Web-based real estate service eHome is changing the rules by offering flat-fee home sale services. To build this innovative business, eHome needed to reduce processing time to increase the number of transactions per agent. The company chose to implement Microsoft Windows 2000, with its built-in virtual private networking (VPN) gateway, to provide field agents with immediate access to the corporate resources they need remotely, without incurring the cost of acquiring and integrating third-party products. By saving time and outside costs, this system enables eHome to maintain its competitive price while delivering fast, personalized service. In addition, the ease of deployment is helping eHome enter new markets quickly to expand its business nationwide.
Customer Profile
An e-commerce startup headquartered in Campbell, California, eHome offers online real estate services for home buyers and sellers.
To support its business model of having field agents handle all the details of home buying and selling transactions remotely, eHome needed to provide these agents with secure access to corporate network resources.
Real Estate E-Broker Builds Success on Virtual Private Networking in Windows 2000
Real estate is a time-sensitive business. Decisions need to be made quickly and multiple transactions must be managed carefully to close a sale promptly. Traditionally, this process requires dozens of hours and numerous exchanges of documents by fax, mail, and courier. Now, eHome, a California-based e-commerce real estate firm, is revolutionizing that process with a Microsoft Windows 2000-based system that enables field agents to manage the entire process of buying or selling a home remotely over the Internet through a secure virtual private network connection. The resulting efficiencies enable eHome to offer its service for a flat fee rather than a percentage of the sales price, giving the company a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
One of the major reasons eHome chose to base its service on the Windows 2000 operating system was the built-in VPN gateway services included with Windows 2000 Server and the native support for VPN in Windows 2000 Professional. “VPN support is built in and integrated with the security,” explains eHome Chief Technology Officer Patrick Husting. “That means we didn’t have to acquire, test, and configure a third-party product, which saves both software and administration costs.”
In addition to enabling eHome field sales staff and other employees to connect remotely, the VPN technology will enable eHome hub offices around the country to connect securely to its Technical Center in Bellevue, Washington to access critical customer information and other corporate resources such as electronic mail. Here again, the integrated security in Windows 2000 will eliminate the need for a separate security solution, which can help save costs.
Building the Business on VPN Connectivity
Ultimately eHome is creating a nationwide network of hub offices and field agents that need to connect to its Technical Center, which houses its VPN server, Web servers, and all corporate application servers. To provide that secure connection without the expense of a wide area network, the company uses two types of VPN connections: remote-access VPN to connect field agents, and site-to-site VPN connections to connect hub offices.
Field agents connect to eHome’s VPN server over the Internet using the native VPN support in Windows 2000 Professional. Desk agents in the hub offices connect to the VPN through the central server in each office. In both cases, these VPN capabilities provide secure access to corporate e-mail and other resources that enable them to manage the sale of a client’s home. And users gain this access without the expense of leased lines, hardware, software, integration, and maintenance required for a wide area network.
With its Web site and VPN setup, eHome is recreating on the Web the traditional process of selling a home. To list a home for sale, an eHome field agent visits the sellers, answers their questions, works with them on pricing, and gets the seller agreement signed. The agent then gathers all the specifics about the home and logs in remotely to the eHome VPN to enter that information, which then automatically uploads to the multiple listing service (MLS). Next, eHome sends out a visual content company to create a virtual tour of the home and posts that tour on the eHome site and all the local MLS sites, as well as on additional service listings such as Realtor.com and MSN™ HomeAdvisor™. This enables customers anywhere in the country to do a virtual walk-through of the home, which offers a significant advantage for homebuyers who are relocating.
Built-in VPN Services Save Administration Time and Software Costs
Because the VPN capabilities are an integral part of the Windows 2000 operating system and are integrated with the Active Directory™ service, eHome’s setup was relatively easy. “The VPN functionality doesn’t need to be installed and doesn’t really need to be configured,” explains eHome Network Engineer Eric Heimke. “Basically, you just select the VPN option, enter the IP address that it needs to connect to, and it’s running. Machines don’t have to be configured because it is integrated with Windows 2000.”
