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The Ayrshire Group is a private equity firm with over $5.3 billion of capital under management.

With its Canadian head office based in Toronto, “Remine Canada will continue to serve Realtors and MLS operations across North America with its experienced team of professionals who understand local, provincial and national markets,” the company says.

The Remine team in Toronto will continue its focus on Remine Docs+, a full-featured forms, transaction management and electronic signature platform. The Canadian team also spearheads Remine’s work with PropertyFlow, a joint venture with FCT announced in December 2020.

“PropertyFlow will offer the Remine Canada platform a critical next step in supporting the Canadian real estate industry’s movement toward a more data-driven future,” the company says. “The platform will provide Realtors, brokers and MLS boards with access to MLS and broad public record data in a single consolidated view. Following board integration in the platform, Remine will allow Realtors to see on- and off-market properties in one place, while connecting in real-time with potential buyers or sellers. Remine’s Canada platform already provides consumers with the ability to view property listings and transaction details through a user-friendly digital hub.”

Emily Chenevert

Emily Chenevert, chair for MLS Technology Holdings and CEO of the Austin Board of Realtors and ACTRIS MLS, says, “MLSs have taken a backseat to advancing technology that serves our subscribers and consumers for far too long. At a time when consolidation is occurring across the industry, this investment ensures Remine remains with a team that’s dedicated to keeping brokers and agents empowered in the real estate transaction, for the benefit of the consumers they serve.”

Remine’s services cover much of the real estate market, including nearly 60 MLS markets representing more than 1.2 million real estate professionals across North America.

Liz Sturrock

Remine will remain an independent company under the new ownership. Mark Schacknies has resigned from his role as CEO of Remine and Liz Sturrock has been named interim CEO while a national search for a permanent CEO is underway. As chief of MLS and Innovation at Miami Realtors, Sturrock is a proven leader with over 20 years of experience in both the real estate and IT industries, the company says.

“Remine customers are in great hands with Remine’s strong and capable staff who have paved the way to their success thus far. We’re building upon that success by bringing a peer’s perspective to the table,” says Sturrock. “This move opens the door for MLSs to have a direct voice in determining how best to serve agents, brokers and consumers.”

Co-founders Jonathan Spinetto and Leo Pareja have assumed the roles of chief of staff operations and chief of strategy, respectively. Along with other management team

members, Spinetto and Pareja will help ensure a smooth transition and uninterrupted service for Remine customers, the company says.

“Remine was created by top-producing agents who were frustrated by a lack of intelligent technology solutions in the marketplace,” says Pareja. “This new chapter for Remine is a return to our roots and a unique opportunity to build upon a core technology that will pave the way for MLSs of the future.”

The company plans to launch an MLS Advisory Group to provide direct input on the future of the MLS and how Remine “can continue to anticipate and alleviate pain points in the homebuying, selling and renting process,” the company says.

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It says the platform was developed to address a growing need to modernize real estate payments in Ontario. “SureFund will free up resources for real estate lawyers and law clerks to work more closely with clients by saving significant time and effort from manual processes, such as running cheques, facilitating bank drafts, making deposits and co-ordinating with couriers,” says Teranet in a news release.

“Teranet has been a trusted service provider to legal professionals in Ontario for decades,” says Teranet CEO and president Elgin Farewell. “We are excited to once again extend and enhance the ability for legal professionals to collaborate and transact electronically more efficiently and securely, particularly as working remotely becomes the new normal.”

“Teranet’s rich experience in platform and registry technology will enable the modernization required for the transfer of funds when closing a real estate transaction, while leveraging the payment processing power of exclusive service provider, FCT,” says the company.

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The company says a number of individuals also participated in the round, including Mike Katchen, co-founder and CEO of Wealthsimple; Spencer Rascoff, co-founder and former CEO of Zillow and Pacaso through his firm 75 & Sunny; Eric Wu, co-founder and CEO of Opendoor; Lydia Jett of Softbank Vision Fund; and Jonathan Ehrlich, partner at Foundation Capital and former head of marketing at Facebook.

“We’re creating a future where Canadians can buy or sell a home with dramatically less friction and surprising simplicity,” says Anshul Ruparell, co-founder and CEO of Properly, in a news release. “We’re bringing best-in-class tools and services to the market to support our customers from their initial home search through to closing a home sale. As a result, we’ve experienced exponential growth, but we’re just at the start of our journey. We’re excited to use this financing to bring better services to Canadians across the country.”

