LJ Hooker's think-tank LJX-Lab offers hybrid model

LJ Hooker's think-tank LJX-Lab has developed an online and offline real estate agency model to work in partnership with the LJ Hooker business.

Named Settl, it is led by a start-up team staffed with people from Uber, Atlassian, Freelancer and Airtasker. It has been in development for 18 months and is expected to launch Q2 2017. 

L Janusz Hooker, chairman LJ Hooker, said LJX-Lab is perfectly placed to create and commercialize 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," he said.

“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.

 “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.

“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.”