Rick Orr and RealSavvy: real estate agents deserve delightful tools

Rick Orr has a straightforward goal: he wants to simplify the real estate agent’s life.

And he’s doing that with the new platform, RealSavvy. It all started with an unhappy real estate client of his own.

They exchanged emails over the course of a weekend. The client found a house on Zillow. It looked perfect. Why hadn’t Rick shown that one?

Well, because as Rick quickly learned, the property was now 60 days post-closing. That was about as ‘off-the-market’ as it came. But Rick understood the appeal of Zillow and other portal sites. They are very user-friendly. Their “interface” is appealing. And they put information in the hands of the home buyer and seller, giving them more control and access to real estate information.

Even if that information isn’t exactly trustworthy.

With 18 years in the front row of real estate, Rick knows that the technology for the industry hasn’t changed all that much since 1998.

Despite the lack of change, there is no lack of offerings. In fact, there is almost a deluge of new technology tools, each claiming to do more than the next.

“Everyone wants to capture lightning in a bottle. It’s a reflection of the shift in the industry that most agents are open to the idea that technology can help them convert more, market better, recruit and retain top agents and find new revenue sources.”

But agents are experiencing serious tech fatigue.

“It seems they have to buy five different platforms for five different functions. It’s confusing and intimidating — even for me! We want to take the fear and loathing out of technology.”

RealSavvy works as hub for the agent and buyers to communicate that’s similar to Pinterest, letting buyers search any variety of home browsing site—such as Zillow or Realtor.com—and then “pin” a home listing they like back to a personalized board for everyone to stay informed.

The goal is to keep the client on the agent or broker’s own website – powered by RealSavvy – with great data. Rick wants to enlarge the conversation to be the trusted source for all information about a home.

“We want consumers to have a much more intuitive home-search ability,” he said.

RealSavvy is updated frequently with data directly from the broker or agent’s area Multiple Listing Service. This means the app can verify that the house the client is suddenly in love with is truly for sale. And the company is growing by leaps and bounds, with over 1000 agents on the platform and more brokers joining their white label program every week.

“By giving our platform to brokers under their domain, white labeling it, they can move the technology curve in the right direction. That’s our grand vision – a custom website, collaborative home search (IDX) and lightweight CRM fully branded as the broker or agent.”