Show HN: Open Listings is hacking real estate | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Open Listings is hacking real estate

openlistings.co

16 pointsrgbrgb18 comments

How do you plan on gaining national coverage of listings? Between the agents, brokers, aggregators, and MLSs the data supply chain is incredibly fragmented. Securing access to all of this data is an incredibly time intensive process that requires a LOT of relationship building. Unless of course you try to go the 'redfin' route and become a licensed brokerage in every state... but then.. you lose your edge and you're essentially competing with Redfin.

How do you plan on getting all of that listing data?

Otherwise, very cool idea - just trying to figure out how you plan to overcome that.

Great questions Austin. We've spent the last 6 months "exploring" the data supply chain and have learned first hand how fragmented and closed the system really is.

National coverage is nearly impossible unless you go through an aggregator like ListHub or Point2, but this doesn't work for real buyers because of delayed, inaccurate and incomplete information. The only reliable way to get listing data in most regions is by opening an office and joining the local MLS.

Our non-answer is that we plan to focus on our clients in California for the time being while we nail the customer experience before thinking about expansion.

Very cool - thanks for the answer!

Hi HN, we're reimagining real estate for a generation that grew up with e-commerce. We've been working full time for a couple of months now and this is our HN debut.

We'd love to know what you think of this. We're hoping the DIY aspect resonates here as much as it does with us.

Are you guys a brokerage? How can I buy a property by sending you an email?

square cash?

We're a registered brokerage. Self-service but with expert support when you need it, you keep the agent commission.

Send us an email if you're interested in becoming one of our first clients and we'll get you setup.

What's your business model then?

We'll charge a small brokerage fee to start but plan to offer $0 commission closings in the future for clients who utilize partner services. There are other revenue streams we are looking at as well.

Sounds like it might be cool, but I'm hesitant to put my email in there in order to just browse around.

We hope to remove this requirement very soon :)

How do you plan to set yourself apart from the hundreds of other real estate listing startups that have come about in the past 5 years?

We don't just list homes, we sell them in our app and let you avoid paying commission to the buyer's agent (up to 3% of the sale price is refunded from your down payment).

What exactly does this app do? How does it save me money? Will it be US only or available internationally?

We're LA and SF only for the time being. We save you money by refunding most of the buyer agent's commission (usually 3% of the total price). We're able to do this because we're automating a lot of the time consuming things normal agents such as pushing you listings as they come on the market.

How do you get the listing information? I assume you wont be connected into every realtor database so where are you pulling data from?

We have real-time listing data in LA and SF at the moment as broker members of a local MLS. The only real way to get quality data for a listing product is to connect to every realtor database.

looks awesome. I want an invite!

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