Built by 4 uni students who got sick of the monopoly
Or: How 4 University Students Built This Between Classes and Late Nights
👋 Hey, we're the OffMarketAI team. Four uni students who met through mutual friends and ended up building something that's taking on Australia's biggest property monopoly.
It started over beers. We were complaining about how broken the property market was. One of us was helping their parents house hunt and watching them fight 80+ other buyers at every inspection. Another was watching REA charge their real estate agent family member $4,500/month for basic listings.
We thought: "What if we could use AI to completely bypass the traditional listing system?"
So we pooled our money (bad idea? probably), bought a domain for $12, and started building. No VC funding. No fancy office. Just four laptops, way too much coffee, and a shared hatred for inefficient markets.
The squad:
💡 Hunson: Had the vision and wouldn't shut up about it until we all agreed to build it
🎯 Rowina: Keeps us organized and makes sure we don't forget important things (like paying for servers)
⚡ Leo: Figures out how to actually make things work when we hit technical roadblocks
🚀 Bio: The marketing brain who convinced people to actually use our barely-working MVP
Six months later, we've got 500+ beta users and we're processing 25,000+ property listings. All while juggling our actual degrees.
We're disrupting fast
Real estate in Australia is broken. The average person spends 6-12 months looking for a property, fighting against 50+ other buyers at every inspection, and still missing out on homes they never even knew existed.
1. Finding a home shouldn't be a full-time job. Our AI does the searching for you, 24/7.
2. Everyone deserves access to off-market properties. Not just rich buyers with expensive buyer's agents.
3. Property search should cost $49/month, not $15,000+ in buyer's agent fees. We're making it affordable for everyone.
4. REA Group's monopoly needs to end. Competition drives innovation. We're bringing it.
We're not here to play nice with the establishment. We're here to completely reimagine how Australians find homes.
AI-powered property discovery that actually works
Most "AI property search" platforms are just fancy filters. We built something different:
🤖 Natural Language Processing: Tell us what you want in plain English. No dropdown menus, no complex filters. Just "3-bed house near good schools under $1.2M."
🔮 Predictive Analytics: Our AI predicts which properties are likely to come on the market before they're listed.
🕵️ Off-Market Intelligence: We scrape data from hundreds of sources REA doesn't touch. Property sales, council records, owner patterns, market signals.
⚡ Instant Matching: Get notified within minutes when properties matching your criteria become available. Not days later like REA.
All running on infrastructure that costs 1/100th of what REA spends. Because we're bootstrapped and have to make every dollar count.
Because the Australian property market is at a breaking point:
📈 Prices are insane. The median Sydney house is $1.5M+. Buyers can't afford to waste time or money on inefficient search methods.
🏦 Interest rates are volatile. When rates change, timing is everything. You need to move fast when opportunities appear.
🤝 REA's getting greedy. They raised agent listing fees by 15% in 2023. Agents are looking for alternatives.
🧠 AI finally works. LLMs like GPT-4 and Claude made it possible to actually understand natural language property searches. The tech is ready.
The stars have aligned for disruption. And we're here to capitalize on it.
Spoiler: It's ambitious AF
Month 0-3: Reach 5,000 active users. Prove the model works. (We're already at 500 in beta)
Month 3-6: Launch guaranteed owner outreach service. Actually contact property owners on behalf of buyers.
Month 6-9: Expand to Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide. Own the major markets.
Month 9-12: Launch API for buyer's agents. Let them white-label our tech. Make REA obsolete.
By 2026, we want to be the first place people go when they're looking for property. Not REA. Not Domain. Us.
And we're bootstrapping the whole thing. No VC overlords telling us to "focus on engagement metrics" or "monetize later." We're profitable from day one because we have to be.
Four students who probably should be doing other things
Had the idea and wouldn't shut up about it until everyone agreed to build it. Now in charge of making sure we're actually solving real problems, not just building cool tech.
Keeps everything running and organized. The only reason we remember to pay for servers and respond to support emails. Also the voice of reason when we want to add ridiculous features.
Figures out how to actually make things work when we hit technical walls. "It can't be done" is not in his vocabulary. Usually right about the architecture decisions we should've made.
The one who convinced people to actually try our barely-working MVP. Understands what normal humans want (unlike the rest of us). Responsible for us having actual users.
Or keep using REA and missing out on properties. Your choice.
We're looking for:
🏠 Early adopters who are tired of missing out on homes
💼 Buyer's agents who want better tech
💰 Investors who see the opportunity in backing a scrappy team
🛠️ Developers who want to help us scale (we pay in equity and free access)
🚀 Anyone who believes monopolies need to be disrupted
No credit card required. No BS. Just better property search.