Flyhomes acquires ZeroDown

Seattle-based real estate brokerage platform Flyhomes has acquired ZeroDown , a San Francisco-based startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that develops AI-fueled software for prospective homebuyers. Flyhomes is also launching an AI-powered home search portal to bring “conversational real estate search and research to the market.”

Developed over the past two years, the newly rebranded Flyhomes portal was designed under the guidance of ZeroDown co-founders Laks Srini and Abhijeet Dwivedi, who have joined Flyhomes as chief technology officer and chief growth officer, respectively. The platform is designed to expand the amount of information that prospective homebuyers can find online.

“Historically, buyers have had unlimited access to agents without ever needing to compensate them for their time. The settlement of the commission lawsuits mandates that buyers now sign a contract to compensate their agents directly before touring homes or even identifying potential properties. This barrier of signing a contract upfront will cause many buyers to delay reaching out to an agent, limiting their access to the information agents provide. This will create a massive friction in the market, and AI is reaching technical maturity at just the right time to be the solution.” – Tushar Garg, CEO at Flyhomes.

Flyhomes is currently active in 28 states and Washington, D.C. – covering roughly 75% of the U.S. population – with plans to expand in the near future. Its search engine features hundreds of data points from more than 40 unique sources. It is able to access property records at the state, county and city levels, and it also draws from federal data through the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).