Keller Williams’ Josh Team and Redfin’s Glenn Kelman (Credit: iStock)
Keller Williams is seeking to copy Redfin’s tech to beat the brokerage at its own game.
Keller Williams President Josh Team noted that the real estate industry is seeing an “arms race” — and the company is looking at Redfin because “they’re doing some really great things. The brokerage thinks it can “copy the technology of Redfin before Redfin can take the market share,” Inman reported.
Team compared the strategy to Google Plus, the social network once touted as a Facebook killer. Google had a good concept that Facebook was able to copy, he said.
Keller Williams has viewed tech-powered brokerages like Redfin as rivals. Last year, the company acquired a startup specifically to help building a strategy to challenge aggregator listing portals. The brokerage is also getting closer to releasing a consumer-facing app meant to challenge Zillow and Redfin.
Team also spoke about Kelle, the company’s artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant, comparing it to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. Both features had to start out “going wide” because they “didn’t have anywhere to start.”
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin also praised Redfin’s tech, saying the portal has more inventory and faster alerts that most multiple listings services. But firms like Redfin have also splintered the real estate community, he said.
“I think companies like Redfin benefit from the fragmented nature of this industry,” Reffkin said.
Earlier this year, Compass tweaked its own listings website to display the name and contact information of each listing broker. The move was aimed at gaining the competition’s trust. [Inman] — Meenal Vamburkar
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