In featured image above, from l-r: Peter Schravemade, managing partner of REACH Australia and New Zealand, this year’s Pitch Battle emcee; Vanessa Martin of Teather RE, 2024 Pitch Battle winner; Christian Calusa, CEO and founder of NEO; and Dave Garland and Tyler Thompson from sponsor Second Century Ventures. | Image: ©mdispenza
The beauty of great ideas is that there is no shortage of them: A spark of imagination combined with identifying a need, solving a problem or filling a gap can lead to innovative PropTech that expands the ways real estate professionals do business—making them more efficient, agile, productive and, ultimately, more successful.
That type of problem-solving innovation was on display at the seventh annual 2025 Tech & Innovation Pitch Battle, presented by the National Association of REALTORS® Tech & Innovation team and sponsored by NAR’s strategic investment arm Second Century Ventures.
The 2025 Pitch Battle winner, NEO – New Estate Only showed off innovation and efficiency when selling new construction. NEO is a multilingual platform that partners with MLSs and associations to help agents sell new construction more efficiently. As a comprehensive new construction platform in Florida and Texas—and expanding nationwide in 2026—NEO connects builders, agents and buyers in one centralized, data-driven platform built for the global marketplace. NEO was created to solve the daily challenges builders, agents and buyers face when finding, marketing and selling new homes.
Let’s learn more about this year’s Pitch Battle winner.
The ‘Missing Part of the MLS’?
With more than 25 years as a real estate professional serving international buyers on four continents, NEO Founder and CEO Christian Calusa has first-hand experience spending hours of valuable time searching for accurate information on new construction and then piecing that information together to market and sell it. But he saw the need for having one place to gather all the information agents and brokers need to list, market and sell new construction. That led him to create NEO.
“Associations love to call us the MLS of new construction,” Calusa says. “I prefer to define NEO as the missing part of MLS.”
NEO also addresses the realties that, with new construction, most buyers cannot see the final product and MLS listings don’t provide engaging customer experiences. NEO offers more interactive materials and tools for real estate professionals to help buyers engage with new properties in new ways.
Since many international buyers are cash buyers who prefer new construction, NEO is available in multiple languages. It’s all designed to meet the needs of international buyers and real estate professionals who want to identify inventory and capitalize on the growing new construction market—and builders who are motivated to offer incentives in a high-interest rate climate.
Calusa pointed out that one-third of the residential real estate market lately is being driven by new construction, which makes NEO—an engaging, multilingual, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled platform that allows agents and brokers to embed full listings on their own websites rather than sending traffic to a third party.
What’s Next
Calusa said wining the Pitch Battle offers greater visibility for NEO to expand its reach even more.
“We were in the REACH program for two years, and winning the Pitch Battle was validation that we learned well from them—not only REACH, but all the people who partnered with us up to today,” Calusa says.
Right now, more than 50,000 agents and brokers use NEO, and more than 35 local and state associations offer NEO as a member benefit.
In March 2026, Calusa is introducing a new platform with proprietary AI built on new construction terms that will include more features to make the process of identifying, marketing and selling new construction even easier for agents and brokers. That platform will include more information about builders and projects and will offer more fully customizable marketing materials in nine languages. Calusa’s focus is on designing and developing tools that help real estate professionals save time and maximize efficiency.
Christian Calusa, CEO and founder of NEO, presenting at the 2025 Pitch Battle.
‘Listen to the Market’
At last week’s 2025 Pitch Battle at NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience, in Houston, six companies had just four minutes each to make their case for the $15,000 prize before an audience of REALTORS® and association and MLS executives. For Calusa, those few minutes were invaluable—a rare chance to showcase his new technology to the very people who will use it and to refine his message into a clear, concise and action-driving pitch for the industry. To future innovators: “Listen to the market,” Calusa says. “When you go to market, you need to have a very clear idea of where you want to go, but at the same time, you need an open mind on feedback, especially the negative feedback. Positive feedback is nice, but it doesn’t make you grow.”
Be open to critics. Take advantage of mentors to serve as partners—and you can grow much faster.
Author
Sharon Love-Bates
Sharon Love-Bates is Director, Emerging Technology within the Strategic Business, Innovation & Technology group at the National Association of REALTORS®.
