What Is AQwire?

AQwire is developing a platform for real estate agents and property developers to list their available properties on a blockchain, which can make it easier to publish these listings all across the internet. Aside from its use of the nascent blockchain technology, it is a relatively straightforward proprietary service with no significant innovations, but no obvious flaws either.

The Team Behind AQwire

AQwire is a product of the real estate company Qwikwire. The team consists of six developers, and is supported by five advisors. The company is based in San Jose, California, and half of the team attended UC San Jose.

AQwire has attracted funding from a variety of investors, many of them international. However, the venture has not yet gained much coverage from online publications. AQwire itself has not made an impression on social media, but its parent company, Qwikwire, has nearly 7,000 Facebook followers.

AQwire Blockchain Real Estate Listing Platform Technology

AQwire allows realtors (or anyone else selling real estate) to add their properties to a blockchain, which is then used to distribute these entries to listing sites all over the internet. New listings, photos, and changes in price or available will be immediately updated. This allows sellers to easily publicize their listings, without the need to register with and maintain every site individually. This is especially useful for realtors interested in listing many properties at once.

While blockchains are inherently secure, stable, and scalable, it's not clear how the technology could offer such a service any significant advantages over a more traditional server. Real estate listings are not particularly sensitive data, and there's no need to store them in an immutable record. However, the architecture of a blockchain offers no disadvantages either; AQwire's use of a blockchain is a testament to the data structure's increasing popularity.

Through its parent company, AQwire also offers custom software development for real estate agents, though it only mentions this in passing on its “Price Table” page; customers interested in uniquely designed software should contact the company for more information.

AQwire Service Details

The company offers different tiers of pricing depending on the type of property being listed, the amount of sites the listing is distributed to, and the duration of the post's publication. Commercial properties cost between $300 and $500 to list, while residential ones cost $200 to $400, and rentals cost $100 to $200. Additional days of posting cost between $7 and $28 for residential listings, and $14 and $35 for commercial, and publishing posts on an additional five websites costs $250 for residential and $500 for commercial. Customers who fail to pay on time will be charged an additional 3% for each month of delinquency.

The company also offers advertising campaigns to promote listings in print or on the internet. Print promotion costs $400, while a social media campaign costs $600, and a search engine optimization campaign will cost $750. The company doesn't offer any details about what these campaigns entail.

Clients who publish many listings are entitled to significant discounts. The company claims that customers who purchase large amounts of listings will be granted a 10 to 40% discount, depending on the volume of their purchases and their purchase history.

The company states that its custom software projects have typically cost users between $2,000 and $20,000, usually paid in installments. It presents no examples of its previous work, but these would likely be available upon request.

AQwire Verdict

AQwire seems like a powerful service that could be of great use to real estate brokers, especially those with lots of listings and not enough time on their hands to maintain many different websites. The company's website is lacking information about a few aspects of its services, but they encourage visitors to contact them with questions.

Ultimately, AQwire is like any other product or service: consumers should always take at least a few moments to survey the market and make sure there aren't superior competitors, carefully read all terms and conditions, and ask questions until they thoroughly understand what they're buying.