Localize.city, a startup that provides information about New York City homes and their surroundings, has unveiled an updated website and has announced plans to roll out in Chicago.
The site, which deploys artificial intelligence to gather data on nearby schools, development projects, weather and noise pollution, among other local conditions, will now also feature an updated design that allows users to compare the pros and cons of individual neighborhoods scattered across New York City’s five boroughs and, soon, neighborhoods in Chicago. The data is gathered by various data scientists, urban planners and cartographers and then combined when a user searches for a specific property, Localize.city President Steven Kalifowitz told Inman.
“For each listing, our new platform reveals the pros and cons, providing a deep dive analysis of the apartment, the building and immediate surroundings,” Kalifowitz said. “This information can save home hunters a lot of time that is currently wasted spent visiting homes that are not suitable, and save them from surprises that they wouldn’t encounter until after moving in.”
Although Localize.city’s services have been confined to residents of New York City’s five boroughs since launching in 2016, the company is rolling out in Chicago later this month and in an additional 20 cities by the end of 2020, Kalifowitz said.
“It’s pretty amazing that you can know anything about a restaurant before choosing to go there, but when it comes to homes, current real estate portals primarily offer ads written by the seller or their agent,” Kalifowitz said. “You can’t really know what it will be like to live there before moving in — at which point it’s too late.”
A subsidiary of Israeli real estate platform Madlan, Localize.city began with a $3 million seed round and $8 million in series A funding from Israeli investors Zvi Limon and Avigdor Willenz.
“We are using machine learning and AI the way Netflix and Amazon have — tailoring recommendations based on personal preferences — and are applying it to support the most critical and costly decision anyone makes,” Localize.city CEO Asaf Rubin said.
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