ListAssist founder Chris McGoldrick (from left), head of brand and partnerships Brittany Bastings and AI lead Ben van Noorden.
An Auckland AI start-up has won a contract with the largest independent real estate firm in the US. More Spark intrigue. Google says it will – finally – verify advertisers in the scam-riddled field of financial services.
ListAssist, an Auckland start-up whose AI tool allows natural language queries of home listing sites, has signed a multi-year deal with, Howard Hanna – the largest independent real estate broker in the US – with 15,000 agents and just over 1 million listings across 13 states.
“We are taking over their property search,” founder Chris McGoldrick says.
Instead of a customer wading through the traditional drop-down menus and filters, they can type something into a search bar like “A house with a swimming pool and at least three bedrooms near The Gulch” (The Gulch being a trendy, upscale neighbourhood in Nashville).
“Natural language is the way you search for a restaurant, so why not a house?” McGoldrick says.
ListAssist also helps agents put together search-engine-optimised ads, and stick within compliance rules around photos, among other features.
Although based in New Zealand, the two-year-old firm has focused almost exclusively on North America.
Why? It’s just maths. “They have well over two million agents compared with New Zealand’s 15,000,” McGoldrick says.
“AI is a very noisy space,” the founder says. So how did a tiny start-up from NZ get cut through in the world’s largest “prop-tech” market?
Old-fashioned leg work and schmoozing. “There’s nothing like face-to-face.” At a trade show in Las Vegas, he got to meet Gary Ashton, founder of the Nashville-based The Ashton Real Estate Group, billed as “The number one RE/MAX team in the world”.
Ashton not only signed on as an anchor customer but took a 5% stake in the Kiwi as well.
He positions himself as a prop-tech early adaptor and managed to blag some coverage on a local ABC affiliate as well (see clip below).
The Hanna, Ashton and other deals mean some 40,000 agents’ listings are now powered by ListAssist.
But anyone with even a passing knowledge of the North American real estate scene knows that a portal called Zillow totally dominates listing and traffic.
To boot, Zillow launched its own natural language AI search feature in September.
McGoldrick says his solution produces more user-friendly results.
He says agents also get to keep more of their commission if a sale comes from a lead generated by their own firm’s site.
Zillow makes the most of its popularity, with the portal charging a “success fee” that equates to anywhere from 15% to 40% of an agent’s commission. The upper rate kicks in with US$500,000-plus sales.
“Let’s face it, the portals have built empires. We think it’s time somebody armed the rebels,” McGoldrick told the audience at a pitch competition.
Christ’s College old boy McGoldrick was born and raised in Christchurch – where he comes from an extended family well known on the local real estate scene – but moved to Auckland to finish his business degree after the quakes.
“I wanted to go my own way,” he told the Herald.
He worked in logistics (Fliway Group) and sales (Fuji Xerox) before founding his first start-up and spending the next seven years in various businesses – including Sort My Meals, which he founded then sold in the same year (2017) and a stint as partnerships manager for (and a small shareholder in) buy-now, pay-later start-up PartPay, sold to an Australian firm Zip for $50 million in 2020.
He formed ListAssist in late 2022, bringing onboard Countdown Supermarkets marketing manager Brittany Bastings as head of brand and partnerships, Ben Van Norden – a Canterbury honours student formerly a data scientist with DOT Loves Data as head of AI and innovation, and Michael Challis (ex-customer loyalty firm Marsello) as a data engineer.
McGoldrick wanted to build another app and the family industry just had a natural pull.
“The beauty of real estate is that there are phone numbers everywhere and everyone always answers their phone,” he says.
McGoldrick still owns 75% of the firm. The investment from Ashton was good for bragging rights, but the founder says there’s otherwise no need or plans for a raise.
ListAssist is “on the brink of profitability”, he says.
What’s been the secret sauce? The Herald asked Ashton what drew him to ListAssist?
The Nashville real estate supremo said that when he met McGoldrick at the Inman Connect real estate conference in Las Vegas, “Chris described his product, which writes listing descriptions for real estate using information from the realtor, the property address, and data extracted from the listing pictures”.
