A strategic partnership with mega e-commerce seller Amazon has pushed shares of real estate company Realogy Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: RLGY) up 25% pre-market this morning.
Today, the company announced a new collaborative project called TurnKey that’s aimed at enhancing the home buying process.
A press announcement describes the project this way:
“…a new homebuying program that should simplify the process of finding and settling into a new home.”
However, more detailed reporting on TurnKey shows that rather than being primarily oriented toward enhancing the deal-making process, it’s essentially going to be a sort of customer experience platform that helps new homeowners with the process of buying and maintaining a property.
Benjamin Romano at The Seattle Times notes that part of TurnKey’s build constitutes a “lead generation service” for participating realtors, and that customers will be able to select Amazon packages of products and services that fit their needs.
“When a homebuyer purchases a home through TurnKey, Realogy will provide a promotional code redeemable for one of three preselected bundles of Amazon products, and services such as house cleaning and furniture assembly, valued at $1,000 to $5,000 depending on the price of the property,” Romano writes. “The products and services were selected to meet the immediate needs of someone who has just moved in to a new house, said Realogy Senior Vice President Eric Chesin.”
Much of this deal-connected e-commerce is aimed at smart home automation devices such as Alexa and Echo, as well as doorbell cameras, wireless infrastructure and smart locks and lights. Those looking at the TurnKey provisions might also assume that new Amazon items like Vesta, the Alexa robot, will be added as they come online.
By pushing RLGY stock price up near seven dollars, the news on TurnKey is counteracting in extreme down cycle where the company has lost the enormous majority of its value since May.
Katherine Clarke and Laura Kusisto at the Wall Street Journal chronicled this descent before noting that TurnKey has the potential to accommodate some reversal.
Look at where RLGY stock goes in today’s training session and the rest of the week to see if TurnKey offers a lasting solution for this ailing equity.
