Real estate is one of the largest consumer tech verticals there is — yet is lacking a major incubator/accelerator for seed stage startups.

Joel wrote about this in 2011, as did I (since 2011, I’ve gone through Start-Up Chile so I’m slightly more knowledgeable on the topic of incubators than I was 3 years ago). Going on 4 years later, not much has changed.

Narreach

Yes, there is REach by NAR. But they focus on companies looking to use access to the real estate industry to grow their business. Not those actually trying to innovate in the consumer real estate process. As you may know, any startup that doesn’t focus on listings in some capacity is likely all but doomed from the start. And REach doesn’t invest in start-ups focused on innovating in that area.

There’s Inman Incubator. I don’t see a class of 2014, so not sure if it’s still active?

FWD: a summit put on by Realogy with a $25,000 grand prize, not a full on accelerator that offers seed investment or long term help.

When will the industry see a big time player make a sizable investment in this area that results in real capital being invested into seed stage real estate startups?

You know what would seem to make a lot of sense?

techstars-logo

TechStars’ strategy is to partner with leaders in various verticals (Disney,Qualcomm,Barclays, Nike, etc) and run accelerators for them. Obviously the two huge players in our industry are Zillow Group (Zillow/Trulia/Hotpads/StreetEasy) and the the newly minted NewsCorp / Realtor.com. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them makes an investment in this space in the next couple years.

If you are an entrepreneur reading, would you apply to a TechStars-powered real estate accelerator?