our pros a bit about who you are and what gets you fired up in the morning?

Cody Bartkoski (02:50)
Absolutely. So you know, a little bit about me. I am not traditionally, you know, in the kind of the real estate realm. I have my my background is actually completely outside the real estate industry. It’s you know, I’m actually by schooling, I’m a mining engineer, spent my whole early career in the mining industry, working as an engineer, working my way up in operations, ended up as a mining CEO.

for two different mining operations for two different mining companies along the way got into real estate investing and you know since twenty nineteen have started buying single family properties, building up our portfolio. and then along the way, you know, I’ve had the unique lived experience of moving a lot of times in the mining industry, just kind of the nature of the beast. we’ve moved a lot over the course of my career. My dad was in the mining industry.

I’ve moved over 15 times. so had a lot of different frustrations through the process. And my wife and I, after after our last you know, few moves, we’ve had great real estate agents, but we’ve always had some frustrations with the process. And every time we’re like pulling our hair out, why does it have to be this way? Why does it have to be this way? Why does have to be so hard in a few of these areas? And you know, we had this kind of harebrained idea. My wife was like, why don’t we do something about it? It’s like

Well, that’s somebody else, that’s somebody else’s problem. You know, someone else is smart enough to to do that. But when we started looking out there, like there’s nothing out there that addresses the home transition. Everything’s built for the transaction, everything’s built for the agents, but there’s nothing that helps the buyers and the sellers transition the home, you know, to streamline that process. And we started, you know, asking around, like, okay, hey.

It seems like it resonates with us. Would it resonate with others? And then like we launched a a market survey and the feedback was phenomenal. I was like, okay, now we have to do this. This seems way too big of an opportunity. We think we might have landed on, you know, a kind of the golden goose here. You know, so we stepped out of the last mining mining position, have refocused our career. And thankfully from our real estate investments, kind of the cash flow from that on a monthly basis has led us to

have the stability to take this harebrained idea, take the career in a totally left field and really pursue a passion that, you know, is really exciting because we see it as a way to add value to everyone in a home transition, you know, and attached to a home transaction. It’s truly adding value. It’s helping people, you know, at their most you know, frustrating, most stressful time in their life. And the opportunity is huge.

And that’s that’s we’re excited about it.

Scott Bursey (06:27)
And you should be. I love that origin story. It’s clear you’ve really found your rhythm in the industry. You know, Cody, what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to simplify the complexity of real estate transactions through Home Handoff turning what is often a painful process into a seamless experience for homeowners. That’s just not easy.

Cody Bartkoski (06:51)
No, no, no, it’s not easy. And again, it’s we found that real estate has really mastered the transaction, you know, the transaction schedule, you know, automatic schedulers, you know, inspections, closing dates. But the transition for that seller, passing on home knowledge, you know, simple things like smart app information or you know, how the irrigation system works, that’s never been captured. So

Either buyers walk into sticky notes around the house or they walk into nothing. And that that call ends up being calls after closing. Hey, can you ask your seller? Hey, can you ask your seller? Hey, who who did they say serviced the HVAC? It’s like once a seller moves out, they never really want to revisit that home again. That it’s kind of an emotional chapter in their life. They don’t want to be bothered by the sellers. They’re they’re walking away, they’re handing over the keys, and they’re saying,

I I I hope everything goes well for them. And what we’ve found is sellers want to hand off their home well. They want to hand off the home thoughtfully, but there’s no, there’s never been a way to do it. So, you know, that’s really the that’s was the origin idea was when we were selling our last home, I was like, I told my wife, I said, I really just want to like take the buyers out to dinner, tell them everything I know about the house one time and

Let them move in and enjoy the house as much as we did. And that was when she was like, Well, let’s do something about it. Let’s build it. You know, and then as we started to build it, we started to engage with agents, you know, hearing their pain points, you know, hearing that they have you know a a lot of friction and annoyance after closing with mail and packages slipping through the cracks. So we’re like, Okay, well, let’s build that into the platform. And then, you know, even the marketplace, some some agents have been burned on trying to

sell sell house furniture along with the home, you know, back and forth on answering questions on what’s the measurements of the couch? What are the hours on the lawn mower? And you know, strings of text messages that just seem like friction points. Buyers and sellers, they don’t want to have to go through their agents for some of this stuff. Agents, again, are great service minded you know, people, but buyers and sellers want a more streamlined way. So it

And and ultimately the agents don’t want to have to play middleman for for this stuff. Agents don’t want to have to be a couch salesman. They want to be the expert in the market in you know for house sales and and to walk the seller through selling their house. They’re not there to sell their personal property and they’re not there to be post postmen after closing. So it’s like all these friction points for everyone involved. Let’s let’s just streamline this whole thing. And that’s what Home Handoff was built for. It’s

You know, it’s it really is the first home transition platform and it’s totally elevating and changing the way people sell and and move out of their homes.

