Q and A with Rick Haws, president of Salefish Software

By Wayne Karl
June 08, 2018

Not all prospective new-home buyers love every step of the process. For anyone who’s ever stood in line at a grand opening or waited patiently for their turn to select a unit, floorplan or lot, you know there’s a huge time commitment.

Some of that may be changing, however, thanks to technology and software that expedites the process. One such example is Salefish.

NextHome: What exactly is Salefish?

Rick Haws: Salefish is a point-of-sale (POS) Sales POS and a Homebuyer POS solution that facilitates, streamlines and empowers the sale of new homes and condos. We provide real-time pricing and availability, streamline by automating processes and by integrating data from the beginning of the process to the end, and empower purchasers and sales people with timely accurate information and innovative transactional solutions.

NH: How does it differ from other technologies available?

RH: Salefish is unique in the real estate industry because of our range of clients and the scope of our software. We work with many builders, developers and sales agencies, which is not typical with other similar systems that are proprietary. The scope of our software ranges from marketing and interactive integrations, to our Sales POS that sales people use, to our Homebuyer POS which allows purchasers to buy online, to our integrations with construction management software systems. Our software manages all the data in real time to an unlimited number of users. We have years of experience working through the nuances of many types of projects and clients, and the list of features that has resulted and that continues to grow distinguishes our technology.

NH: What are the benefits to builders and developers?

RH: The main benefit is access to data and the ability to manage it in real time. Our clients can log in anywhere and anytime and get information on what is sold, available and detailed project, sales and purchaser reports. They can also hold or release suites and lots and modify pricing, and all changes come into effect instantly.

NextHome: And the benefits to homebuyers?

RH: The main benefit is the customer experience in terms of efficiency and in the case of the Homebuyer POS, convenience. Traditionally, there is a bottleneck in sales office environments, and the sale process slows because manually determining availability is difficult, especially in lowrise where municipal requirements compound and become complicated. The software manages availability and therefore a sales agent and homebuyer know instantly what is available to them so they can move forward. Also, the automation of capturing customer data, signatures and initials and the automation of the sales documents reduces the sales time significantly. We have executed sales documents within four minutes. With respect to the Homebuyer POS, the ultimate customer experience is when a purchaser can buy online and then come in to meet with the sales representative and sign the deal.

NextHome: How user-friendly is it?

RH: The Sales POS is designed as a transactional tool. It is logical and intuitive for sales people who are used to selling new homes and condos. It is easy to use and very efficient since we leverage all the suite, model and lot information and current options and pricing. Customer data required is captured by scanning the purchaser(s) IDs, which ensures accuracy and consistency and all the sales documents are created automatically, which makes it very user-friendly.

The Homebuyer POS is image-based and is designed as more of an interactive type of application that allows the purchaser to filter based on what is most important to them. The software leads them through the subsequent steps until they find the suite, model or lot that best suits them. The transactional component utilizes PayPal, which is a well-known and respected financial gateway.

NextHome: What’s the best example of a success story with a Canadian new home project?

RH: There have been different kinds of success.

From an execution perspective, we have been able to facilitate the sale of 200 suites in three days using our Sales POS. This was a success from the perspective of builder, sales agency and purchaser. Our Homebuyer POS has enabled the sale of new homes and condos outside the sales office environment. Feedback from purchasers who have used this aspect of our software has been outstanding.

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About Wayne Karl

Wayne Karl is an award-winning writer and editor with experience in real estate and business. Wayne explores the basics – such as economic fundamentals – you need to examine when buying property. wayne.karl@nexthome.ca

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