KGCI: Real Estate on Air - App Development: "1,000,000 Downloads On My App" (with Thomas Ma)

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Welcome to the Gold Bar podcast, where we speak with some of the most successful real estate agents, investors, and business professionals in the world. My name is Juan Carlos Baronecci, and I was able to build my real estate business to the point where it makes me more than half a million dollars a year working 100% virtually from home. If your goal is to close more deals and build a real estate business that brings you wealth, happiness, and peace, then this podcast is for you. What is going on, everyone? Juan Carlos Baranetti here, founder of us.

of Goldbar and you're listening to another episode of the luxury real estate podcast on today's actual interview. It's not just an interview. It's actually a breakthrough moment we're going to have just releasing to the world who Thomas Ma is. Thomas Ma, if you aren't aware, he's the founder and CEO of Real Messenger. And something he does very well is build applications to really provide agents with the tools they need to go out there and make more money.

Thomas, how are you? Thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Thanks for being here. So why don't you go ahead and just start off by telling us your story and telling us like how did Real Messenger come to bit? Yeah, I mean, Real Messenger, I'm a, I come from a real estate background too. In Hong Kong, I'm a real estate licensed broker, a licensed agent in Hong Kong back in the days.

So I deal with a lot of transaction as well and buy and sell and corporate landlords as well. And I know the pain point of agents. So we have to kind of like hustle every day. and new clients every every month we have to work on it. The grind never stops. It's always like 24-7 work, work, work. Yeah, we have to grind it. And it's just hard work.

So I thought of this app will create a platform for agents to create their own content and to get the followers, the social side of it. You know how Internet has developed, the technology has developed for many decades, but not for real estate, really. Correct. in a meaningful way.

So I developed this looking into helping the real estate agents, the community, and it's my second venture. And I decided to make it like a community as a chat platform first. And everything can fall into pieces for the whole product and the whole community. What's really cool is I actually just downloaded the app for the very first time today.

And it was like, this is a combination of WeChat, WhatsApp, Instagram, it has the real formats. But it's literally like, like Instagram for properties. It's really cool. How did you come up with the idea? Was it something like just you were in the shower and it just came to you or how did it play out?

Yeah, I mean, you know how big tech is. I mean, it's not everyone is very famous like yourself. So it's hard for us to become a inferenza in a national way or a big tech platform. But having an app specifically for real estate, I mean, everyone can become a nano-infraintraintraint. in their own area. So the work area is confined into a smaller area.

So they can be the nano inferenza and be searched and be discovered by the people who is interested in those areas. Interesting. And I played around with the app as a really good interface. Did you develop this yourself? Yeah. You have a coding background or how did you come to date? No, no, I don't have coding background.

But yeah, I have a good team in Hong Kong and in US. Yeah. Yeah, it's all built in-house. Very nice. So tell the audience, like, what does Real Messenger actually do? Like, what is the application for it? Why was it built? Yeah, so it's a chat app.

It's basically for agents as a tool for them to manage their clients, to manage the leads. And with really creating contents on it, we have real pins whereby, it's not just a listing. It's for agents to post whatever they recommend to their audience. And also we have a new product called Real Moment. It's kind of like story-like. So like the house at the bag, it's just like a few seconds of the house. We're going to have to post a real moment right here, right? Exactly.

And in the seafront, we have an amazing place right here. So the buy and sell decision is made in three seconds, really. Correct. I mean, afterward, it's just the diligent of the house, looking through every corner. But otherwise, the decision is made in three seconds. So we decided to not have it like a full walk around like 10 minutes. You know how those... You want like the 15 second, like straight to the point, I think.

Yeah, that's right. And people, consumers can consume those data a lot easier and in a fun way. So not just... It doesn't have to be in the buying or selling cycle. It's just a fun for them to browse through all the properties, check out Miami, check out anywhere in France. So it's an international app, there's properties everywhere, and this is agent-friendly, buyer-friendly, seller. It's basically for anyone that likes real estate.

