Faster Search, Evaluation, and Decision-Making: How Realmo Is Using AI to Rewire Commercial Real Estate

Nearly every major commercial real estate firm is piloting AI, and few have much to show for it. One New York-headquartered platform is betting the payoff starts at the search bar.

Finding a commercial property is only the first hurdle. Before a commercial property deal reaches the negotiating table, buyers and tenants have to find the right asset and work out what it is worth. This early stage is where much of the friction sits, since listings, ownership records, market data, and sales history are spread across separate platforms. That data has traditionally been expensive. Vendr's transaction data for CoStar, the industry's dominant paid database, shows deals ranging from roughly $3,000 to $23,000 a year, averaging about $15,000. CoStar prices by custom quote, so the figure varies by coverage and license.

An industry piloting AI, and struggling to scale it

The technology is not being ignored. JLL's 2025 survey of more than 1,500 senior decision-makers found that 88% of investors, owners and landlords have started AI pilots, along with 92% of occupiers. The headline result, though, was the gap between trying and succeeding: only 5% of real estate firms report having achieved all their AI goals. A separate Keyway survey of 150-plus U.S. real estate professionals points to a likely cause. Just 8% said their data infrastructure was fully ready for AI at scale, and trust in outputs, data readiness and system integration were the biggest barriers.

Realmo.com, founded in November 2023, says it was built to solve issues like fragmented CRE market data and the time required to search and evaluate properties. Realmo is an AI-powered CRE intelligence platform for property discovery and analysis. The company reports more than one million active listings across all 50 states and a database covering more than 50 million commercial properties, including both on-market and off-market assets. Its pitch is that AI is only as useful as the data underneath it, and that search, analytics and sales records belong in one place.

Search that starts with intent

The front door is Rey, Realmo's conversational assistant. Instead of drop-down filters, users type requests such as "Show me undervalued industrial buildings near logistics hubs in the Midwest," and Rey interprets the intent, property type, location and market signals, then returns listings in seconds. Rey is free to every user.

Iar Arguno, Realmo's head of analytics and Rey's lead developer, described the design philosophy in an interview published on HackerNoon. Users, he argued, shouldn't need to understand a database's structure and terminology before they can look for a building. He also said Rey is built to separate exact matches from broader alternatives, and to say so when the evidence behind a conclusion is thin. That matters in a market where a listing's key facts may sit in a broker's description, a public record or a phone call.

First-pass analysis in a few clicks

Rey draws on the same analytics that sit behind each listing. Realmo's tools include an AI property valuation module, cap rate-based income modeling and comparable sales analysis. The platform also runs alternative-use analysis. Its Location Intelligence Engine flags underutilized or misaligned assets and suggests higher-value uses based on local demand, demographics and competition. In July 2026, Realmo pushed that analysis earlier in the funnel. A new block of investment metrics now appears on category pages, moving the first pass of price evaluation out of the spreadsheet.

Opening the sales data

The most direct challenge to the paywall model came in August 2025 with Recently Sold. The feature gives all users unlimited access to verified U.S. commercial sales data. Access to this kind of data previously meant paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a year in subscription fees.

The practical effect shows up at the negotiating table. A buyer who can see what neighboring properties sold for can push back on an inflated asking price. A first-time buyer can check an offer against real transactions, and a small brokerage can support its advice with access to transaction data that has traditionally been easier for larger firms to obtain.

One interface, fewer handoffs

Realmo's site also carries a Brokers directory, alongside tools for ownership records, off-market leads, zoning and business placement, so a user can go from a shortlisted property to a local professional without leaving the platform. The argument is about friction. Every switch between a listing site, a valuation tool, a data vendor and a spreadsheet costs time, and Realmo is trying to remove those switches.

To be fair, Realmo has not published data quantifying its impact on the full transaction timeline, and the clearest time savings today are in search and early analysis. The platform also has limits. It aggregates listings from hundreds of sources, and the company acknowledges that outdated listings can remain visible, though Realmo continuously updates aggregated data and gives users a way to report data issues.

The bottom line

Part of the industry's AI problem is internal and has to be solved inside each firm. Another part sits in the market itself due to fragmented data and the time it takes to search and evaluate properties. Whether Realmo can become a broader decision layer for CRE will depend on data quality, user adoption, and whether it can measurably reduce the time spent finding and evaluating opportunities.