14 Austin Real Estate Startups and Companies Making the Industry Smarter

Check out the startups contributing to the growth of real estate tech in the Silicon Hills.

Written by Kelly O'Halloran
Published on Jan. 31, 2024

Austin remains one of the country’s hottest real estate markets, so its booming real estate tech sector should come as no surprise. From tightening renter relations between the tenants and the landlords to skipping the commission take by realtors, here are the Austin tech companies making it easier for realtors, renters, homeowners and leasers alike to operate in real estate.

Top Real Estate Tech Companies in Austin

  • Realtor.com
  • Virtual Staging Solutions
  • Agent Pronto
  • RealSavvy 
  • Billd
  • OJO

 

What they do: Closinglock offers real estate tech for fraud prevention. It serves title companies, legal offices and financial service providers in an industry vulnerable to wire fraud, impersonation and other scams. The company verifies identity, secures payments and provides a portal for wire transfers. Closinglock also manages payoff verification, e-signatures and document exchange, all to improve security and decrease the potential for fraud. 

Founded: 2017 

 

What they do: Opcity has a proprietary algorithm that connects brokers, lenders and settlement service providers with the right clients. Opcity bears the upfront costs and risks, performing lead generation until clients are ready to speak to an agent. Agents with the highest performance scores will have access to more and higher quality referrals.

Founded: 2015

 

What they do: Qualia is simplifying the home buying process for all involved parties. The company offers a real estate software platform providing title, closing, and escrow services that make the entire closing process painless and efficient. 

Founded: 2015

 

What they do: OJO Labs operates an end-to-end platform helping homebuyers, sellers and owners easily approach the home-buying and selling process. OJO also integrates artificial intelligence and machine learning into their experience, helping home hunters refine their search and find exactly what they’re looking for. 

Founded: 2015

 

What they do: Billd is a finance and payment service for the construction industry. Built with suppliers and builders in mind, Billd enables commercial contractors to bid on projects, get materials upfront and pay later.

Founded: 2018

 

What they do: Homeowners looking to sell can skip the listing commissions — saving thousands of dollars — by using ListingSpark’s full-service, self-directed online brokerage system for $7/day. 

Founded: 2013

 

What they do: The Accruent team offers comprehensive systems for facilities and real estate management by providing site management, lease management, project management, facilities management, asset management, and facility capital planning software and services built to specific industries. 

Founded: 1995

 

What they do: Homads offers a marketplace for short-term and monthly sublets in Austin, broken down by neighborhood. Users can make online payments via the Homads platform designed for subletting and include ratings and reviews of the properties.  

Founded: 2014

 

What they do: For the hunting community, HuntingLocator lets hunters search properties to hunt throughout the country, granting access to communicate directly with landowners, outfitter and guides and visa versa to prep the next hunting excursion.

Founded: 2015

 

What it does: Based on a learning algorithm analyzing thousands of demographic, psychographic, social, mobile and traffic data points, the IdealSpot platform helps retailer and restaurant owners select business locations based on real-time data, without human bias. 

Founded: 2014

 

 

What they do: Winner of the 2015 SXSW Accelerator Award for Social Technology, RealSavvy builds websites for top realtors and brokers with a Pinterest-ish style and approach for home search, drip marketing and CRM. 

Founded: 2014

 

What they do: Simplifying the way tenants and landlords communicate back and forth, TenantCloud developed a free cloud-based service with personal portals. Landlords and tenants can pay and collect rent online, market rentals, communicate, store rental information, move in and out tenants, send maintenance requests and more. 

Founded: 2014

 

What they do: Online Rentals LLC created USARoomies as a members-only networking chat platform for finding roommates via a website. Users create their own profile, display the room available for rent, network and communicate with potential roommates and meet like-minded individuals. 

Founded: 2012

 

What they do: Home sellers have a faster, more efficient way to stage their empty homes for sale by utilizing the Virtual Staging Solutions' platform. Instead of having to move furniture in then immediately back out, users send them the photos of their place, then the team at Virtual Staging fills it. 

Founded: 2009

This article was originally published in 2016. Margo Steines contributed reporting to this story.

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