New robot for realestate.co.nz

Introducing Tāhū, the little robot that makes the property process easier for sellers.

realestate.co.nz has enlisted the help of a robot, named Tāhū, to transform the property listing process for real estate agents, administrators, and vendors. A New Zealand first for a property portal, Tāhū has already improved accuracy and made the listing process faster.  

Sarah Wood, CEO at realestate.co.nz, says initial feedback has been positive:  

"Several listings can't be uploaded immediately to our site every day due to missing information. Tāhū means we will have another set of eyes constantly scouring the system, checking new listings for missing information, and notifying the real estate agent when there may be something they have missed – likely before they've even noticed the listing isn't live."  

She adds that Tāhū frees up agents and the realestate.co.nz team to focus on more complex tasks and ultimately better support buyers and sellers through the property journey.

Hence its name, Tāhū, which is te reo Māori for the main support beam that runs through the middle of a whare (house).

Powered by Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Tāhū can interact with various applications or websites like a human would while streamlining repetitive processes such as data entry.  

The robot currently does around 40% of all manual listing bookings and saves staff around 40 hours a week, the equivalent of one employee. Eventually, the robot will relieve even more workload from the team as Tāhū grows its knowledge and gets quicker as it learns.  

However, realestate.co.nz, which has more than doubled in size over the last five years, has no plans to replace people with robots.  

"We see the technology as a positive disruptor which enables the talented people in our business to spend more time on tasks that challenge them, enable them to grow, and ultimately bring more job satisfaction," says Sarah.

She adds that innovating the customer experience is in realestate.co.nz’s DNA:

"When realestate.co.nz started in 1996, people thought online listings were a silly idea. But thanks to an unwavering vision, realestate.co.nz was born, and now it's hard to imagine relying solely on newspapers when searching for property."  

When the site launched, listings could only be uploaded to the site once per day.  

“Adding API feeds in 2018 enabled real-time listing updates, but this created more work internally. The introduction of Tāhū has meant we’ve been able to streamline the process further."  

"As a tech-forward company, we are incredibly proud of our team's commitment to innovating the property journey," says Sarah. 

For media enquiries, please contact:

Hannah Franklin | hannah@realestate.co.nz

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