In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Mike Simonsen from Altos Research. He’s a longtime friend of mine from the RE.net / real estate blogosphere that I spent many a REBarCamp hanging out with. There’s few, if anyone, who knows more about real estate market trends.

Without further ado…

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m the founder CEO of Altos Research. We do real estate data for people who care about such things. We track 100,000,000 homes around the country analyzing prices and market dynamics and output analysis every week. We work with thousands of Realtors across the country to help them answer the question “How’s the market?”

What problem does your product/service solve?

When I started Altos Research 13 years ago, no one knew anything about the real estate market. That had catastrophic consequences. Altos was the pioneer of real time market analytics. I was interested in understanding the data, in a world where obviously the existing data was horrible. Over the years, I’ve really grown fond of the Realtors and the real estate ecosystem and it’s a real joy to know that our products help those Realtors reach more consumers with a better experience.

What are you most excited about right now?

Now, there’s data everywhere. What hasn’t changed is the Realtor’s need to be the local expert for their clients. So as a company we focus on using market data to nurture your leads over the years that you know them, before they’re actually ready to sell or buy a house. A lot of the industry attention is on converting new leads, but we’re in the business of helping you develop those relationships over time.

What’s next for you?

A few years ago we rebuilt the entire Altos Research software stack. That kind of process takes a looong time. So right now we’re just growing the business, reaching new customers, helping more people do great stuff.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I’m the 2019-20 president of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization of San Francisco. EO is a global network of 15,000 business founders. It’s a learning and leading organization. EO has given me transformational inspiration, and it also affords me the opportunity to help others grow, learn, and develop.

Thanks to Mike for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop me a line (drew @ geekestatelabs dot com).