Scott Bursey (10:24)
That level of streamlining is exactly what the market is starving for right now. And Cody, curious to know, what do you view is the biggest strength of Home Handoff model right now compared to traditional listing approaches?

Cody Bartkoski (10:42)
Yeah. So what I would say is our our kind of our biggest advantage or or really the, you know, what compels people, you know, to want to use Home Handoff. It it is a win for everyone in the system. You know, it’s a win for the seller because they get to move out with closure. You know, they get a streamlined way to pass on their home knowledge or be able to negotiate back and forth on a piece of furniture. you know, we have a

transition checklist, which it’s dynamic with the information put in. It gives reminders on hey, did you cancel your utilities? Did you, you know, sign out of your ring app? You know, we see all the time that sellers will move out, forget to sign out of their security system, and buyers are calling the first week. Hey, I can’t log into my security system. They’re still logged in. They’re freaking out. It’s like if we can help the sellers move out with closure and buyers move in with clarity, everyone wins. So again, the biggest strength that we have is we’re filling a gap

That’s never been addressed before in a very thoughtful way, you know, from the seller and buyer perspective. and then we let the agents own the whole moment. You know, it’s it’s a branded experience, it’s a branded platform by the agent. It’s something the agents actually provide for their clients to elevate their service. And again, we’re we’re totally elevating what that home transition process looks like entirely now.

Scott Bursey (12:04)
How does that strength impact your client retention?

Cody Bartkoski (12:08)
Yeah, that so that’s the exciting part. That’s that’s really the opportunity is you know, once someone gets exposed to it, once an agent gets to use it and then gets the feedback from from their sellers and buyers, you know, they immediately are not only rolling it into their own services constantly, but then they’re taking it to their team and their brokerages and then they say, Hey, this is something unique, never seen anything like this. It’s adding value to my clients.

Something we should be looking at and rolling out at the brokerage level, which is what we’ve been doing now. We’ve we’ve rolled out a few different brokerages between Missouri and Tennessee as as we’re continuing to grow ourselves. You know, we are still an early stage growth company, recently, you know, adding and and and growing our footprint into Charlotte, North Carolina and Cincinnati and Indianapolis. but ultimately it’s it’s kind of the touch point or are where our growth comes from.

You know, what we’re we’re seeing is once a buyer’s attached to this, they’re revisiting this on average of five times after closing because you know that first month, and those are calls or questions that would be naturally having to go through the buyer’s agent, the listing agent to the seller. They’re able to answer that by just logging on the platform and answering it themselves. Again, it’s a branded experience. The agents don’t lose the touch points. They actually get, you know, they’re replacing negative touch points.

with a more positive experience. So, you know, that’s how we’re we’re seeing the value add, not only for the buyers and sellers, but the agents reduce their workload and headache by getting these phone calls, but they get to elevate their their experience for their clients all at the same time.

Scott Bursey (13:47)
Thank you for highlighting that, Cody. Building that kind of trust is invaluable. And if you could help us understand, what do you see as the weakness in the standard real estate transaction flow that most people just ignore?

Cody Bartkoski (14:04)
Yeah, I would say that kind of goes back to why we built Home Handoff in the first place. You know, the the transition for the buyers and sellers has been completely overlooked. Now I’m not saying, you know, every agent, you know, it they’re all personal, they all have built their brand and their process differently. But what we’ve seen is even the agents who who are addressing this in some manner, you know, it’s a Google Doc or it’s a little bit of information capture up front.

But it does not address the whole process. You know, it is it it’s capturing a little bit of information up front where we believe that the whole transition, you know, the ultimately what gives a seller headache and a buyer headache is is the whole moving process. You know, trying to remember all of the addresses that you have to change, you know, trying to remember, you know, to patch and paint or what stays with the house, or you know, I got I’ve got to sign out of my security.

safety or smart apps. You know, so that’s where our dynamic checklist came in. It was like, if we can help these sellers move out, not with static email checklists, with something that’s dynamic, that’s actual to the home that the agents can go in and update and say, okay, hey, you committed you know, during the inspection renegotiation, we committed to these three items, add them onto the checklist. And it’s it’s a dynamic living checklist that then pulls in each utility.

Did you cancel or transfer this specific electric? It’s if we could help those buyers and sellers, you know, again, move out and with with closure, that’s the part of the transition that we feel, you know, has been left behind and left up to the individual agents to handle through scattered texts and emails.

