What Buying a Home Taught Me About Online Reviews

I had just got home from work. The traffic wasn’t too bad but the air conditioning in my car didn’t seem to help fight off the 100 degree heatwave. During that long, sweaty drive I imagined melting into my couch with an icy lemonade and letting my air conditioned house bring me back to reality. I had waited, no, dreamed of this moment since 4pm, when my shift ended. Pulling my car into the drive way, I nearly forgot to put it in park before bolting into my house. I opened the door, eager for the chilly embrace of finally being home. Unfortunately, that was not the case. While I was away my HVAC unit had given up the ghost and my once chilly oasis had turned into a hot and sweaty green house.

This is the moment when I realized that being a home owner isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes its coming home from work to more work, even when you’re sweaty and tired and honestly a little grumpy. I did what most people do in this situation, opened up a beer (ok lemonade wasn’t what I was dreaming of) and started combing through online reviews of HVAC system repair companies.

About five companies in I realized that these reviews told me absolutely nothing about whether the repair man would do a good job or if he had any qualifications outside of what was posted on their website. I saw a lot of negative reviews like, “Had an appointment at 8am this morning. I called around 7:30am to confirm and waited for the service tech to show up. He never did.” Or “Guy charged me $200 to look at the system and just tell me, “yep, it’s broken!” All of these online reviews made it seem like no matter who I chose, I was going to choose the wrong person. I was going to get screwed over no matter if I chose the highest reviewed company or the lowest.

So, what did having my A/C break and me combing through reviews on Yelp, Home Advisor, and Google teach me? That I could read all the online reviews I wanted to and still not be able to make an informed decision about hiring a contractor.

Around 90 percent of people read online reviews before hiring a company. The problem here is that online reviews highlight the negative and don’t show the positive. If someone doesn’t do a good job working on your house, of course you’re going to tear them up on Yelp. On the flip side, if someone comes to your house, does the job well, and everything goes as planned you’re probably going to forget to give them a 5 star rating.

Another issue is the growing problem with fake reviews. It’s hard for the average person to read a long list of reviews and be able to tell which ones are true and which ones are fake.

How do we fix the problem of fake reviews and untrustworthy contractors? Ideally, there would be a platform where reviews can’t be changed or manipulated. Contractors would also have a public record of jobs and customers would have some recourse if the contractors didn’t deliver on their promises.

There are companies that say they are fixing this problem. Companies like Handy and Thumbtack boast of their ability to make hiring a contractor easy but what incentive do they have to make sure the contractor does a good job? How do they determine which contractors to hire and if they’re trustworthy? I still don’t think they have hit the nail on the head.

Fortunately, companies like Dashing are trying to tackle all the problems that home owners face. They’re working to bring the home services industry into the modern day world through blockchain technology and a simple, trustworthy platform. Reviews on the Dashing platform are unchangeable, untamperable, and recorded for every transaction. Even better, their app is aimed a being more so like a personal assistant who you don’t have to feel bad about texting at 2am to find someone to fix your water heater.  When I was sitting in my sweltering house combing through reviews, I wish I would have been able to send a message to someone and trust that things would be taken care of. There is nothing better than kicking back with a beer and knowing things will be taken care of, even if it is in a 100 degree house with a broken A/C unit.

— Dashing is currently looking for investors for it’s SEC regulated offering on StartEngine, learn more here: https://www.startengine.com/dashing

**Social Media**Website: DashingWhitepaper

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