Product Roundup: Casavo, Houseful and DomClick

Here's this week's roundup of the new products and services being built by real estate marketplaces around the world...

Casavo relaunches Homeplus solution with new partnerships

The Italian, former-iBuyer, Casavo is set to relaunch its Homeplus platform with a suite of new partnerships.

Originally launched in 2022 as a platform offering home-buying services for people using Casavo's iBuying offer, Homeplus's website has undergone a temporary pause as it integrates several new partnerships, with the website starting "we'll be back soon".

Gloria Trevisan, Chief Marketing Officer of Casavo:

"We are happy to announce the news of Casavo Homeplus, a precious tool for those who are in the process of selling or purchasing a home and must necessarily think about a series of services useful for daily domestic life Casavo Homeplus is a versatile platform and an important tool to offer an even more complete experience to Casavo customers.

"Our goal is to further expand the number of collaborations with home brands in Italy and we are working to launch this project also in France". [translated from Italian]

Casavo's fortunes have turned dramatically since it raised €400 million in Series D funding in 2022, including laying off 30% of its staff, exiting the Portuguese market after just one year of operations and, even more significantly, abandoning iBuying altogether last year.

Alto launches AI-generated descriptions

Alto, part of Houseful (Zoopla), has added an AI-powered tool for generating property descriptions for its agent users.

The tool is free for all Alto users, allowing them to highlight key features to be included in the description, such as schools and transport links.

Houseful says the tool has received positive responses from agents since its rollout, with 73% of agents calling the tool 'useful'.

Riccardo Dawson, COO at Alto and Houseful, said:

"It’s been brilliant to see the positive reaction from our customers to this timely feature, which should be a real time-saver for agents.

"This is just the beginning for AI-powered property descriptions on Alto, with much more to come in the coming months around elements like tone of voice."

DomClick launches API chats for agents and buyers and adds an interior design service

DomClick, Russia's Sberbank-owned real estate portal, has added an API chats tool that allows would-be buyers to chat directly with agents from a property listing.

Agents will then receive a message through their CRM or company messenger system.

DomClick says the integration will reduce missed messages and meet customer demand - whereby users prefer to write to agents rather than make a phone call.

The portal also announced this week that it has also added an interior design service for homebuyers.

A multi-tiered product, the interior design service offers homebuyers outlines for renovations, damage repair, 'empty room' designs and full visualisations including furniture and specifications.

Prices vary from RUB16,900 ($190) for an 'express' option to RUB 49,900 ($562) for a bespoke package. The service is reachable in the 'My Real Estate' section of the DomClick portal and app.

Alexei Liepi, director of the DomClick division of Sber (the Russian bank that owns DomClick), said:

"When creating new services, we at Domklik adhere to a human-centric approach and strive to remain on the human side. In the “My Real Estate” section we have collected services that allow you to quickly and conveniently resolve any real estate issues. Now there is a new service for creating an interior design project from trusted contractors." [Translated from Russian]