A former Startup Weekend Kansas City team is looking to ease the process of buying and selling homes with Keyzio, a software platform that allows buyers and sellers to connect without the aid of a real estate agent or public listings.
Founders Parker Hills, Dan Aycock and the Keyzio team took second place at Startup Weekend Kansas City last April. A third co-founder, Mat Owens, has since joined Hills and Aycock.* Keyzio is currently in public beta, and its founders are preparing for a more formal launch later this month after completing their time in Think Big Partners‘ first accelerator class, which began in September and ends this month with a demo day.
The idea for Keyzio came to Hills after his experience trying to sell his own house. He and his wife knew they had a marketable home, but they were unable to sell it in a reasonable amount of time without the help of a real estate agent.
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“So the initial observation was, ‘We were right, we did have a marketable house, but we failed for sale by owner,’ ” Hills said. “Why is that? We didn’t have a way to broadcast that we were interested in selling that was actually effective.”
Keyzio aims to remedy that situation for sellers while allowing buyers of homes to browse the market without actually listing their house first.
“For some reason what we did – putting a sign in our yard, listing it on Craiglist – didn’t work. But what if we had been on Keyzio for a year? Because that’s when we really started thinking about it. Could we have found a buyer that way?” Hills (right) said.
Using Keyzio, buyers tag homes they love that may or may not be for sale. Then, at no cost to the buyer, Keyzio contacts homeowners with homes similar to those tagged. Interested sellers, whether they are actively selling or not, can then contact the buyers if they are willing to entertain an offer.
“There’s this period before you’re actively selling that our platform lets you engage without publicizing that fact,” Hills said. “It’s a private listings market for the seller. It allows sellers to avoid the hassle of a public listing while still engaging with our buyers.”
Hills said research shows that many homeowners will entertain an offer on their home even if they aren’t actively trying to sell it.
“Right now you can only engage with the for-sale market, but there are a lot of cases where the homeowner just hasn’t listed it yet, for whatever reason,” he said.
Hills was able to sell his home within two days of enlisting the help of a real estate agent. But then the process revealed a new pain point, because his family had a short amount of time to find a new house.
Keyzio’s founders hope to partner with mortgage brokers and real estate agents in the future and refer buyers to those partners in order to facilitate the transaction.
Hills said he and his co-founders are exploring different options on how the seller would pay the broker. It could be a percentage-based fee or a fee-for-service hourly model, he said.
“The listing agent in these cases wouldn’t have to take pictures, talk to the seller and do all the front-end work,” Hills said. “Basically, they’d show up when the buyer is going to make an offer. The seller needs help with inspections, etc. It’s just a different situation, not discount brokerage.”**
Hills said the company also hopes to open a round of funding later this month and will be presenting at 1 Million Cups on Jan. 16.
Updated Jan. 7 – “By owner” removed from the headline to reflect Keyzio’s broader aim.
*Reference of third co-founder was added at founder Parker Hills’ request.
**”Discount brokers” corrected to “discount brokerage.”
Credits: Photo and screenshots courtesy of Parker Hills.