Scott Bursey (16:30)
What specific steps do you take to mitigate that gap?

Cody Bartkoski (16:36)
Yeah, so our whole platform is built, you know, to capture information up front. So you know, agents are now actually including this as part of their listing process. You know, the we have the digital home handbook that gets filled out, things with you know, smart apps, a again, day to day knowledge on how the HVAC works, on the how the pool works, on on the irrigation system, trash, what what time and day trash is. We capture the utilities up front.

Just the detailed home knowledge that that seller knows. You know, we’ve seen things passed on like HVAC filters that are behind a you know, a a hidden panel in the utility room. Things that are passed on that the buyers get visibility to, you know, throughout the process and don’t even have to ask the questions. You know, so that’s how we’re kind of addressing that is we capture the information up front, we provide it to the buyers, answer questions before they even get asked.

And then we have you know the additional features, which is the marketplace where they can buy and sell, you know, their personal items. And then on the post-closing side, the the mail and package in items left behind, they can coordinate that directly from buyer to seller. No contact information is ever ever shared. You know, contact information of the sellers is of utmost importance. So we we keep all the contact information private, but we really streamline those processes so they can be more self.

kind of self sustaining, in a more streamlined way.

Scott Bursey (18:10)
That’s super sharp. It’s interesting to consider the current market shift, I think, Cody. Where do you see the biggest opportunity for investors or agents to distinguish themselves using your methods?

Cody Bartkoski (18:24)
Yeah, so that’s been the most exciting part. You know, when we when we had the idea to build Home Handoff, we knew it would be something that we would like, but we were we didn’t know how it would be, you know, if it would be universally accepted or if if it was something that other people were having the pain point. So we launched a a market survey and we went out and surveyed buyers and sellers and said, you know, would this be something that you would see value in? And the results were blew us away.

You know, that that was when we’re like, okay, we have to do this. You know, it came back and said that 89% of sellers said that not only would they see value in it, but it would actually influence their decision on which agent they picked.

Because an agent has never been able to say, I also help you with your transition. I give you a a way to move out with closure so you don’t get post-closing phone calls. I give you a way, you know, to coordinate personal property sales.

If you want to sell the bar stools, if you want to sell the patio furniture to the buyer, I give you a streamlined way to do that. And I give you a dynamic checklist, you know, on helping you remember, you know, to to sign out of your utilities, to sign out of your smart apps, to patch and paint, to, you know, complete these different items in a way that’s never been done before. So it is a listing agent differentiator. And then beyond that, you know, once once we step beyond the agent.

It’s a home listing differentiator. Now what we do is because we capture the information up front, we have a we have a micro site that agents are providing as part of their MLS, as we have, you know, as part of the open house. We have a QR code that will take a prospective buyer right to the microsite and they can see how this house turns into a home. You know, they can see the details of the home beyond the MLS listing, the actual homeowner knowledge.

Again, not in a liability sense, you know, it’s it the whole platform is built very protected from from the liability side to make sure we’re not, you know, crossing the disclosure type information. It’s truly just the day-to-day knowledge, which is what really can set the home apart, you know, in the marketing side.

Scott Bursey (20:36)
I appreciate you breaking that down for our pros. We’re eager to get your take on this. What do you believe is the biggest threat to real estate professionals who aren’t adopting tech-forward

systems?

Cody Bartkoski (20:51)
Yeah, great question. I think that’s the big concern in the industry is you know, AI is going to leave people behind. AI is going to replace agents’ jobs. That I think is the biggest overarching concern. And I understand it. I think that there’s some validity to being left behind or the concern of being left behind. Personally, I don’t see agents being replaced at all. Ultimately, a lot for a lot of their clients, this is the largest.

Purchase decision, you know, buyer or seller will ever make in their entire life. Most people are not emotionally prepared to handle that and understand the details. You know, on average, I I think it’s someone buys or sells a home every 11 years. There’s no way that they’re gonna know all of the you know up to date processes and and requirements on going through that. So the real estate agents, I think, should be very secure in the fact that.

They are providing a very valuable service with knowledge that is not readily available to the average person. And they can be they can still be those experts, but the the it is definitely shifting. You know, the the tools that are coming out you know are very are quick changing. And that’s where, you know, staying involved with what’s up to date, what’s coming out, what’s what’s the new trend is very important, you know, for agents who are trying to.

you know, provide the best service, stay relevant, stay involved. that would be my, you know, kind of perspective on that.

Scott Bursey (22:26)
That’s great perspective. And how do you advise them to start modernizing their operations without getting overwhelmed?

