Minneapolis-based HomeSpotter, a real estate platform for agents to manage customer relationships, has acquired Vancouver-based open house lead generation platform Spacio for an undisclosed amount.
Spacio is a digital registration solution that replaces pen and paper sign-in at open houses, giving brokerages real-time reports on agents, offices, and consumer activities in order to make more effective sales and marketing decisions.
“[Using] open houses is a century-old practice but lead capture has always been left to pen and paper sign in,” said Spacio CEO and co-founder Melissa Kwan. “This process is inefficient, error prone, and doesn’t allow for companies to have any visibility over agent productivity and consumer foot traffic.
“There is now a real opportunity for real estate tech companies of all sizes to become a part of something larger.”
HomeSpotter is a software product suite for real estate agents, brokers, and multiple listing service (MLS) providers to build and strengthen customer relationships, through its products, including Boost, Connect, and now, Spacio. Boost automates digital marketing at scale, enabling agents to expand their spheres and impress sellers, while Connect offers buyers mobile search and agent collaboration tools.
The acquisition will allow HomeSpotter to expand its offerings to deliver an end-to-end solution across all points of contact in the agent-to-consumer relationship. All of Spacio’s employees and technology are joining HomeSpotter, with the combined teams now operating out of offices in both Minneapolis and Vancouver.
Kwan, who has run co-living spaces, sublet homes and lived as a “digital nomad” out of Airbnbs since 2015, said she will continue to work remotely while operating as vice president of Spacio, and will continue to lead its sales growth under Homespotter’s direction.
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HomeSpotter and Spacio now have a combined footprint of over 450,000 agents, 250 brokerage firms, 300 MLS connections, and are now servicing the four largest brokerage firms in the U.S.
Kwan said she is seeing larger real estate companies like Realogy and RE/MAX purchasing tech companies like Booj, while Keller Williams Realty is attempting to rebrand itself as a tech company.
“All these brands are scrambling to compete with each other and they see tech as the differentiator, but they don’t actually know what that means,” Kwan said. “There is now a real opportunity for real estate tech companies of all sizes to become a part of something larger if they can continue to execute, follow through, and grow distribution.”
Kwan said Spacio has spent the past four years building the “during and after” pieces of open house lead generation. She said HomeSpotter’s digital advertising product, Boost, can deliver the complete solution to agents that allows them to advertise their open houses before, capture leads during, and automatically follow up after, all within a single platform.
CEO of HomeSpotter Aaron Kardell said the company had been thinking about the open house opportunity since 2013.
“Open house visitors represent some of the most motivated buyers in the market that aren’t always captured through other lead gen sources,” Kardell said. Although HomeSpotter considered building a registration product internally and also looked at solutions in the market that address this need, they discovered Spacio.
“The combination of the founding team at Spacio, their proven track record of delivering a best-in-class solution, and resoundingly supportive customer feedback — there’s such strong alignment that it makes sense to bring our businesses together,” said Kardell.
Image courtesy HomeSpotter.