Key Details:
- Greg Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of Tomo, the mortgage startup that has raised $110 million, has announced the launch of a new real estate portal: Tomo Real Estate
- The new portal represents the next step in Tomo’s mission to support the American homebuyer at every stage of their journey to home ownership.
- Available (at launch) in key markets covering 50% of U.S. real estate listings, Tomo Real Estate is designed to give buyers a strategic advantage with insider intel, along with an AI-first search that leverages OpenAI to enable natural language search capabilities.
Greg Schwartz is taking Tomo Mortgage to the next stage in his mission for the company he co-founded with Carey Armstrong. The goal for the Tomo brand has always been to make the path to homeownership simpler, faster, and more buyer-friendly.
And now, both Schwartz and Armstrong are leveraging recent AI developments to do the same to home searches.
Schwartz describes “the new Tomo.com” in a video published on the Tomo blog.
Tomo’s core business is purchase mortgages, and the company has spent the last three years developing mortgage technology that shortens closing times and improves the buyer experience.
Tomo’s new home search engine, Tomo Real Estate, augments Tomo Mortgage to support homebuyers in finding the right homes.
Tomo’s beginnings as a mortgage company set us apart in the real estate industry. We recognized that the mortgage process was the catastrophe of the real estate transaction, and tackled that first. Now, we’re channeling that motivation into the real estate search. Let’s face it. The search and find process hasn’t changed much since mobile phones launched. Home buyers have been stuck adapting to the technology and experiences available, instead of the technology and experience streamlining how people actually search for homes – which is far more nuanced than a zip code, bed and bath count.
Tomo’s new portal uses AI-first search to enable natural language processing (NLP), meaning buyers can search for homes by describing them in the same terms they would use when describing their dream home to someone they know.
For example:
- “A house or condo with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in a walkable neighborhood near downtown and grocery shopping”
- “A condo with 2 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom with a balcony, on the third floor or higher, near the subway, with a spot to WFH”
- “New construction with new appliances, including a washer and dryer, with at least 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, with a covered deck and a large, fenced backyard”
Tomo’s AI-powered search engine will deliver accurate results to make the home search process less complicated and more efficient. In addition, the use of computer vision will index images, identifying more than 200 attributes that go beyond the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, including popular features like—
- Water or mountain views
- Fenced backyard
- Swimming pool and/or sauna
- Fireplace (gas, electric, or wood-burning)
- Natural light
- Walkable neighborhood
At launch, Tomo Real Estate will provide access to key markets, covering 50 percent of real estate listings in the U.S.
Users will also have access to valuable intel such as home equity data and owner names.
- Equity data allows buyers to prepare negotiation strategies based on the seller’s financial situation.
- Names of the owner and other household residents are sourced from public record data and can help the buyer better understand the owner’s motivation to sell.
We’re not just another listing portal. Tomo Real Estate is here to give home buyers a distinctive advantage with real, actionable insights — not overwhelming them with a buffet of information and ads to decipher alone. Think of Tomo Real Estate as your strategic partner, paving the way for home-buying success.
Read the full announcement on the Tomo blog for more information.
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