OJO Labs announced today that it has acquired RealSavvy, a real estate tech startup that offers IDX websites, branded mobile apps and a fully integrated customer relationship management tool. The acquisition will pave the way for OJO Labs to bring its proprietary, artificial intelligence-powered personal assistant to consumer-facing real estate websites.
John Berkowitz, CEO of OJO Labs, is bullish on the future of brokerage websites and believes integrating the OJO Lab personal assistant into those platforms will help with the company’s goal of meeting a million consumers.
“With OJO’s goal of meeting a million consumers, we need to exist on those platforms, interact with those platforms and therefore control our own destiny,” Berkowitz told Inman. “At the end of the day, it’s a value-add tool to our customers today, and a place to put OJO in the future.”
“We are a solution that brokers bring to market and put in front of their consumers so that consumers can get in contact with them and ask questions prior to being ready to talk to people,” Berkowitz added. “We’ve tested putting OJO on these brokerage websites, and it is definitely going to be one of the main channels that people meet consumers through.”
Berkowitz explained that this is a tremendous value add for brokerage websites because filling out a lead form is an antiquated, old-world idea.
“The consumer doesn’t want to go fill out a form where they don’t know if they’re going to get a response or not,” Berkowitz said. “Live chat on the website is this weird kind of ancillary middleware solution.”
“Let’s tell them: Do you want to talk to a human? Okay great, we’ll help you get a human,” Berkowitz added. “Or, do you have questions that are better served by a digital assistant?”
Owning the website platform will allow OJO Labs to not be dependent on outside integrations, according to Berkowitz.
OJO Labs will continue to service RealSavvy’s existing consumer base and even grow it — an aspect that was integral to the closing of the deal from RealSavvy’s perspective. RealSavvy’s client base includes, according to Berkowitz, a number of high-end boutique brokerages.
It’s not the first website builder that OJO Labs has added. In October 2018, OJO Labs acquired WolfNet, a longtime IDX website builder for brokers and agents. The strategic acquisition, according to Berkowitz, ensured they could access more accurate listing data more quickly. The company also continues to run WolfNet as a separate, consumer-facing product and continues to offer it to the industry at large.
RealSavvy will be immediately integrated into OJO Labs, combining the staffs at OJO’s new Austin headquarters. The financials associated with the transaction were not disclosed.
“Our visions are aligned to effect transformative changes in the behaviors of agents and consumers working together,” Rick Orr, CEO of RealSavvy said, in a statement. “Bringing our platforms together, with a team of exceptional talent solving hard technical problems, adds fuel to our vision and helps agents have less dependency on portals, or aging technology, giving the industry a momentous advantage.”