Yeah, and it's worldwide. So we are in 35 countries right now. So agents around the world is on it. You're basically creating like an international off-market MLS, which is something that a lot of brokerages and MLS have been trying to do, but it's just so tough connecting everyone. And you guys are already up to how many users? Oh, just nearly a million now. Oh my, congratulations. That's amazing.

What's the angle? Is it to grow it to 5, 10, 15 million and make it like the biggest international platform for real estate in the world? Yes. We want to be the centerpiece of the real estate industry. So everyone connects on real. And that way, I mean, it's to help the efficiency of the whole industry. I mean, there's the money, the mortgages. the agent side, other professionals, all live in one app.

So consumer will have all those good stuff. All the benefits of that. So that's amazing. So now let's go ahead and pivot. Basically, we have this Messenger app. It's pro-agent, meaning it's driven by agents coming to the platform and posting the listing and stuff like that. What happens if in the future we shift away from buyer agency?

I'm sure you've been hearing about these lawsuits and all that. What's your opinion on that? I mean, US is very unique. it's a due agent system. So it's proper due agent system. But around the world, mostly it's not. But this system ensure that our real estate agents in here are giving true value, like the open house and giving value to the buyers, to the sellers. And I think it's a great system to have, but it's just unfortunate that we have all these lawsuits going on. I would say consumer thinks that the listings is out there.

out there in a complete manner. Yeah. And they take it for granted. Later on, I think if this thinks that the commission actually breaks, I think the listings will go to the brokerages and it will be fragmented, it will be privatized. Well, my opinion is exactly that. It's like right now, the cooperation allows the exposure of that listing to be everywhere.

And syndicate to everywhere. And to be syndicated everywhere, not just on the real estate portals, but to other companies. and it just encourages everyone to come in. And the second that it goes private to a brokerage, it's like you're getting 10% of the exposure. So I think from a seller perspective, you want to pay out a little bit more in order to go out there and get a higher price for your property.

And I was telling one, the more exposure, the higher the price you're going to get. So tell us about the international markets, because I'm not too familiar how it works. Like, how does it work in China and in Europe when it comes to the agency? Because you're telling me, like, in the U.S., it's very unique, right?

Yeah. In Hong Kong, it's still kind of like a due agency, but it's effectively representing both sides. And it turns out that the listings falls into a few brokerages and they have, they have spies on getting listings from the other brokerages and all that. So, well, not exactly spy, but you need to get around

to get all the listings. Correct. And the market is, it's basically a... It's like a wild, wild west, free for all. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And agency quality is then therefore the end the barrier of entry is so low because it's just while west and everyone can enter and without any any knowledge, any, any, any expert in any area. Youngster can just quickly come in and compete with the with the best of the best. Wow. And so, so it's not good for it's actually not good for consumer. I mean yeah you if you want to sell a house, you find

the best agents to represent you. And that way you get the value for when you're saying. For your buck. I think the best thing for the seller is obviously always getting the most exposure. And with your app, that's actually a really big pro. Because now, even if you want to go ahead and do it off the market, you could go ahead and promote it within off the market,

like actually get agents to go ahead and start kind of like getting a feel for your listing. You get some good feedback on it. You started this back in 2018, right? Yes. Okay, very cool. And now with Real, you're going out there, you're getting the exposure out there, you're going to continue growing.

Where do you see the industry headed, like as far as like it innovating and changing over the next couple of years? Yeah, I mean, a lot of portals, like, yeah, Zillows and the redfinns, yeah. So, I mean, they do a lot of services around the system A, estimate and all that. But it's all a marginal use of technology. Correct. So everyone's talking about AI on real estate, but there's no meaningful AI product that actually. actually helps, or even help the agents, but help the buyers of sellers. But for us, I think we are centralized in an app, we are not on a website.

So there's a lot of variable data on it. So we can kind of understand the home buyers or sellers, their preferences probably even greater than themselves. And that's the whole thing, like on Instagram, when you're scrolling and you go ahead and you stop somewhere, picks up the algorithm, so you have the same capability for that. Exactly. Interesting. So that way, consuming the content will be a lot more smarter. Instead of going through a database, through a map style search, you actually get feed by the information. And it's short form. It can be short form. So it's very...

