Why You (and Your Clients) Should be Obsessed with Homesnap

Homesnap has always been built specifically for agents and brokers, and that’s why we proudly provide it as one of our subscription benefits.

You’ll always find new tools that help agents and brokers work more efficiently and effectively. And you won’t find advertisements from other agents on your listings or an iBuyer program that competes with you for business.

But one of the most impressive things about Homesnap is how it can transform the way you work with your clients. Homesnap’s industry-leading client collaboration tools empower you to work better with clients while creating a safe haven so you can protect your client relationships.

Below, we break down these tools to help you understand why so many agents and their clients are obsessed with the Homesnap app.

Homesnap Is Better For Your Clients

Is there anything worse than hearing your clients have fallen in love with a home, and then having to tell them the property has been off the market for a week? You don’t need to worry about outdated listings inside Homesnap.

That’s because Homesnap doesn’t run off public record data, which could be weeks old before it gets refreshed. Our real-time data feed directly powers Homesnap so your clients can browse homes that are actually on the market. They see the same listings that you’d see if you logged into our portal (or Homesnap Pro!).

This direct integration with our data feed powers both Homesnap (for your clients) and Homesnap Pro (for you). It completely transforms their home search experience, so they don’t see all the outdated information that is prevalent in other third-party search portals.

You can still save searches for your clients and keep track of the latest market updates that way, but since your clients have the freedom to browse accurate listing details on their own, you can also empower them to take their home search into their own hands.

After your clients connect with you inside of Homesnap (more later on exactly how to do this), you’ll be alerted immediately whenever they snap or favorite a listing. You can instantly pull up confidential listing data and browse associated listing docs to get the full picture of the property before you discuss it with your clients.

You can also access your clients’ full list of favorites and snaps inside your Homesnap Pro account, so you can review the properties they’re interested in at any time on your phone, tablet, or desktop.

Another feature that agents and consumers love to use is Homesnap’s in-app messaging, which allows you to share new listings and have a conversation with your clients in a single message thread instead of fragmenting your communication through texts and emails.

Plus, any conversations you have about a particular listing will also appear under “Related Conversations” on the actual property listing for easy reference in the future (only you and your clients will see these comments).

Better For You

Homesnap Pro is the one place where you can centralize all your digital communication and access the most up-to-date listing data — but it also protects your client relationships and is free of third-party advertisements.

When your connected clients browse listings, the only agent they will see inside the app is you. Homesnap directs all their questions and comments to you as well.

Homesnap proudly follows Fair Display Guidelines, meaning search results aren’t given preferential ranking, listings are free of third-party agent advertising, and leads are sent to the listing agent for free. Their motto is (and always has been) “your listing, your lead.”

Best of all: Every feature of Homesnap Pro and Homesnap that we mentioned is FREE to both you and your clients as a subscription benefit.

How to Bring Your Clients Into Homesnap

We’ve made the process of bringing your clients into Homesnap really simple. To make a new client connection, just send out an invitation through the app. Once your clients accept it, they will be connected to you. You’ll enjoy one-to-one branding inside Homesnap and have the ability to start using the client collaboration tools we mentioned above.

You’re only two taps away from inviting clients on your desktop computer or mobile device. Here’s exactly how to do it:

ON A DESKTOP COMPUTER:

1. When you’re logged into your Homesnap Pro account, go to the Pro Agents tab and select Invite Clients.

2. A pop-up will allow you to invite clients by typing in their email address or by sharing your profile link. When you post your link to social media, anyone can connect with you through your public-facing Homesnap profile, just like on Facebook or LinkedIn.

ON A MOBILE DEVICE:

1. When you’re logged into your Homesnap Pro account, go to the Pro Agents tab and tap Manage Clients & Contacts.

2. To send a new invitation, select the headshot silhouette that has a “+” next to it. Then, you’ll see options to invite clients by typing in their email address or phone number, select people from your contact book, or share your profile link to social media (just like Facebook or LinkedIn, anyone can connect with you through your public-facing Homesnap profile).

Voila! Follow up with your clients to make sure they saw the invite and accepted it, and you’re ready to take advantage of the incredible client collaboration tools in Homesnap.

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Benton County Rural Water Supply Program

The Benton County Rural Water Supply Program went into effect on February 1, 2020. This program was established to provide mitigation for any new residential use within the Mitigation Area.

Background
The Department of Ecology has determined that the Lower Yakima watershed is over appropriated and has required Counties within the watershed to mitigate for groundwater wells being placed within the Lower Yakima watershed. Kittitas and Yakima County have already established water programs to mitigate and meter residential wells in the unincorporated areas of their counties.

In 2017, the Department of Ecology notified Benton County that the County’s rural water supply is at risk of impairment to senior water right holders and encouraged the County to take steps to develop a rural water supply program similar to those developed by Kittitas County and Yakima County. Recent studies conducted by State and Federal agencies have shown that groundwater wells in the Lower Yakima Watershed are in direct hydraulic continuity with the Yakima River.

In 2018, FutureWise appealed the County’s 2017 update to the Comprehensive Plan on the basis of a lack of water availability. As a result of the appeal, the County and FutureWise entered into a settlement agreement and the County agreed to develop a water supply program in order to mitigate for impacts on the Yakima River from residential exempt wells that have hydraulic continuity with the Yakima River.