Properly currently offers proprietary tools and services including:

• Sale Assurance: Gives homeowners the ability to unlock equity in their existing home so they can buy first, move in and sell on the market later
• Instant estimate: An online free home value calculator
• Discovery Portal: A portal for browsing home listings and previously sold homes, which the company says has a user base that’s growing by 90 per cent every month
• Properly Polish: Helps clients maximize their home’s sale price by providing a $20,000 interest-free advance for home improvements
• Skip The Showings: Accommodations will be paid for by Properly so home sellers can skip the inconveniences of home showings

“We have invested in several promising proptech companies in the U.S. and our investment in Properly is our first of this kind in Canada,” says Merritt Hummer, partner at Bain Capital Ventures. “The vision that Anshul and his team have to transform the home buying and selling experience and the unquestionable need for innovation in the Canadian real estate industry is what compelled us to invest in Properly. We are proud to lead their Series B financing to help accelerate their growth plans nationally,” he says in the news release.

“Investing in Properly is consistent with FCT’s desire to support innovative companies with strategies to streamline real estate transactions,” says Michael LeBlanc, CEO of FCT. “We look forward to supporting Properly’s vision to advance the real estate journey for Canadian homebuyers.”

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PropertyFlow will allow Realtors to see on- and off-market properties in one place, while connecting in real time with potential buyers or sellers, the companies say in a news release. It will also enable consumers to view property listings and transaction details through a digital hub.

Michael LeBlanc

“At FCT, we’re invested in driving the Canadian real estate market with improved access to data and greater transparency, both as a result of this venture and through all of our products and services,” says Michael LeBlanc, CEO of FCT. “Putting technology at the forefront of what we do allows us to consistently build value for our customers, while continuing to advance the digital transformation of the industry.”

He says PropertyFlow will be a one-stop shop for comprehensive real estate information for Realtors, including MLS listings. In an interview, LeBlanc said the venture has been approaching real estate boards across the country for several months.

“The boards, if they are in agreement, will give us a feed of the MLS data, which we then co-mingle with the data Remine and the application already contains and we customize the application for the various boards across the country,” he says.

He says the platform doesn’t have signed agreements with any of the boards yet, but “we anticipate being able to make announcements in the coming few months.”

FCT was founded in 1991. The Oakville, Ont.-based company has offices across Canada from Vancouver to Dartmouth, N.S. Initially the company was focused on the sale of title insurance.

It currently title insures more than one million transactions a year. It also started to expand its service offerings, including building a data business in Canada.

“One of the things in the Canadian marketplace that’s lacking is any consolidation of data generally,” says LeBlanc. “With the platform that we built we have started aggregating data in Canada to make it available to the real estate industry. As that evolved we came to meet the folks that run a company called Remine in the U.S. that has built a real estate platform that services the real estate industry in several ways.”

In addition to providing MLS data, “it also connects public record and other data sources including FCT’s unique data dictionary library, to allow for analytics of all of that data,” he says. This includes basic information around square footage of homes and their features, tax information, potential value based on neighbourhood scoring, average selling price of home in a neighbourhood, and the demographics and salary levels of a neighbourhood.

“It provides tools to the Realtor to identify potential opportunities for listings, selling price and also allows them the opportunity to invite one of their clients into the platform so that they can review active listings and other properties in the database,” says LeBlanc.

“In today’s marketplace, consumers are much more active than they previously have been in searching for properties before engaging a Realtor, but that experience continues once they have that engagement with the real estate agent.”

The platform also offers a proprietary digital transaction management tool that includes cloud-based document creation and e-signature components.

“What we’ve done is built some technology that allows Realtors to experience a digital experience with the forms that are required. . . It creates a more collaborative environment for Realtors, for buyers and sellers to work together to finalize the documentation for the Agreement of Purchase and Sale,” says LeBlanc. “It creates a digital document once executed that can be utilized by the lender, by the lawyers and others involved in the transaction.”

In a news release, Mark Schacknies, CEO and co-founder, Remine Inc. says: “Like FCT, we believe in an interconnected digital real estate journey. The Canadian real estate business is changing dramatically, and our proven success in delivering advanced technology to many organizations across the United States positions us well to navigate this shift. We look forward to working with FCT to improve the homebuying experience in Canada and remain at the forefront of the industry’s transformation.”