He added, “The use of AI and the ability to analyse images seemed like something every realtor would benefit from. A few months later [in November 2022], ChatGPT was introduced, and many agents began using it to write listing descriptions – often without concern for accuracy and without the image scanning technology that ListAssist offers.
“Chris then repurposed his product to allow the public to search for homes online, utilising the scanning technology and existing data to improve the accuracy of search results. Adding the search feature to my website allowed me to be the first in the world to do this.”
His site continues to offer traditional drop-down menus and filters but prioritises ListAssist on its home page.
The firm continues to get good buzz in the US.
In August, ListAssist won Crowd Favourite at the National Association of Realtors’ iOi (Innovation, Opportunity & Investment) Summit 2024 in Miami after McGoldrick appeared onstage for a pitch battle.
Last week, Inman named ListAssist the Top Real Estate AI Startup in its inaugural AI Awards.
Spark shares fell below $3 this week for the first time since 2015 as the telco’s stock continued to struggle in the wake of the below-forecast full-year result reported in August.
Earlier this month, there was market chatter that Spark chief executive Jolie Hodson and chair Justine Smyth’s two-day Sydney and Melbourne trip – said to have included a stop at investment bank UBS – was apparently cut a day short. (“We don’t comment on rumour or speculation.”).
The latest scuttlebutt holds that Spark was interested in selling its minority stake in cell tower firm Connexa, but found no takers. Connexa is the vehicle formed when Spark sold a 70% share in its cell tower network’s passive assets (that is land, leases and the towers themselves, but not transmission electronics or spectrum) to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board in mid 2022, netting $583m.
Connexa subsequently bought 2degrees’ mobile towers for $1.08 billion. In the process, Spark’s holding was diluted from 30% to 17% (The Australian reported it was “thought to be 17%” – the diluted figure is there in black-and-white in Spark’s 2024 annual report, plus Commerce Commission approval documents).
Ontario Teachers’ is now said to want to sell its stake in Connexa. Spark is said to have wanted to offload its minority stake at the same time, but it proved a no-go.
At Spark’s full-year result briefing on August 28, Smyth said the telco’s data centre development plans would require around $1b of capex over the next five to seven years. Smyth said a potential hybrid capital notes issuance would help fund its growth investments in the near term.
“We will also explore other equity funding options such as capital partnerships.”
The search continues.
“Kiwis will soon have greater protection from online scams as Google rolls out Financial Services Verification in New Zealand, a step forward in the company’s decades-long efforts to combat scams and create a safer online experience,” the tech giant said in an online update.
“Starting November 7, select advertisers of financial products and services will be required to complete a verification process before they can run ads on Google’s platforms.”
“For most advertisers, this will entail obtaining verification that they are authorised by New Zealand authorities, including the Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank of New Zealand, to ensure only legitimate financial service providers can advertise on our platforms. We believe this will reduce the risk of Kiwis falling victim to fraudulent financial schemes online.”
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has issued various warnings about scam ads that have appeared on Google and other platforms
Why has Google – which earned more than $1b in revenue from the New Zealand market last year and is currently arm-wrestling over the Government and local media industry over the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill – taken until now to introduce its Financial Services Verification protection to NZ?
The measure was introduced in the UK in September 2021 and in Australia in August 2022.
“Creating policies in these areas takes time, from developing and testing these features to engaging with third-party groups and government regulators to ensure our policies can be effectively applied locally,” a Google spokesperson said.
“Financial scams is a complex space and the tactics bad actors are using are rapidly evolving.
“To give you some context of the scale of the issue – In 2023, we removed over 5.5 billion ads, restricted over 6.9 billion ads and suspended over 12.7 million advertiser accounts. We actively look for ways to ensure a safe user experience for those interacting with ads on Google, with the implementation of the Financial Services Verification next month.”
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
Du Val reportedly owes $306m to investors and creditors, according to PwC.