The Built Environment Bulletin with Omer Granot, LocalizeOS

Welcome to ‘The Built Environment Bulletin’, with Tabitha Francis, our Q&A focused on the North American Built Environment.

Our Q&A series is an opportunity for our North American team to discuss all things Built Environment, Start-ups, and Career with different founders from across the region. Each week we will ask Built Environment innovators burning questions and quiz them about their products. We hope you find it insightful and enjoy getting to know the founders as much as we have.

This week we have been in touch with Omer Granot, CEO at LocalizeOS.

Headquartered in NYC, operating in NYC, Chicago and South Florida, with expansion to more major U.S. metros underway, LocalizeOS is building the most advanced Operating System for Real Estate. At Localize they believe that artificial intelligence has the power to transform the way real estate agents do business. By leveraging deep technologies, they help agents amplify their reach and create new opportunities. Whether it’s connecting with more qualified buyers, streamlining their workflows, or scaling their business, they are dedicated to providing real estate agents and brokerages with the services they need to succeed. Real estate is not a level playing field. With LocalizeOS, you get an unfair advantage. You. Amplified.

How did you find yourself in the Built Environment sector?

I have always had a passion for problem-solving and engineering creative solutions for large problems. This, combined with the leadership experience as a navy officer and the management experience working at other companies that are solving similarly large problems such as Amazon (online retail), Via (public mobility, and most recently LocalizeOS (real estate), inspired me to pursue a career in what may be one of the largest unsolved problems of today – making sense of the homebuying process (Built Environment sector).

Tell me about LocalizeOS

Our vision is to revolutionize the real estate industry by leveraging the latest technologies and partnerships to create the most inclusive and flexible operating system for real estate. We envision a world where real estate transactions are effortless. One where agents use proactive technology to accelerate transactions and provide the homebuyer with a transparent, best-in-class experience. By driving innovation and constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of the market, we strive to be the catalyst for the ecosystem of technology solutions in the digital age. Our motto is You. Amplified.

How do you think AI is transforming the real estate world and what’s LocalizeOS’s unique position in the market?

AI enhances the ability to perform with greater intelligence and speed. For LocalizeOS, in the residential real estate sector, this means that Localize takes away the repetitive and early transactional work for agents, automates a small percentage of it and leverages AI paired with specialized teams, to manage the rest. Our LocalizeAI operates at an above-human capacity, reaching thousands of buyers, having real time communication with each of them. We call it You, Amplified. Ultimately, our solutions are designed to empower you to achieve what you would otherwise do if you had unlimited resources, time and access to big data.

In 2023, our key initiatives are: 

• Efficiency. We are in an efficiency crisis and we are focused on optimizing performance and productivity of real estate agents and brokerages. . 
• Value creation. Teams are moving to leaner business models and eliminating waste.  So we are focused on building more AI functionality into our proactive technology to improve processes across the value stream in order to deliver more value to our agents. 
• Focus. The World is shrinking and going back to basics. We have to be super focused this year on the real estate agents’ needs and this is why we have created the infrastructure of an Operating System so that we can build upon it to better serve the unique and varying needs of this market. 

What advice would you give to someone looking to enter the Built Environment Industry?

Currently with rising interest rates and economic uncertainty, the real estate market looks less appealing for new agents to join and in similar cycles we’ve witnessed talent exiting the space. My perspective is that it is actually best to enter new markets when the stakes are high as it forces you to really focus on value creation, which is what we do at LocalizeOS. Do that, and you position yourself for success once the economic cycle is reversed and you’re already up and running in a more favorable business environment thus managing to reap the benefits of the investment.

What does the coming year hold for Localize? What are your expansion plans?

This year, the four parts of the LocalizeOS platform are now bundled, bringing together Control Center, Analytics, Marketplace, and AI. In addition, we are building an ecosystem of integration partners to create the most flexible, easy to use solution for the real estate community including  technology partners, brokerages and agents. We are headquartered in New York City and have been operating there for one and a half years. We have since expanded to Chicago and South Florida from West Palm Beach to Miami. We will continue to expand quickly across major cities in the U.S. in 2023 based on the demand for our services.

We will also be expanding our solution set. Natural Language Processing (NLP)  teaches Localize systems to be intelligent, learn from experience and understand human language to create the only true AI real estate operating system. Since we have built on a flexible infrastructure designed to be agnostic, we are ready to integrate with third-party systems to create an ecosystem of strategic partners and system integrators. Our image recognition system has analyzed >1 million images and counting, adding essential value to our data enrichment and customer profiling capabilities. As we work with more agent teams and brokerages this year, as well as other software companies, we will expand our solution to support the key solutions that residential real estate agents require to be successful.

Tell us about your approach to talent acquisition and how it has changed over the past few years?

LocalizeOS seeks talent that is exceptional. We have a thoughtful and transparent talent acquisition process. All of our applicants are screened for culture fit. It is important to a company’s success to promote a positive and inclusive culture and also to hire talent that shares in the company’s core values such as a customer-first and growth mindset, and a high regard for accountability and integrity. In this hiring process, we are committed to creating a diverse culture and workplace environment. We are proud that our leadership team includes an equal representation of women and men and that we continue to hire exceptional talent regardless of age, race, gender, background. 

Can you please share more about how your business is impacting the market?

We are excited that our solution is gender/race/budget agnostic. So, we provide unbiased, exceptional service to all, thus creating a more equitable service. Studies show that agents spend 90% of their time on non-revenue generating tasks and the NAR reports that fewer than 1% of leads convert. The future of real estate – the built environment –  a few years from now is one where deep technologies drive the process. LocalizeOS is making that future a reality by building services and tools on top of deep technologies that agents and brokerages can subscribe to and gain immediate value from. Empowered by these tools, agents become more efficient and ultimately close more business.