LeBlanc says, “In the current world, it will bring a lot of efficiency to the work that a Realtor does. It will also allow them to create digitalization for their customers to data that they wouldn’t necessarily have access to today.

“It will also significantly enhance the process of preparation and execution of the documents associated with the transaction. Think about tomorrow. And probably the reason why – significantly the reason why – FCT is engaged in this exercise is that as a company we view the opportunity to consolidate the real estate experience today… PropertyFlow will be the vehicle that will build that technology that will allow for that unification of the process, (which) is really disjointed today.”

Mario Toneguzzi

Mario Toneguzzi is a contributing writer for REM. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald, covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He now works on his own as a freelance writer for several national publications and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named in 2021 as one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the World by PR News – the only Canadian to make the list.

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As part of the network, FCT will integrate the Verified.Me service into its Verify+ platform, a service for lending professionals to complete identity validation and secure document transmission for direct-to-consumer lending channels, the company says. Once a borrower has agreed to the identity validation process, they will be guided through a workflow that integrates Verified.Me, allowing lenders to collect and validate a borrower’s information from a trusted provider, such as their financial institution.

Verified.Me uses these trusted connections to help verify identities, create accounts and access online services from other trusted organizations, the company says. It says it reduces unnecessary oversharing of personal information by providing consumers the choice of when and with whom their information is shared.

“We’re proud to support FCT’s adoption of digital identity in the real estate space and its commitment to support lenders through the identity verification process,” says Greg Wolfond, founder and CEO, SecureKey Technologies. “The relationship between lenders and borrowers relies on the secure exchange of information. By welcoming FCT to the Verified.Me network, we are excited to streamline online identity verification and eliminate the inconvenience that borrowers previously experienced through requirements to physically visit a branch.”

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“Buyers often fear that they may have to incur significant expenses soon after acquiring a home, and sellers may be hesitant to get an inspection at the risk of significant repair costs prior to listing their property,” says Jackie Chetcuti, head of HPS. “These products seek to reduce this anxiety by assessing over 400 features around the house through an independent home inspection, and provide warranty coverage on a property’s larger, stress-inducing blind spots that are often expensive to fix.”

Sellers can invest in an 18-month transferrable warranty and home inspection that can FCT says could potentially reduce days on market and increase the property’s overall selling price by removing the need for a buyer’s home inspection and reducing risks related to home quality.

For buyers, the warranty plan offers a comprehensive home inspection and 21-month $20,000 warranty, which goes into effect after the home inspection is complete.

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The new service combines a home inspection conducted before a seller’s home is put on the market with an 18-month warranty from FCT that is transferrable from seller to buyer.

“Sellers are able to enhance buyer comfort by reducing the risk to home buyers, especially in a multi-offer market that often precludes getting a home inspection,” says FCT in a news release. “The service was successfully piloted last year in the Niagara region and was embraced by local real estate agents and brokers as a valuable service.”

The warranty covers systems and components of the home that may be difficult to assess during the home inspection because of seasonality or accessibility. These areas often create the most anxiety for homeowners, particularly from a financial perspective, the company says. The coverage offers a maximum of $20,000 for the repair and/or replacement of the foundation, roof, heating and cooling systems.

“Certified Resale Home offers tremendous value to home sellers and protection to home buyers by streamlining the transaction, providing more information transparency, particularly about ‘blind spots’ such as the foundation, roof and heating and cooling systems,” says Mark Page, head of the initiative. He says it “ultimately reduces anxiety and friction points in the transaction.”

The new service is currently being launched in Ontario with plans to expand in the near future. Pricing is currently $689, plus HST, with some additional optional coverage available. It includes a full home inspection and coverage for the four major home components.

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“We feel the investment shows a high level of confidence in our vision for modernizing real estate transactions,” says Milan Baic, the co-chief executive officer.

DealTap works as a cloud application on various devices on multiple platforms. It allows buyers, sellers and agents access to centralized documents, and to sign, amend and track changes in real time without downloading complex software, the company says. Brokerages and teams can “use data-powered insights to re-engineer their operations and ensure the highest level of compliance on every transaction,” it says.

“When you combine offer creation, negotiation and digital signatures with the ability to truly understand and track your business in a secure and compliant way, you open the door to a new standard for everyone,” says Michael LeBlanc, CEO of FCT and DealTap board member.

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