Porch to Offer Renovation History of Houses for Sale

• March 25, 2014

by Lark Turner

Looking to find the contractor who can make your floors look like this?

A website that allows contractors to upload photos and share details of their home renovation projects is collaborating with Realtor.com to bring those photos and details to for-sale listings on the site. More importantly, the new system will also pull city permit data, allowing prospective buyers to see what kind of work may have been done in the past to a home they are interested in buying — and when.

The new offering from Porch.com could connect homeowners with previous home contractors, allow them to check out what their home looked like pre-renovation and get access to details about what permits the contractors obtained. For now, though, the product is still being rolled out, and we couldn’t track down a DC listing that contained a Porch home report. Lauren Kellas, a spokeswoman for the company, said Porch expects reports for all listings to be made available over the next two weeks.

An example of a home report.

On listings where enough data are available to display, home renovation information will pop up under Realtor.com’s Overview tab.

Porch, a Seattle-based company, currently only allows professionals in the industry to upload photos and details on renovations. But in the future, the company is hoping to extend upload power to homeowners, Kellas said.

If the project’s successful, it could become a valuable tool for prospective homeowners and new buyers wanting to contact professionals about previous (and potentially future) projects. It’s especially useful that permit data will be offered regardless of whether or not a contractor has decided to use Porch. If enough professionals use the site, the reports can also show how much other renovations in the neighborhood cost as well as highlight the most commonly used professionals. That data would be useful to every homeowner.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/renovation_site_teams_up_with_realtor.com_to_offer_project_histories/8275