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Below is our recent interview with Rich Swier, Co-Founder of offrs:
Q: As a recent Inman Innovator Award nominee for real estate technology, could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to offrs and how your company is changing the real estate industry’s landscape?
A: offrs.com connects real estate professionals with homeowners. We identify who is most likely to need the service of a real estate agent or mortgage broker using a proprietary algorithm we have developed. This forms Smart Data which is based on predictive analytics and big data.
Q: Real estate technology is a hot topic right now, particularly in this area of Predictive Analytics. Obviously, “Smart Data” seems like it would be important to an agent’s business, but how does it work?
A: The biggest driver of the real estate industry is listings. A real estate agent depends on listings to grow their business and they want to leverage anything that places them first in the door. Our product is built specifically to do just that – to place our agents first in the door on listing opportunities in their neighborhood.
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Q: So how does your lead generation differ from other lead generation solutions; isn’t a lead a lead?
A: Other lead generation depends heavily on ad spend and by the time a lead is filling out forms on the internet, it’s too late. We leverage predictive analytics to identify those leads before they engage with other providers and help our agents build the relationship before it is too late.
Q: You recently released the accuracy results of your predictive algorithm which predicts future listings in residential neighborhoods; could you tell us how your algorithm affects the industry?
A: Understanding trends and statistics related to home sales is extremely valuable to anyone interested in the real estate market. We see our predictive data being used by a wide range of service entities including banks, mortgage, title and others who want to understand what’s going to happen next.
Q: It sounds like there’s a lot of room to grow. What’s next for offrs? Do you have plans to expand or diversify your solution?
A: We’re currently expanding into mortgage and title companies and we expect to be opening up to them later this year.
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Q: Rich, thank you for your time this afternoon. Are there any insights into the state of real estate technology or the industry as a whole that you can share with our readers?
A: This is a very exciting time in Real Estate. There are new business models being introduced in how people buy and sell homes. We fully expect that crowdfunding, i-buyers and many other new models will have a long-term impact – but in the short term, we see the primary driver of new business development for agents revolving around big data marketing and online lead conversion. The days of postcards and yard signs driving the business of an agent are fading fast.
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