I like... So for example, we're in for a lot of that right now in this beautiful setting. And let's say I want to look for a six-bedroom, three-bath, contemporary-style home. If I'm scrolling on your app right now, when I stop and I only look at these types of homes, does that mean the Apple's like start showing me more of those types of homes? Yeah, that will make interesting. That will be, that will be. It's almost like Zillow, but you have like the Instagram algorithm component, and then when you combine it together, you throw in some social media, and boom, you got real.

And also we've got the agents component in it. So we don't charge agents to create content unlike all other bottles. Okay. So all other photos basically, you know how, how they're objective, if you go to the mission statement, they all say, we help you find the best home. But never, ever, none of the photos say. they will help the agent. The agent, yeah.

And they are charging the agent all the time. Yeah. And most of the revenue from these portals is from the agents. From the agent, exactly. So they are not, so, but for us, we got this agent's component into it. So not only it's just to help them find the home, it's help them to find a perfect agent. So the content of the agents that is continuously creating is interested to that person. We will continue to feed them.

And every agent is their own authentic self. Yeah. They are going to attract people that based on their own. based on their own content and stuff with it. So everyone have their own profile. They can share their own listings or the market listing as well, popular listings. And then they can share the real moments on our,

so like for instance, a day you check out three, four, five house. You just take a few seconds and post it there and all your audience will get to see it. It's literally a social platform for agents. Yeah, I mean, very cool. Yeah, and then we match the perfect agents to the consumer. To the consumer itself.

And then do you guys monetize through selling leads or is it more like a subscription-based platform we we yeah we are very strong on not taking buying selling leads we are more about productivity tools okay so so you know how agency when you talk to a client's or yes you take a long time right and especially new leads yes it really takes a long time to to understand if they are a true buyers or what nurture them qualify them yeah and then and find their preferences and all that but But when you are connected on Real, we give you the analytics of their profile, of the preferences.

So that process becomes a lot smarter and a lot streamlined. And we have the AI assistant for subscription, increase the productivity for agents. And that way, the agents can kind of like automate the onboarding, the filtering of leads as well in their presence. So by the time they go ahead and speak with these leads, or maybe the leads reach out to them, right? Like the leads may actually message them on the platform, they already have a really good understanding of their preferences and stuff like that. Yeah.

So our AIA assistant will give them a summary on the first few chat. Yeah. It can be determined by the agents, chat with others people. And then so how they're going to say, describe the property. And we can give them a baseline help on the onboarding of new leads. It's so interesting because with our training platform Goldbar, I was sharing my agents, go out there, show the client a couple of properties, and then based on their feedback on the first three, four, five listings telling you what they're

want you get a better understanding and then you start fine-tuning it and I would tell the client the second I could understand what's in your brain like if I can magically download in your brain and get it into my brain I'll find you the house like that but that process could take a month two months who knows how long with your platform we can now start showing them immediately exactly what they're looking for yeah you can look into what the preferences are and why have they have been interested in and yeah and and also to the consumer the buyer sellers they can expand the search you know how how a lot of a lot of people buying

they will probably have an idea of what kind of area they want. But they never go out of the box. But for us, we can kind of like feed them relevant stuff that is in the price range, in their preferences, in their, if you want to see C-Vues, we can give them a little bit further down or a little bit further out. Correct.

And yeah, and that way we match the agents around those areas for him as well. The thing I like the most is there's so many agents producing continent social media in an effort to generate clients and Instagram is great for that Facebook is great we have YouTube shorts but the issue is a lot of the time people aren't using these platforms to look for real estate yeah exactly so they find the real estate agent they produce really good content but unless they're in the market at that time they don't want to go ahead and follow them it's because the big

tech don't distribute those content okay there's other topics the entertainment side of it correct the laughing stuff and the humor and all that yeah and real estate side is it's a big niche and so basically they don't distribute unless you are a really famous person. So do you see a lot of influencers jumping onto your platform and saying I'm going to create 10 pieces of content a day, grow my following, and then they would just start getting tons of leads? I think I'm going to hop on right now. I mean I set out this app tool to help each every agent around the world in terms of different system as well in Hong Kong, in

