Listen to this articleOpenAgent uses smart market data to help home sellers find the best real estate agent. Last year OpenAgent helped more than 10,000 people shortlist and connect with real estate agents, and in the process, helped more than $3 Billion worth of property come of the market. Recently raised $12 Million in new founding will help OpenAgent to grow awareness about the benefits of using its services. Below is our inteview with Zoe Pointon Co-Founder of OpenAgent:
Q: What is OpenAgent?
A: Founded in 2013, OpenAgent is a disruptive real estate industry service provider, aiming to transform the way that property is transacted. Our team of coders, marketing analytics experts and customer service professionals, works with a passion for helping home sellers. Lead by Co-Founders Marta Higuera, and me OpenAgent has grown significantly since its launch and is backed by Hollard, Reinventure, Breakthrough Labs and Qualgro.
Q: Could you tell us OpenAgent’s startup story?
A: OpenAgent was started to make it easy to sell your home. There was no information available when it came to selling your biggest asset – you knew next to nothing about the person that you were going to trust with that process. On the other hand you could get information about a hotel on the other side of the world that you were going to stay in for a week. The idea came about based on a few experiences with real estate agents both in Queensland and also New South Wales, and really just seeing the vast differences between the best of the best and the worst of the worst.
We had no experience at all in real estate before starting OpenAgent and it was probably one of the benefits early on, being able to look at an industry and really see a lot of ways that the experience for consumers could be improved.
It was very humble beginnings working from our kitchen tables creating a very basic website with information about real estate agents. After doing some calls and a bit of research we realised there were lots of people that need and wanted help in the process of selling their home. That’s when we decided to fundraise and grow the business to be bigger and known for every single Australian
Over the last 3 years we’ve grown to more than 60 people across all the functions all working towards the goal of making it easier for vendors to sell their properties. Last year we have helped more than 10,000 people shortlist and connect with real estate agents, and in the process, helped more than $3 billion worth of property come of the market.
We have in total raised $ 20 million.
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Q: What advantage does OpenAgent has over its competitors?
A: OpenAgent is not just a website. We have hard-core analytics and data and all the technology, but at the same time, we have a top-class call centre, staff who are extremely well trained. They talk to sellers and agents every day and understand the softer issues that are so important to match up a vendor with the right real estate agent. The strength and the heart of OpenAgent is our staff offering great customer service.
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Q: What are the biggest benefits for sellers?
A: The benefit of OpenAgent is that we really make it easy for vendors to sell their property. By connecting you with the right agent to suit your needs vendors should sell faster, for more money and most important with less stress.
Q: You’ve recently announced a $12 million funding; what are your plans?
A: Firstly we want to grow awareness. We believe there are still many people that doesn’t know about the benefits of using OpenAgent and that don’t feel confident in selling their houses. Sellers need to know that they can come to OpenAgent read reviews and performance information about agents, and then get given a short list of agents to suit their needs.
Secondly we want to grow our products and provide more and more tools for sellers so that they can really take control of the sale process and feel like they have full transparency end-to-end through the process of selling their house.
We really want to empower sellers making the right choices and informed decisions – making it easy to sell their property.
Thirdly to help estate agents grow their business by providing them with really qualified property sellers who are looking for an agent who can meet their needs.
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Q: What do you find most rewarding in terms of running OpenAgent?
A: Thinking go all the people we help on a daily basis making a very stressful process, selling their biggest asset, easy and more enjoyable. Reading customer reviews saying , “Man, you guys made this so much easier for me. You know, I didn’t know where to start,” or, “I – I’ve had bad experiences before and this was the best selling experience I ever had.” Those are the kinds of bits of feedback that make it an incredibly rewarding thing to do.
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