Tech Bytes: News from Constellation1, Elm Street, more 

Editor's note: Technology is a driving force in real estate. From startups to established players, tech companies are constantly innovating, growing and forging partnerships. Here we highlight some of the latest news about the companies that help power the industry. 

Constellation1 to support Engel & Völkers data expansion

Engel & Völkers will partner with Constellation1 to power its new Americas luxury real estate website, launching this summer, and its brokerage sites throughout North America.

"Rich, accurate data is essential, not only to the success of our new website experience, but also to the data driven tools that we provide our network of real estate professionals to help track and enhance their business strategies," said Jill DeSilva, Engel & Völkers Americas SVP of product. 

"Through our partnership with Constellation1, we can customize and adapt data sets to meet the specific needs of our brand and network to create tremendous business opportunities," she added.

The partnership also allows Engel & Völkers to take advantage of the Real Estate Standards Organization's (RESO) modern data standards, improve the brand's offerings to its franchisees, and enable its new site to better display listing information from across its North American network.

And for Constellation1, the partnership expands the company's reach into luxury real estate services. "We are proud to deliver robust data services to the Engel & Völkers Americas' franchise network in support of its future expansion," said Andrew Binkley, president of Constellation1. 

Elm Street to provide automated marketing and creative design for Weichert

Weichert, Realtors, a family of 18 full-service real estate-related companies, has selected Elm Street Technology as an approved supplier of automated marketing and creative design solutions.

Elm Street solutions were initially offered to all agents using the Weichert tools portal as part of a soft launch in February.

"The partnership between Elm Street and Weichert, Realtors will allow us to serve their agents by providing them with done-for-you marketing, professionally designed email and newsletter templates, creative design and website services, as well as ongoing educational opportunities," said Aaron Plante, executive vice president and general manager of Real Estate Solutions at Elm Street Technology.

Plante noted that this was the first phase of a long-term partnership with Weichert. "We are working closely with Weichert to provide our technology solutions for repeat business, referrals, and prospecting into the Weichert tools portal throughout the remainder of 2023."

Weichert's decision to work with Elm Street as its first marketing and creative design partner is part of what it describes as a shift towards a more agent-centric approach. "Customized and automated marketing solutions are the top requests from our agents in the field," said Bill Scavone, president of Weichert, Realtors.

Weichert recently rolled out its myMarketing+ collection of marketing tools and resources designed to streamline and enhance the services offered to agents.

Restb.ai integrates AI-driven listing tech into Black Knight platform

Forget typing a description into ChatGPT. New technology that creates listing information from property photos is here, and Restb.ai will provide the tech to Black Knight customers under a new strategic alliance.

Using computer vision, "advanced tags" of interior and exterior features, as well as photo captions and full property listing descriptions, are automatically generated. 

Restb.ai will integrate its product suite seamlessly into the Black Knight Paragon MLS platform. Users of the Paragon MLS portal will be able to automate listing creation processes, unlock new data sets, and instantly validate property listings imagery to support compliance with MLS guidelines.

Restb.ai technology, which processes more than 1 billion images monthly, modernizes and speeds up the listing input process by analyzing photos and auto-populating relevant listing details extracted from the images, according to the company. As each listing photo is uploaded, Restb.ai automatically detects interior and exterior features, architecture style and room type. In addition, by tagging and labeling each image, the property listings displayed on MLS and broker and agent websites become ADA-compliant.

"Building Restb.ai into Black Knight's MLS platform will radically transform how MLS subscribers interact with MLS Listing data. This enhanced AI automation will provide users with a new listing entry experience along with unique visual search capabilities for over 200 MLSs," said Lisa Larson, Restb.ai managing director, North America.

LandOnEarth uses ChatGPT to power search

Also taking advantage of AI tech is home search platform LandOnEarth, which has integrated ChatGPT into its HomeMatch technology.

The search portal, which describes itself as "like a dating app, but for homes," allows buyers to enter information about their needs and wants and then matches properties to the buyer's profile. The integration of ChatGPT into the company's proprietary tech "supercharges the advanced AI algorithms to analyze these data points against the full MLS inventory of homes," according to a news release.

LandOnEarth said this will reduce the time consumers and agents spend reviewing listings and help them understand why homes are a good match. The free search tool analyzes for-sale data as well as information on local features — such as restaurants, walking trails and demographics — to find properties that fit a buyer's profile, and then provides a match score for each home.

"At LandOnEarth, we are on the pulse of technology trends, and very much involved in leading the transitional shift happening with AI in proptech. By combining our innovative HomeMatch Technology with ChatGPT's powerful AI capabilities we can now provide an even more accurate and efficient home match experience for our agents and home buyers changing the antiquated home search experience for good," said Mario Corona, CEO of LandOnEarth.

The company also touts itself as a real estate agent network where buyers can either connect with their existing agents or find one in LandOnEarth's network.