Last week, zavvie, the creators of the first marketplace for real estate agents to help homeowners see all their selling choices, announced securing a $1.75 million inside round.
In the VC world of funding, an inside round means all the funding came from the folks who already invested in zavvie. That includes NAR’s Second Century Ventures, which selected zavvie as part of its Reach Class in 2019. It is an indication of a burgeoning confidence in the business model zavvie has created as well as its scalability.
zavvie strategically has carved out a way for agents to remain at the center of every real estate sales transaction. Brokerages using a zavvie-powered platform – one that is often white labeled to the brokerage’s brand – can help homeowners sort through all of their choices. Most importantly, homeowners employ the guidance of a trusted professional: their real estate agent.
That means because of zavvie, an agent will earn their commission no matter what path a homeowner chooses when they decide to sell.
The value of a real estate agent as a trusted advisor has never been higher. For more than a decade, new real estate tech players have come onto the scene, predicting the internet would “disintermediate” agents. More recently, the term disintermediate has by replace by the word “disruption.” But the predictions by many of these new real estate tech startups remain the same: that tech disruption will replace agents.
Apparently, all these firms forgot to ask consumers what they want. NAR has been tracking what consumers want over many years. Eighty-nine percent of sellers and 88% of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker—a share that has steadily increased from 69% in 2001.
The fact that more consumers want and are willing to pay for the help of a professional real estate agent should not be a surprise. A home sale remains the largest transaction most of us will ever make in our lifetime. Would you entrust a crucial surgery to an amateur?
Selling a home is actually more complicated with all the new selling choices. Homeowners want to see all their choice, they want to compare and someone with industry knowledge and skill to have their back.
Every selling option available today has its own unique pros and cons. Homeowners can take many different paths:
- They can decide to accept an all-cash instant offer from an iBuyer like Zillow or Open Door.
- They can choose to pursue the “buy before you sell” offering of a Bridge Buyer, swapping a home with a firm like Knock or Homeward.
- They can engage a Concierge service to fix up their home without any cash outlay as improvements are deducted from the sale proceeds.
- Or they can opt for the traditional Open Market listing of their home, which is the most popular choice, as it often results in the highest sales price and greatest net proceeds.
At one of the last in-person Inman Connects, one of the presenters on the last day of the conference showed Venture Capital was flowing away from companies that were positioned as real estate disruptors to firms, like zavvie, that are working with the industry and not against it.
Having worked with the folks at zavvie over the last few years, we have watched their transformation into what a brokerage needs today to take advantage of what iBuyers and Bridge Buyers are doing. Unlike others, zavvie doesn’t see iBuyers and Bridge Buyers as the enemy – just the opposite.
These players are another partner in the process for agents and their clients when the solution fits. zavvie helps brokerages and their agents coop this business as they have deliberately placed themselves in the middle of this new marketplace.
Here’s the news release with more details about zavvie and its business momentum:
PropTech startup zavvie taps new $1.75M inside round
NAR’s Second Century Ventures plus existing investors accelerate zavvie’s growth
Boulder, CO — May 20, 2021 — PropTech startup zavvie, the first complete agent-centric brokerage selling solutions platform and marketplace, announced the completion of a $1.75 million inside round from existing investors, including Second Century Ventures, backed by the National Association of Realtors.
The rapid market penetration of verified institutional buyers, including iBuyers and “buy before you sell” Bridge Buyers, has fueled zavvie’s expansion. More than 60,000 real estate sales professionals from some of the nation’s most successful and fastest-growing multi-state brokerages have access to zavvie-powered platforms, which typically present over 100 offers a day nationwide.
“iBuyers and Bridge Buyers are buying more homes than ever in almost every major market,” said Lane Hornung, zavvie co-founder and CEO. “The market opportunity for zavvie is massive as we are uniquely positioned at the center of this growth,” Hornung added. “By keeping agents involved in all real estate selling options, zavvie facilitates the convergence between the traditional industry incumbents with the new disruptors and innovators.
“Already zavvie has arguably achieved the fastest adoption by the largest residential brokerages of any software platform,” he added. According to Hornung, the addition of broker partners, whose agents request purchase offers from verified buyer partners, has accelerated the growth of zavvie’s marketplace.
Hornung notes that PropTech currently is attracting more than $350 million a week in new capital, according to Weekly Proptech, published by the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation. Investors are attracted by the size and scale of the real estate industry, which is home to America’s largest asset class and annual transactions exceeding $1.6 trillion in total value.
Moreover, research shows the top 120,000 agents handle more than 50 percent of all deal flow and closed real estate transactions in the U.S. The top 100 brokerages handle 55 percent of all transactions. And currently, 30 percent of the top 100 brokerages already use a zavvie-powered platform.
“Our platform aggregates homes for purchases from tens of thousands of agents who represent millions of homeowners and delivers deals to enterprise buyers with billions of capital to place,” Hornung said.
Mike DelPrete, a global real estate tech strategist, leading iBuyer expert and member of zavvie’s Board of Directors, reports the market trend of more people selling their homes to a verified institutional buyer versus another individual buyer will continue to grow significantly over the next several years. “iBuyers survived COVID and are rebounding to their pre-pandemic levels,” said DelPrete, “and we are seeing an even bigger growth surge among the buy-before-you-sell bridge providers.”
Hornung agrees, noting that the explosion in the popularity of bridge solutions is driving zavvie’s most recent growth. zavvie has added several new verified Bridge Buyers, including EasyKnock, Knock, and Ribbon, as Verified Buyer Partners.
zavvie’s Verified Buyer Partners – including iBuyers, Bridge Buyers and Listing Concierges – collectively on track to purchase more than 85,000 homes in 2021.
Listing Concierge partner Curbio, which provides a “repair and renovate pre-sale, pay when you close” service for sellers, is another recent addition to the zavvie marketplace.
zavvie also recently announced a partnership with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®, a global network of 550 top independent real estate firms.
“Homeowners want two things when they are thinking about selling a home. First, they want to know about every option available to sell. Second, they want to work with a trusted real agent to walk them through all the choices. The zavvie platform is the only technology that does both at the same time,” said Hornung.
More information about zavvie and its brokerage-powering technology is available at zavvie.com.
About zavvie
zavvie brings together leading brokerages and innovative Verified Buyers in a marketplace that offers a modern, one-button digital experience for home sellers. Over 60,000 real estate agents in 47 states leverage zavvie’s platform to serve their clients better. As the first end-to-end real estate brokerage platform offering a full spectrum of selling solutions, zavvie gives modern brokerages and agents all they need to thrive in today’s evolving real estate landscape: easy-to-use tools, technology, training, marketing, and strategy. Discover more at zavvie.com.
Still sucks that Zavvie charges a fee to be in a relationship with a brokerage. Half of the realtors in America work at small, boutique, or independent brokerages. If they want our business, they should court it by passing that fee to the iBuyer or the Bridge buyer.
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