Realtors can spend up to 35 hours on administrative tasks to close a single deal, according to Raz Zohar, who left his job in tech to work as an assistant in the industry to uncover its pain points. This realization sparked a “lightbulb moment,” inspiring him to create Mave—an AI-powered assistant designed to streamline tedious workflows and empower agents to focus on what they do best: serving clients and closing deals.

At its core, Mave uses AI technology to streamline tasks. Realtors interact with the tool through messaging platforms like WhatsApp or iMessage. For instance, an agent might text, “What’s the pet policy for ‘X’ building? When was it built? Does it have rent control?” Mave retrieves and organizes relevant information in seconds, enabling agents to provide instant answers to clients—avoiding the dreaded “let me get back to you” response.

Supporting agents in two key roles

Zohar identifies two primary roles agents juggle: consultant and marketer. Mave is designed to support both areas.

When representing a buyer, agents must act as consultants to help solve their problems, while for sellers, he adds, it goes beyond winning the deal. “Clients want agents to sell their property as fast as possible for the most amount of money,” Zohar notes.

Tasks that traditionally take days—such as creating social media strategies, filming scripts and promotional campaigns—can now be completed in minutes. Agents can quickly produce polished, branded content for platforms like TikTok, Instagram and email, driving engagement and results with minimal effort.

Mave is set up to adhere to brand guidelines for compliance. This means if agents need to market a property with, say, a social media post, a feature sheet or other collateral, they can text their request, and in a few seconds they’ll have branded content ready to go.

How Mave was born

Zohar’s curiosity was born from his own experience in buying a home—he knew his Realtor was working hard behind the scenes, but admittedly, he didn’t know what they were doing. He saw an opportunity for innovation in an industry often criticized for being slow to adopt new technology. 

He began with a question: What do Realtors actually do during those 35 hours? To understand, he quit his job in tech to work as a real estate executive assistant, immersing himself in the processes behind winning listings, staging homes, arranging repairs and managing marketing.

“The only way was to become someone in the industry doing the dirty work that no one sees.,” he explains. This hands-on experience revealed inefficiencies, particularly for brokerages grappling with shrinking margins and limited resources to hire full-scale marketing teams.

Agents often relied on outdated processes or had to wait days for in-house teams to deliver materials. With Mave, Zohar says those delays are eliminated, allowing agents to act quickly and decisively.

Adoption and growth

Mave started small but has rapidly scaled, onboarding nearly 6,000 agents across 90 brokerages in the Toronto area. Of the 1,000 beta users actively engaged, about 60 per cent use Mave daily, according to the company’s founder. 

Zohar emphasizes that trust is non-negotiable. “If an agent’s showing a home and Mave says it’s 10 bedrooms but it’s really one bedroom, you’re just not going to trust it,” he says. Mave’s engineers ensure data accuracy and train the AI to minimize errors.

Still, Zohar and his team see certain situations where AI needs to be fact-checked and reviewed “because it’s performing about 30 steps in one.” So, they advise users to thoroughly review any deeper analysis from Mave to be sure the results look right.

Collaboration with boards and data providers

The tool’s functionality hinges on partnerships with real estate boards and data providers. Zohar cites PropTx, a tech-focused initiative of the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), as an example of industry interest in innovation.

While TRREB President Jennifer Pearce clarified that the board has no formal partnership with Mave, highlighting in a statement, “TRREB is a facilitator of technology for our members who are permitted to have individual contractual agreements with Virtual Office Website providers of their choosing.”

Mave takes data security seriously, adhering to strict protocols from real estate boards and brokerages. “Whenever we onboard a brokerage, we must go through a legal process we’ve guaranteed with the boards to sign off on the right to access data,” Zohar explains.

Human touch meets AI efficiency

Despite Mave’s capabilities, Zohar believes human interaction remains at the heart of real estate. “Psychologically, consumers are going through what’s usually the most meaningful purchase of their lives. They want support, a human touch and to feel that there’s a trusted companion by their side. This isn’t going to change because of AI,” he says.

Currently, Mave has onboarded one thousand users in Southern Ontario to its beta program with plans for expansion across North America. 

Zohar’s ultimate goal is to reduce administrative time by up to 90 per cent. For now, Mave continues to refine its features and onboard more users, aiming to revolutionize real estate by giving agents their time back.

Today, Mave, an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for the real estate industry, announced it has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding and launched its beta program for agents and brokers.

The investment was raised and closed in a few weeks and was led by Relay Ventures and N49P with participation from Alate Partners, Clarim Ventures, Gambit Partners, along with several angel and strategic investors including a past president of the Toronto Real Estate Board.

Mave’s journey to today

After Mave founder and CEO Raz Zohar worked as an executive assistant for agents across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and gained experience with the demands on agents’ time, he discovered a gap: brokerages try to support agents, but with their commission split per deal getting smaller, many lack the resources for dedicated backend assistance.

So, Mave began as a result of this opportunity, along with the rapid improvements in AI and large language models (LLM).

“Not much has changed in recent years about the way the real estate industry operates. To modernize their brokerages, many look to existing tools for help. But these can be overwhelming for agents … Mave is the first solution we’ve seen that really solves the core problems the industry faces in a way that is easy enough for any agent to adopt,” says Alex Baker, managing partner at Relay Ventures.

Its current state

Mave currently has a team of 10. While the product has been operating in stealth mode, it has attracted interest from over 6,000 real estate agents across more than 90 brokerages in the GTA. From these prospective users, Mave has selected 1,000 to initially onboard as part of its beta program.

The team has worked to secure access to extensive market data and related property information through partnerships with real estate boards and other data providers. As the Mave AI assistant is trained using this information, it enables agents to harness market and neighbourhood insights to respond instantly to client requests and deliver a greater level of customer service.

”While our initial focus is on handling marketing tasks, with the funding in place we’re expanding our development to establish Mave as a full-time assistant,” says Zohar. “Mave will handle key back-end administrative tasks, from coordinating an open house to finalizing contracts better and faster than ever before.”

Baker adds, “We believe in Raz and his team and are confident that this is the right approach for the industry.”

How Mave works

Agents text questions to Mave such as “What is the price per square foot of homes in “X” postal code?” Then, in seconds, Mave can automate backend tasks, such as creating social media posts, marketing materials, emails and presentations.

The product fits into existing workflows, enabling agents to interact with the AI assistant via text messages just as they would their real assistants to get tasks done.

Use cases

The number of reported daily wins and use cases shared by agents testing the platform have exceeded Mave’s expectations. For example, for one agent participating in the beta program, the ability to immediately respond to a client’s questions and very quickly price the property enabled them to secure a listing within 24 hours.

Another agent that used Mave to optimize a listing saw showings go from zero to 11 in one week. A third used Mave to create the concept, script, post and caption for an Instagram campaign that led to a sale for $100,000 over-asking price.

Among the first Mave beta customers is PSR Brokerage, a luxury boutique real estate firm with over 150 agents in Southern Ontario. The brokerage specializes in resale and pre-construction sales, supported by high-end marketing services for its clients. Within the first week of signing up for the Mave beta program, 60 per cent of agents are actively using the AI assistant at least six times per week.

“Clients have high expectations of realtors to know every detail about thousands of listings,” notes Joshua Chisvin, VP of resale, partner at PSR Brokerage. “With Mave, we finally found the perfect solution to enable our teams to meet this demand effortlessly.”