- Homesales.com.au is used by almost 50% of all Australian real estate agents
- Soho was founded in 2018 by one of Airtasker's founders
- The AI-platform allows users to swipe on properties they like
Soho, an Artificial Intelligence-powered personalised real estate platform has announced the acquisition of Homesales.com.au – a platform that is currently used by close to half of all Australian real estate agents.
Founded in 2018 by Jonathon Lui, who co-founded Airtasker, Soho is essentially a real estate matching service that incorporates AI to help users find homes suited to their needs in a faster time frame.
In a rather Tinder-esque fashion, users swipe right on properties they are interested in. The more properties that are ranked on the platform, the better quality the matches and search results will be.
Listings on Soho are free for agents – saving thousands of dollars. Soho then offers technology solutions such as access to real-time market demand analytics along with end-to-end rental management features.
Currently, Soho receives more than 500,000 unique property seekers a month and additionally received an extra $1 million of investment alongside the acquisition.
Mr Lui said Soho seeks to disrupt the expensive, classifieds-based real estate paradigm and expects the acquisition to significantly ramp up the company’s Australian growth.
“Homesales.com.au has an impressive background that is renowned and well-respected in the Australian market which was a very attractive selling point for us,” said Mr Lui.
“We’ve experienced intense growth over the past twelve months and we think it’s attributable to our very unique business model.
“We’re not disrupting the agent and client relationship model; we’re simply enhancing it, by providing them with a tool that offers sophisticated technology solutions such as access to real-time market demand analytics on their listings as well as end to end rental management features.”
Jonathon Lui, founder Soho
Bradley Beer, Homesales.com.au CEO, is optimistic that Soho can take the company to the next level.
“Soho have been great to work with on this transition and I look forward to seeing their new innovative approach to property listings change the way we advertise property based on serving the consumer what they want and matching the buyer and seller more efficiently”, said Mr Beer.
