LJ Hooker today announced the first stand-alone business to come out of LJX-Lab. Settl will be a new hybrid online to offline real estate agency model that will be scaled in partnership with the LJ Hooker network to meet new trends in consumer needs.
Settl is part of LJ Hooker’s $100 million digital transformation and has been in research and development by LJX-Lab for the past 18 months. It is led by a tech-startup team including players from pioneering tech-giants Uber, Atlassian, Freelancer and Airtasker.
Expected to launch in Q2 2017, a press release stated that Settl will operate as a new separate entity with its own leadership team and will work in partnership with LJ Hooker’s 8,000-strong real estate network. LJ Hooker will provide a platform of training and development for Settl agents, as well as helping Settl to scale during its launch phase.
LJ Hooker Chairman L Janusz Hooker said LJX-Lab is perfectly placed to create and commercialise PropTech like Settl in Australasia.
“Australia is on the cusp of a wave of property innovation. By leveraging our global network of 650 offices and partners to identify the best home grown inventions and entrepreneurs, LJX-Lab is in a unique position to develop and launch technology for the real estate industry.
“Settl is a great example of this, a new business created to satisfy the needs of emerging digital-native consumers. In Australia, this segment is estimated to only be a few percent of today’s market, however it could grow up to 10 percent by 2025.
“We have been closely monitoring global trends for several years, and have seen new models gain momentum in overseas markets like the UK. Settl will open up this new market in Australia, giving digital-natives the choice and control they want,” he said.
Created specifically for Australia as a home-grown digital-hybrid agency, Settl is the second development to come out of LJX-Lab. It follows the successful launch of Real Edge, a digital learning and coaching platform that delivers world best practice training online anywhere anytime for real estate professionals.
Mr Hooker commented: “Australia is a unique market with its own distinct circumstances – and we’ve seen time and time again that standardised overseas models are not overly successful here.
“LJ Hooker has been a real estate pioneer since my grandfather’s days, and with 88 years of experience serving millions of Australians with their property needs, we have in-depth knowledge of the evolving needs of Australian consumers and our local property market.
“We see the ongoing human value added from agents a critical part of real estate services into the future. To ensure customer satisfaction, Settl’s unique hybrid “online to offline” model aligns the agent 100 percent with the vendor’s result.”
“By developing a model that is custom-built by Australians for Australia, and scaling it with the LJ Hooker network, we will bring more choice to consumers while growing an exciting new market for the entire industry.”
