Eric Elfman took over the helm of the real estate tech giant in June and is ready to take on competitors, further deepen AI and “return to customer-centricity.”
Key Point:
- Elfman said MoxiWorks is revamping its platform to better account for “the new realities of agents.”
- He believes the industry, including MoxiWorks, is “ripe for disruption.”
- Coming from a tech startup background, Elfman sees an opportunity to use AI to tap into the industry’s vast amounts of data.
As the real estate industry continues to deal with disruption from fee litigation and settlements, the new CEO of a major real estate technology company has plans to cause some disruption of his own.
Eric Elfman, who became CEO of MoxiWorks in early June, told Real Estate News that the old world of real estate technology has left many vendors “fat, stupid, and happy,” but that needs to change, especially given the rapid growth of artificial intelligence.
“When OpenAI and generative AI really hit the market, it caught a lot of vendors off guard, so I think some vendors are jumping on the bandwagon with marketing jargon, while others, like Moxi, are taking a more pragmatic approach,” Elfman said.
For MoxiWorks, this approach means rethinking the economics of brokers and agents who will be adapting to new ways of doing business in the wake of the company’s $418 million settlement with the NAR.
It also means the development of a new generation of the platform, due to go on sale at the end of the year and be widely available from summer next year.
“In the near term, we’re getting back to being customer-centric and building a new platform that understands the new reality for agents in unique and innovative ways,” Elfman said.
What is that new reality? “With buyer-side commissions clearly uncertain, property at the heart of things, and fewer properties available, agents need to become more competitive to win properties. That means working smarter and leveraging technology.”
Bringing a startup perspective to Proptech
Elfman comes from a background in the fast-paced technology startup world, a different world than much of the real estate industry, which is notoriously slow to move when it comes to new technology. He’s led companies he founded for the past 25 years, and he hopes to bring that same entrepreneurial spirit to MoxiWorks, propelling the company forward in an industry he says is “on the brink of disruption.”
“I believe all the major players, including MoxiWorks, have the potential to be completely disruptive,” Elfman said. “As most B2B companies mature, they innovate less, and with more customers comes more support and roadmap challenges, and a focus on profitability that works against the innovation and customer centricity that made the company what it was in the first place.”
Using AI to unearth untapped data
Elfman said that from an outside perspective, the real estate industry has lagged behind other content-rich markets.
“I think a lot of real estate tech companies, and MoxiWorks is one of them, have tons of data that isn’t really being used to optimize with AI,” Elfman says. “We’re hiring data scientists to comb through our data and figure out where we can use AI most effectively and most quickly.”
“You won’t hear any empty marketing jargon about AI at MoxiWorks. We will announce our strategy once we have something that makes sense for the market. It all starts with analytics,” Elfman said.
Ready to take on the competition
In addition to building the next-generation platform, Elfman said the company wants to focus solely on creating something that helps real estate agents of all sizes list properties.
“If MoxiWorks were a factory, one widget we produce is listings for agents,” Elfman said. “Our goal is to focus all our energy on helping our agent users find, acquire and close more listings.”
It also means fighting competitors for market share.
“We know there is some empty rebranding going on in this market, but we’re not going to get caught up in a war of words. We’re going to open up a new front with advanced capabilities against the large incumbents and all the newcomers trying to disrupt them,” Elfman said.
