Howard Hanna Real Estate Services Partners with Earnnest to Offer Agents Fully Digital Earnest Money Payments

Earnnest, the largest digital earnest money service in the U.S., has partnered with Howard Hanna Real Estate Services to offer 100% digital earnest money payments to all sales associates at the brokerage network. Howard Hanna is the No. 1 family-owned and -operated independent broker in the U.S.A.

"We're excited to partner with such a well-respected brand in the industry," said Rick Altizer, Earnnest CEO. "Aligning with Howard Hanna means we've just brought the power of fully digital earnest money payments to 11,000 more agents who can now offer that immense benefit to their clients."

Earnnest is always free to use for agents, brokerages, escrow holders, and title attorneys with a flat $15 fee charged to buyers. The platform, which requires no physical checks or wires, utilizes banking-level security and connects to every bank nationwide. Additional free features available to agent users include: fund verification to decrease the likelihood of bounced checks; an easy, Venmo-for-real-estate-like experience for users; a secure system that never stores clients' sensitive, personal information; and full staff support for users by chat, phone and email.

"This union brings a trusted and powerful real estate payments tool to our agents," said Howard W. "Hoby" Hanna, IV, President of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services. "With Earnnest as a digital benefit for our clients, we'll be able to offer a more streamlined, secure and compliant digital earnest money service. This is just one of many virtual offerings that we've added to our technology stack, as part of our initiative to simplify the real estate transaction for both our agents and our customers."

Howard Hanna has more than 350 real estate, mortgage, insurance, title and escrow service offices across 11 states. The brokerage network's sales volume across its multiple regions totaled over $24 billion in 2019, as well as more than 109,000 houses sold, according to a research report produced by REAL Trends in March 2020.

Earnnest has quickly solidified its status as the standard for digital earnest money in real estate. The brand is a member of the 2020 REACH class, an accelerator operated by Second Century Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the National Association of REALTORS (NAR). The company is also gaining industry momentum as a RISMedia preferred service provider and Nacha affiliate member (the organization responsible for U.S. payments governance) and has been endorsed in an editorial by the NAR's Realtor Magazine. It is directly available within dotloop and Lone Wolf Transactions.

"Through this partnership, we're bringing together leading real estate professionals with leading technology," said Earnnest VP of Sales Chris Basinger. "We're empowering all Howard Hanna agents with an easy yet robust tool to enhance their services and get more business done."