Carrier Global Corporation, which operates Supra with its real estate lockbox management and mobile credentialing business, is acquiring Toronto-based BrokerBay Inc., a pioneer in the development of a real estate management cloud ecosystem.
BrokerBay and Supra will provide a one-stop shop for Realtors that “combines scheduling and mobile lockbox access in an intuitive, user-friendly showing experience to empower agents, reduce workload and provide actionable analytics,” says Carrier in a news release.
The software’s ability to reduce a brokerage’s administrative workload, streamline the real estate scheduling and showing experience, as well as standardize electronic lockbox access, will strengthen Carrier’s leading access solutions offering within its fire and security business, says the company.
Fayyad Sbaihat
Fayyad Sbaihat, president of Supra & Onity at Carrier, said Supra is a market leader in access management for the real estate industry.
“We will provide a first-of-its-kind experience for real estate agents where the scheduling of the appointment is tied to the lockbox and the access,” Sbaihat says. “So ultimately people – both listing agents or homeowners – can be assured that access to the house is only tied to appointments when they choose that setting and they can verify who is coming in.
“They know exactly how long they’re coming in for and staying, as well as a connectivity between the information of the scheduling appointment and the stay, which we can then provide to the real estate agents to see true activity around the listing. So they’re always aware of activity around their homes, how many people are coming in to look at the listing, how many viewings are taking place, so they have real-time information that enables them to adjust the type of listing they have or listing information to make sure they react to market conditions. This integrated feature will be coming out here in the coming months and our customers are very excited to hear about it.”
Sbaihat says the technology that Supra uses “is also applicable in several other industries like automotive, commercial and industrial sites, as well as banking and telecom. But the primary market for Supra is real estate.”
Supra, which has its headquarters in Salem, Ore., has been around since the early 1950s when it began manufacturing a lock for bicycles. In 1955, Sbaihat says, the company came out with the first lockbox that was used for real estate. It was a mechanical combination lock, which the company continued to innovate over the years.
Sbaihat says more than one million real estate agents across North America use Supra.
“As we reached out to them over the past months and years, and we regularly reach out to understand their feedback and their needs, it became obvious to us that they’re really interested in having additional services that enable them to conduct the showing experience in a more efficient, more organized way,” he says. “This is one of the key areas they pointed to as a need, especially if it’s integrated with that access solution they have. So we acted on the feedback from our customers and defending their needs and decided to add this capability to our portfolio and so far the feedback from our customers has been very, very encouraging.”
He says BrokerBay gives Supra the appointment schedule for showings of homes with its user-friendly mobile app that allows buyers to schedule or request an appointment for home showings and automatically access information about the listing. It also sends a notification to their real estate agent as well as the listing agent and their buyer – so all parties involved are aligned on the appointment time for a showing.
Sbaihat says Supra is helping expand the footprint of BrokerBay into the Supra customer base both in the United States and in Canada.
Jurgen Timperman, president of Carrier Fire & Security, said in a statement that Supra’s real estate lockbox management and mobile credentialing business paired with BrokerBay’s capabilities to deliver advanced digital solutions will improve efficiencies for North American real estate agents, while also driving the company’s strategy of increasing recurring revenue through enhanced services.
Supra enabled 45 million property showings in 2020.
“With increasingly high volumes in real estate showings, there is a need for agents to act with speed and efficiency,” says Jeffrey Stanek, managing director, Global Access Solutions, Carrier Fire & Security, in a statement. “This acquisition will further ensure they have the best solutions available to succeed.”
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Mario Toneguzzi is a contributing writer for REM. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald, covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He now works on his own as a freelance writer for several national publications and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named in 2021 as one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the World by PR News – the only Canadian to make the list.
