Broker Public Portal Rebrands as Cribio

Real Estate News has reported that the Broker Public Portal (BPP) has rebranded as Cribio.

Founded in 2014 and built on the foundations of unbiased display of listings and lead distribution to the listing brokerage or agent, BPP is a collaborative venture between 112 real estate brokerages and MLSs to create a national consumer home search experience in the United States.

BPP CEO, Dan Troup, and VP of Products, Tyler Olmsted, told Real Estate News that the rebrand to Cribio will make it easier to define the business in the future and reflects the company's shift towards a consumer brand, not an agent brand. A Cribio app is expected to launch before the end of the year.

Troup said:

"Cribio is a consumer brand, not an agent brand. We think there's a more interesting way to do this that's totally consumer-first, and about getting the properties in front of them and not trying to sell them something along the way. [We want to build something ]very familiar, but with a twist.

We are competing with [the big portals] technically, and we very much feel that way internally.

"We need MLSs to back us; we need brokers to back us. I don't care how great our consumer experience is, but if I go to Denver and there's no properties there, what are we even doing?"

Troup added that transparency coming out of the portals is underwhelming, commenting that "providing the metrics of how people search [has] always been held within portals," suggesting that companies like Zillow do not share consumer search information with the industry it represents.

Olmsted said:

"[Cribio wants] to prove that within the industry we can build for consumers without compromise. Traditionally, when the industry has built real estate tech, it's not for the consumer. Ultimately, it ends up being for the brokerage or the agent, or about getting leads."

Cribio's mandate is to break even, not to make a profit, and will charge MLSs a nominal fee of 50 cents per member, per month, to participate on the platform.

Referencing CoStar Group's residential portal, Homes.com, Troup commented that the company "doesn't have Lil Wayne money. We can't make a Super Bowl commercial," and the company will instead focus on relationship-building strategies to grow the business.