NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
Australian real estate agent comparison site OpenAgent raises $4.6m Series A
Australian real estate agent comparison site OpenAgent Pty. Ltd. has raised AU$6 million ($4.6 million) Series A in a round led by Hollard Investments.
Founded in 2012 and often described at a “TripAdvisor of real estate agents,” OpenAgent provides real estate agent comparisons, which allows users to find a qualified real estate agent to sell their property.
Along with user reviews of how a real estate agent performs, the company also includes data from more than two million property sales to give users a full oversight on the performance of the agent, along with the sorts of properties they are selling, and where.
OpenAgent claims to have assisted in the sale of AU$2.6 billion ($2 billion) in property since being founded, with the service continuing to grow.
“Australian home owners continue to lack information and guidance when making one of life’s most important financial transactions: selling your home,” OpenAgent Co-Founder and Co-Cheif Executive Officer Zoe Pointon said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “We believe failure to compare agents is a significant contributor to poor outcomes for both sellers and buyers in real estate.”
“There are still too many Australians who don’t get the right agent to sell their property, and we want to fix that,” Pointon added.
Easy money
OpenAgent’s business model is a simple, traditional one: instead of charging up-front for referrals of business to agents, the company instead is paid an “an industry-standard referral fee;” whether that’s a percentage or a fixed rate isn’t clear, but even if it’s a small percentage, the amounts could be in the thousands given how ridiculously expensive real estate costs in Australia.
Perhaps the surprising thing about OpenAgent is that no one has done this model in Australia before.
Including the new round OpenAgent has raises AU$8 million ($6.14 million) to-date. Previous investors include Pete Flint, the founder of Trulia, Inc.
The company said it would use the new round to “continue to grow the business and connect more Australians with the best real estate agents to help them through the selling process.”
Image credit: OpenAgent
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