Cody Bartkoski (22:38)
Yeah. Little bites at a time. You know, it it can feel very overwhelming thinking, you know, my gosh, AI is gonna take our jobs or AI, I’ve I’ve gotta learn a new system, I’ve gotta learn a new thing. I I think it’s important to understand what your brand is, what what your specific angle is, and then you know, search out tools that you can add to build to continue to bolster that. and not to just, you know.

Throw everything at the wall, then nothing’s gonna stick. You you really have to differentiate what your service is gonna be, how you wanna serve your clients, you know, and find the right tools and then perfect them, you know, because it there’s a lot of great tools out there for agents for the transaction, but if you don’t master it, if you don’t truly understand how to really integrate it and get the most out of it, then it’s really not even the best use of your time. It’s identifying a select few tools.

and getting the most out of them because a lot of them can provide a lot of value if you fully understand what they provide.

Scott Bursey (23:47)
Spot on.

With the market rapidly changing and things of that nature, how do you keep your team aligned, focused, and ready to to implement your strategies to be proactive?

Cody Bartkoski (24:01)
Yeah, that’s so we we strongly are client-focused. You know, we again we are not right now in our growth phase, we are not as impacted by the overall real estate market, you know, ups and downs and swings. It is on client success and client use and client feedback. And that is our whole our whole mission is to add value in the transition.

add value to the sellers, add value to the buyers, and add value to the agents. And allowing, you know, staying close to each of those individuals, constantly getting feedback, doing customer surveys, customer success, you know, interviews. So we can continually tweak and refine. Again, in in today’s day and age, it is it is faster and easier to develop software than ever before. And it’s kind of shame on us if we are not tapping into the clients

and continually getting their feedback to better our platform. How can we serve the the client better tomorrow than we were today?

Scott Bursey (25:07)
That focus on culture is exactly how you win in the long run. Great vision there. And Cody, what is the one piece of advice you’d give to someone trying to scale their real estate operations that you wish you knew when you started?

Cody Bartkoski (25:24)
Yeah, again, we are we’re we’re a tech company. And so my my perspective isn’t is gonna be a little bit more in that vein. but it is it’s getting it out there. You know, the the quicker that you can get engaged with your clients or or your customers, the better you can make your product. We have all we had all these hypotheses going into it. We we thought we knew who the who the primary users were gonna be, we thought we knew who the early adopters were gonna be.

But as soon as we started getting out in front of agents, all of our hypotheses were shot. You know, we we started getting surprised by, we didn’t even think that we didn’t even think about builders when we were building this. But as soon as we started connecting, it it it became very evident, you know, builders started coming to us saying, my gosh, we are handing off a paper binder right now at a at a closing, you know, to our buyers. And then we get pestered with questions long after closing.

This is a great way to provide a better service, you know, with the home we just built them, keep our clients more at arm’s distance and do it in a professional, elevated manner. You know, so it was really for us, it was like just getting out there, having the conversations, getting customer use, and then that starts to build the momentum on really what what the market was wanting and what the product needs to be in the long run.

Scott Bursey (26:48)
That is exactly the kind of insight our listeners need to hear. Thank you for that, Cody. And Cody, you’ve given our pros, our listeners, so much great wisdom today. Is there any additional words of advice that you can leave with our pros?

Cody Bartkoski (27:05)
The one thing I would say, which again is kind of our whole mission, which we’ve touched on kind of throughout here, is adding value. You know, to be honest, when we built this, I my wife and I had many conversations. We’re like, I don’t know who’s gonna pay for this. This, you know, I don’t know who’s, you know, how this is gonna work in the whole marketplace, but we know that this is gonna add value to the buyers and sellers, and it’s gonna add value to the agents who get to own the moment. And

Probably a terrible business plan. Probably don’t recommend using that business plan, but we were so focused on adding value to the transition and adding value to everyone involved. And that would be what I would say. If you can add value to somebody, if you can add that value to their business, add value to their portfolio, then they’re gonna win. And then that downstream effect will ultimately elevate, you know, your business as well.

Scott Bursey (28:00)
And Cody, my friend, you added a tremendous amount of value to our show here today. Thank you so much for being on the *Real Estate Pros* podcast. And if our listeners want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Cody Bartkoski (28:15)
We’re on all the social media channels. They can also find our platform at Home-Handoff.com and create your free account. Check out the the demo property. Always happy to connect with with agents. We we offer free 15-minute demos to get them introduced to the platform, answer any questions they have. Always happy to connect.

Scott Bursey (28:38)
Cody, thank you for joining us today.

Cody Bartkoski (28:42)
Thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott Bursey (28:45)
It’s been our sincere pleasure. And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with the lineup of elite guests just like Cody, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.