Innovation is in our DNA at Inman — that’s why we’re excited about August’s Technology and Innovation Month. We’ll kick it off by celebrating the companies and individuals pushing the industry forward with an expanded slate of Inman Innovator Awards at Inman Connect Las Vegas. Then, we’ll continue to celebrate the brightest minds in real estate all month long.
Inman Innovator Award winners Inspectify and Courted have been in this column a lot the past couple of years, taking up word count because of their respective business models, each aiming to improve crucial trademarks of longstanding industry inefficiencies.
Inspectify aims to change the outsized impact post-contract home inspections have on closing, recently introducing an insurance option that could shrink the rate of canceled closings or unreasonable buyer credits. Courted is making brokerages much smarter about recruiting and retention, applying machine learning and intricately crafted data to hiring decisions. In their own way, each application is an asset to the industry.
This year brought me a few more companies that could fit the bill, which if adopted and dutifully integrated, can make the brokerages that use them more consumer-centric, expedient and operationally stable. And that’s good for everyone. So let’s have a look.
Sidekick
San Francisco-based Avenue 8 ceased operations as a brokerage to focus on scaling Sidekick, its artificial intelligence-based brokerage productivity solution.
For $25 per month, the AI allows users to request help with a number of common real estate business tasks using a minimal interface. As it goes, it learns each user’s preferences to ensure it responds to, say, a person’s specific location or workflow habits.
Sidekick can pull MLS data to generate market reports and use listing images to generate property descriptions, as well as execute client communications and marketing campaigns, retrieve mortgage product information and local sales data, and generally create what many agents would traditionally take hours to produce for a client or pitch meeting in moments.
Eden
Building a mobile app isn’t easy. It’s a longer, more expensive and more convoluted exercise than most realize; yet, the team at Eden got it done driven by the hope they can change how people search for homes and what they pay to find one. Using AI to better search wasn’t their idea, it’s been around, but their algorithm is to date the smartest and most intuitive I’ve seen.
Eden is not a discount brokerage but instead uses its AI to reduce the workload and add value for any agent working with buyers. According to the company, the app’s search capabilities are advanced enough — and its AI so quick-learning — to significantly alleviate the tour burden and hand-holding that has, for too long, challenged buyer agents. The buyer can be granted control of the search without the agent being left out the relationship.
MaverickRE
Last year, Ylopo showed me an AI voice mimicry system that can handle cold calling for its users. However, there’s a good chance that won’t be legal for long, so the company took that AI and taught it how to teach people. MaverickRE is technically a sister company of Ylopo, but it could be the Marcia Brady of Ylopo products.
Along with typical agent leaderboards and lead source analysis features, all of which can be partitioned by team or brokerage branch, MaverickRE’s other core value proposition is its AI-based sales training.
Users can select a sales scenario, such as pitching a “confused buyer” or a “disinterested seller,” start the AI player, and respond in real-time to the bot. Email performance reports are generated after each call and naturally, the AI will get more realistic over time. As of this writing, there are 60 scenarios included, spanning an array of sales challenges specific to divorce, a relocation, death on the property and the need for a 1031 Exchange.
Waltz
This application just merged from its stealth phase to provide a digital on-ramp for foreign real estate investors to buy property in the United States.
Waltz helps investors establish a U.S. banking presence and LLC, gain an EIN, transfer currencies and safely wire funds. Although the company will conduct direct marketing efforts to investors, it will work with real estate agents to educate them on its workflow efficiencies and demonstrate that the long-standing administrative hurdles for outside investors only need a sharp technology solution to be conquered.
This is a great vehicle for real estate agents who have friends overseas or property managers wanting to carve a new market. It wouldn’t take much to start spreading the reach of your marketing to places like Spain, Switzerland or Brazil.
Waltz deploys a very lightweight, mobile-inspired front-end that’s certainly had time to mature in its lengthy stealth period. I saw some future looks, and it’s only moving in the right direction.
StackWrap
StackWrap is productivity software that serves as a top layer to a brokerage’s tech stack, enabling better organization, access and understanding of a company’s most-used applications. The solution was built by Max Fitzgerald, who owns the independent brokerage Craft & Bauer.
Users can connect any number of common systems — Follow Up Boss, SkySlope, their MLS, etc. — to the StackWrap interface, giving them a single place to begin their workday. The primary dashboard offers a modern, smart layout with a simple navigation design that allows one-click access to what you need when.
Need to check in on an agreement signature? Click your DocuSign link. Did a new lead sign up for a newsletter? Hop into Mailchimp or SendGrid to see what’s what.
This app isn’t adding to the proptech noise, it’s offering a way to control its volume.
HomeStack
HomeStack is a mobile app Lego, a build-as-you-go solution for independent brokerages to create powerful, consumer-facing business applications with features on par with much more expensive scratch-built software.
HomeStack comes with home-search functionality, CRM, on-board communications with two-way activity notifications, lead routing, tour scheduling and other tools that should match the expectations of any tech-savvy tech admin or broker wanting to find new ways to add value to their operation. It’s linked up with 200 multiple listing services to ensure its listing data is tightly integrated.
The advantages of using a branded mobile experience for business are many, but in truth, good ones are not easy to find because it’s too big a lift for the agent. HomeStack is a B2B2C model, meaning it’s a business selling a product to a business that sells its version of that product to a consumer. Agents are not in software sales.
This isn’t everything that’s been good about tech this year, but rather a few companies I consider standouts. For a few more popular options, check out this piece from Inman contributor Jimmy Burgess.
There are a few months left in the year and a lot of industry issues about to unfold. I’ll be watching how our innovators respond.