The Benton County Rural Water Supply Program was established to provide mitigation for any new residential use within the Mitigation Area (a portion of the Lower Yakima Watershed known as WRIA 37, as shown on the official Benton County Mitigation Area Map – attached) in the form of acquiring senior water rights in order to offset groundwater use and managing the metering of wells.

To date the County has acquired 125 acre-feet of senior water rights and is in the process of acquiring additional water rights for the Benton County Water Bank.

About the Rural Water Supply Program
The Benton County Rural Water Supply Program went into effect on February 1, 2020. Customers wishing to apply for a new subdivision, short plat, or residential building permit for a dwelling unit within the Mitigation Area will be required to participate in the Program.

The Benton County Water Bank will have three (3) packages available for water mitigation:

  1. PACKAGE A: Available only to those parcels with access to outdoor irrigation. Package A allows an average of two hundred (200) gallons of water use per day for indoor domestic use only.
  2. PACKAGE B: Parcels without access to irrigation water may choose Package B which allows an average of three hundred (300) gallons of water use per day for indoor domestic use and outdoor irrigation of an area up to 1500 square feet.
  3. PACKAGE C: Parcels without access to irrigation water may choose Package C which allows an average of four hundred (400) gallons of water use per day for indoor domestic use and outdoor irrigation of an area up to 3000 square feet.

Customers who are required to purchase mitigation certificates as part of a subdivision/short plat application will be required to purchase a mitigation certificate for each proposed lot of the subdivision/short plat before the plat will be approved.

Customers who are required to purchase a mitigation certificate as a condition of a building permit shall be required to purchase a mitigation certificate and a meter for their residential well. They will also be required to agree to participate in the metering component of the Water Supply Program which will include monitoring of water use.

For more information about the Benton County Rural Water Supply Program, please contact Michelle Cooke, Senior Planner, Benton County Planning Department at 509-786-5612 or email [email protected].

Documents and More Information
Rural Water Supply Program Map
Rural Water Supply Packet for New Construction
Rural Water Supply Packet for Subdivision/Shortplats

About Benton County
Benton County is located in south-central Washington. The county seat is located in Prosser, and its largest city is Kennewick. Benton County was created on March 8, 1905 and was named after U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Benton County operates under the plural executive form of government with three commissioners and seven other elected officials. Benton County has offices located in Prosser, Kennewick and Richland. For more information, please visit our website.

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A More Secure and Accessible Onboarding Process

 

There’s never been a better time for human resources departments to go digital. Implementing technology to automate employee processes, from recruiting to learning and development, enables HR leaders to spend less time on manual processes and more time thinking strategically about the future of their organization. 

But HR transformation is still a work in progress, especially when it comes to onboarding. Outdated systems and software negatively impact the new hire experience, resulting in unnecessary delays and endless rounds of paperwork. In fact, Glassdoor reports that only 12% of workers are fully satisfied with the employer’s onboarding process. The main culprit? The dreaded I-9 form, which requires HR staff to copy a new hire’s ID, file and store it securely, and then return it to the employee. This process can take hours, if not days, to complete. 

But I-9 forms exist for a reason. They ensure employees are who they say they are and, by law, are eligible to work in the U.S. 

Still, that doesn’t mean completing them should be a hassle. Digitizing the process can help HR departments comply with necessary hiring regulations while prioritizing the employee experience. 

A Platform That Puts Security First 

From their social security numbers to banking information, employees provide sensitive data to an employer when they begin a new job. It’s HR’s responsibility to make sure this information is stored and protected. As a result, many organizations are reluctant to go digital because they are afraid data might be compromised due to growing cybersecurity threats. These anxieties are not unreasonable—Cisco reported that 53% of mid-market companies have experienced a security breach. 

However, a secure ID verification platform like DocSign Identify can alleviate these concerns by offering a diverse range of authentication methods to verify and store a new employee’s information. HR departments can leverage this technology to scan a new hire’s government-issued ID and cross-check the name on the email they provided to the name on their ID, maintaining compliance through security verification protocols. (Of the list of documents I-9 requires, the ID Verification product currently supports passports and driver’s licenses.) DocuSign even goes so far as analyzing specific ID features, including security markings and watermarks, to ensure its validity. 

A Trusted Storage Option 

Once an employee’s identification is confirmed, many HR departments prefer to save a copy of the ID so they can access it at a later date. In a recent DocuSign survey, 74% of respondents who said their company has a need to verify the validity of ID documents also stated the need to store these documents. With ID Verification and its newest feature, ID Evidence, all sensitive employee I-9 information, including photos, can be stored safely and securely in the cloud. That means HR managers can find it all in one place, as opposed to relying on haphazard filing systems.

DocuSign integrates with more than 350 systems, including Greenhouse, SAP, Workday and Oracle, allowing HR to streamline and store employee documents in their existing HR systems —and making it easy for organizations already using the DocuSign Agreement Cloud to implement. 

By making these small changes, organizations can move beyond manual tasks and introduce a secure and manageable approach to onboarding, resulting in more strategic HR teams—and happier employees. 

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