To add a user, the administrator simply goes into Active Directory and gives the user security permissions for VPN. For the initial implementation, eHome’s Information Technology (IT) staff walked each user through the three-minute process of entering the IP address and activating VPN from the client computer. For future rollouts to new hub sites, the IT staff will use Remote Installation Services to roll out Windows 2000 Professional with the VPN functionality already configured.
The integration of the Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) with Active Directory in Windows 2000 Server offers another significant reduction in administration time. “It’s amazing how well the Active Directory service, DNS, and DHCP all work together,” Heimke notes. “When we add a computer or a user to the network through the Active Directory service, all of the additional protocols on the network are automatically updated and ready to go. The time savings are amazing. It’s just a single stop at Active Directory to add the user and the computer, and everything else comes along.”
Virtual Operation Saves Time and Enables New Business Model
Creating a virtual office for field agents saves the cost of office space, travel, and a great deal of time in processing all the steps required to complete the sale of a home. Immediate remote access to the corporate network can help make field agents more productive. Houses are listed faster. And potential customers have access to those houses faster on the Web than through traditional channels. According to Husting, the efficiencies gained by handling most of the transactions—such as ordering title and escrow and home inspections—on the Web can cut the actual hours spent managing a transaction by more than 60 percent. “A traditional agent can spend anywhere from 50 to 100 hours on managing all the transactions required to sell a home,” Husting estimates. “Using our conservative model, we’re hitting between 17 and 19 hours per sale, and we think we’re going to reduce that further.”
This timesaving enables eHome to provide its service for a flat fee rather than a percentage of the sales price. “Yet, with all the avenues of communication provided by the Web, customers are getting superior service because they can find out at any time where their home sale or purchase stands,” Husting adds.
The eHome Web site gives its homebuyers access to new listings as soon as they appear on the multiple listing service. “Buyers can receive e-mail updates on homes that meet their specific search criteria as soon as they hit the MLS,” Husting notes. “This gives them about a two-week head start compared to the traditional channels of getting access to those listings.”
Integrated Security Eliminates Need for Third-Party Products
With the volume of confidential information involved in a home sales transaction, security is an important issue. For individual VPN users, eHome uses the point-to-point tunneling protocol (PPTP) included with Windows 2000 Server. The Windows 2000–based servers at eHome’s hub offices connect to the Technical Center using the Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), also included in Windows 2000 Server.
“There are some extra steps involved in using L2TP that we did not want to impose on individual users,” Heimke explains. “Since the individual VPN connections are one-way connections, PPTP provides the necessary security.”
Because the site-to-site connections potentially have more traffic, eHome is implementing L2TP to provide a higher level of security for those connections and to take advantage of L2TP’s integration with IP Security (IPSec) for true end-to-end security and data encryption. With L2TP, eHome’s site-to-site VPN connections are set up as trusted connections where a server at either end can establish the connection. As the number of hub sites grows, eHome administrators will use those trusted connections to connect to and manage the VPN servers at each of those sites.
Future Plans
By the middle of February 2000, eHome had hub offices in Northern California and Washington State, to be followed shortly by Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego, California. By the end of the second quarter 2000, eHome expects to have offices in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Texas, and in Miami and two other locations in Florida. All those hub sites will connect to the corporate network through the VPN connection and will be managed from the Bellevue-based IT department using the Terminal Services Remote Administration functionality in Windows 2000. The tight integration of the various services as well as the remote management capabilities in Windows 2000 are key to eHome’s strategy for success.
“Everything we need is already integrated with Windows 2000 so we don’t have to go out and shop for a third-party product, test it, and integrate it into the system,” says Heimke. “If we want to use remote management capabilities, we just use Terminal Services, which are already part of Windows 2000. The same thing goes for VPN and the security features. The amount of time saved with that ease of functionality is incredible.”
Software and Services
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Server, and Advanced Server