Europe, in UK basically agents is about self branding and their expertise in the in the neighborhood. So we need a piece of tech that help them to get it out. Yeah, but I love it because if they are very, we'll call it social media friendly, and they're creating content every single day, but they aren't getting results, some agents get discouraged,

but on this platform, it's almost like the more content they create, the more leads they get, the bigger they're following they get. Yeah, yeah, that's correct. So the more quality content, you get rewarded by potential leads and all that. Very cool. So in regards to, Any difficulties and growing the platform?

Have you encountered any challenges or is everything just going grave as you got to a million? It's a social app. So it's difficult. Very difficult in the start. So luckily we have a breakthrough and then we are in a short period of time. We nearly reach a million downloads. Wow. And this isn't five years, right? No, no.

Well, we developed it in a bit and then we launched it like last year. Oh, no kidding. Yep. So you get in a million in about close to like a year now? Yep, that's right. That is really fast. Wow. Yeah, and we have a, we're fortunate to have a, have a, have a, have a spec listings going on.

It will be, will bring us to NASDAT listing. Yes. In, in probably, well, I don't know if I can say that. Yeah, well, we'll say very soon. Yeah, very soon. Very cool. Congratulations on that. Thank you very much.

And then, no, just to kind of wrap up, very valuable information. Obviously, if you listen to this, you want to check out real messenger. I'm going to start creating content on that. Okay, thank you. I just putting myself out. I want to be my, the micro-influencer there. Okay. But where do you see?

the micro labor. There you go. Where do you see the industry going, like over the next couple of years? Like, do you see it becoming primarily like listing heavy? Do you see a lot of people starting teams? Do you see a lot of people going off and building their own independence? If you had to describe the future of real estate, what would you say? I think a lot of traditional brokerages agents will move into cloud brokerages.

Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. And I think that will be the trend for the world as well. well. Yeah, and I think it depends on the lawsuit how it goes. A lot can be changed. Right. Listings might not be available in a complete manner over from MLS to syndicate out. That might change. So it's it's an uncertainty time for our industry. Yeah. And around the world with the interest rate hike, I mean, I mean, basically there's not much transaction.

compared to a few years ago. Yeah, we're in a very strange time as far as the market goes. And some people are saying this is the bottom, because we've been in the recession for the last like two years now. But I'll be honest, it's like the amount of supply that's in the market is still very low. So it's like very strange where like we're technically in a recession, but the prices are still sky high. They haven't really dropped.

So I'm curious to see where everything goes. My biggest opinion on the entire industry is that the future is going to be for luxury agents. No matter what happens, whether it's prop tech, whether it's fintech, whether it's institutional buyers, whatever it is trying to come in there and kind of disrupt the entire industry, I see agents breaking into luxury as one of the best ways to recession proof their business just because higher network individuals are not just going to go out there and use an app to go out there and buy real estate directly. So I think agents breaking into a higher price point and really working on their skill set could completely change everything. Do you see a lot of luxury properties being advertising your platform? Yes.

Primarily we start off with luxury agents. Oh, okay. And we can, I mean, any agency. agents can perform well in our app. But yeah, I do agree with you. Luxury agents is going to be the main focus and everything. Very cool. And then Thomas, just to go ahead and wrap up, you're a very successful entrepreneur, right?

Any recommendation you would make as far as a book to anyone listening that wants to get into the real estate brokerage side or maybe they want to start their own company one day? What would you your biggest recommendation? Find one. I appreciate that. Thank you. But do you have a favorite book that you've ever read, like growing up for anything that really inspired you? Books? I am a tech entrepreneur.

I read, I like zero to one. Okay. For any tech startup, I think that books actually gives a lot of guidance on how you distribute the app and how you can grind through the early stage. And yeah, I like zero to one. Zero to one. Peter, he was the co-founder of PayPal, right? Very cool. Awesome. Okay, cool. Thomas, thank you so much for having us. You've been absolutely great. Thomas, thanks so much for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you.