Avenue 8, The Modern Brokerage For The 21st Century

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Bringing expansive tech innovation to the real estate market, Avenue 8 is the first fully mobile residential real estate brokerage in the country, taking transactions fully out of a bricks-and-mortar office and onto mobile devices. Already a success in California In its first year, the firm just completed a second round of venture financing to take it to another level, a leap which includes expansion into the fast-moving and lucrative New York and Miami markets later in 2021. 

Co-founded by Justin Fichelson, one of San Francisco’s top residential real estate agents, and Michael Martin, former managing partner at the digital creative agency Code and Theory, Avenue 8 has seen 25% compounded monthly agent growth and 96% customer retention since launching in March 2020– in large part due to the proprietary technology powering the Avenue 8 platform, which produces 4x more effective marketing ROI than industry benchmarks and saving agents hundreds of hours and unlocking millions of dollars in potential commission. In addition to seamless transactions, the firm offers the Avenue 8 Valet, a service for sellers to bring their homes to market in the most attractive way possible, with fees paid only after the sale is completed.

Michael Martin (l) and Justin Fichelson (r) of Avenue 8

The partner’s timing was both forward-thinking and fortuitous, with the Covid-19 pandemic changing the ways agents and clients interacted, while working remotely simultaneously upended the concepts of shelter, family, and career, injecting a new urgency into the housing market. What had been a concept to streamline and disrupt an almost-geriatric real estate business model suddenly became very appealing as the “new normal.”

Despite the tech innovation, Fichelson and Martin both emphasized that residential real estate remains a deeply personal and connective business between agents, buyers and sellers. We may have incorporated email, texting, Zoom calls and electronic signatures into our daily lives, but as in the old days (like, two years ago) it remains a business of personal relationships and serious, life-changing transactions. That’s not going to change, and Avenue 8 is there to smooth the path.

At Top: Avenue 8’s spectacular oceanfront $6M offering on Cabrillo Highway in Montara, just south of San Francisco. Designed in part in the ‘80s by legendary designer Michael Taylor, there are plans for a new house on the site by architect John Maniscalco.

Photo Credit: Avenue 8