EDITOR'S NOTE: This version of the story corrects the spelling of Chris Colin's last name and the pronunciation of "XiLi."

Over the past decade or so, technology has revolutionized residential real estate marketing.

Online listings showcase locator maps, photos and videos for properties. QR codes on For Sale signs give cruising potential buyers an immediate opportunity to browse information on their app-enabled phones.

And now, a Wilmington company can provide even more extensive information for buyers via any smartphone without the need to download an app. The new service is called XiLi (pronounced zih-lee) Mobile and no, the name doesn’t mean anything; it’s just short and – its developers hope – easy to remember.

XiLi uses texting, Internet connection and GPS technologies to deliver real estate listings to potential homebuyers who are out looking at properties.

“We partner with Google, which has the cleanest, best data,” Don Brailsford, the company’s founder and CEO, said about the listing results.

Here’s how it works: If you’re in the market for a home and checking out a neighborhood that appeals to you, pull over, punch in 86789 and type in XiLi. You’ll be asked if the program can use your current location. If you say yes, a list of nearby properties will appear on your phone. Each item is shown with photo, price and address.

Click on a listing, and you’ll get a detailed description of the property, a photo gallery and the agent contact. Soon, you’ll likely get a text from the listing agent, asking if you’d like more information or a showing of the house.

XiLi listings remain in the user’s phone archive so they can be re-accessed later.

Tim Milam, president of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage, said the new texting service gives his agents an idea of who is looking at their properties.

“Before, when Realtors put out brochures, you had no idea who was looking at the house,” he said. “Now we have a tool to deal with the proactive buyer and can track who is looking at these homes.”

Milam said more than 300 Realtors in his firm have their homes listed with the texting service.  

“This works anywhere in the country. I’ve just been out to Vegas, Phoenix, Sedona, and it’s in place out there,” Brailsford said. “The goal of XiLi is to let the customer learn about houses for sale, go from place to place, ask for more information, contact the agent and allow the agent to become more actively involved with a potential buyer.”

If the buyer is just browsing and does not want to talk with an agent, he or she can ignore the text. If there’s interest, it’s easy to communicate via text to get property details and set up a showing.

“The phone is everything nowadays: a camera, a calendar, a way to get directions,” Brailsford added. “Mobile searches surpassed desktop computer searches this year.”

Text messages have the advantage of immediacy, said Chris Colin, XiLi’s marketing manager.

“Text messages get opened, versus emails,” he said. “You can get your message in front of someone.”

Milam said as technology changes, it’s important that Realtors adjust their sales tactics to follow up on leads and sell homes in the region.

“People, especially between the ages of 25 and 35, are using their phones for everything,” he said. “It’s important that we have different ways to communicate with potential clients to sell them homes, and XiLi does that.”

Brailsford has a long history as an entrepreneur. He says he started his first business when he was 7 and has been a developer of businesses and business property ever since. Most recently he helped a variety of small businesses and organizations hone their online marketing strategies. As a result of this experience, he could see the writing on the screen: mobile phone advertising would increasingly be the marketing tool of choice.

XiLi took shape about 20 months ago through a collaboration between Brailsford and Anderson Taylor, a Winston-Salem-based real estate broker who is XiLi’s largest investor and its CFO. They hired Geoffrey Gohs, whom Brailsford calls “a very smart programmer” to develop the system.

Meanwhile, Brailsford talked with technological innovators in the real estate industry as well as Milam and a large real estate broker in Atlanta.

After getting encouragement from those real estate veterans, the company tested XiLi’s first iteration with a number of agents. The feedback was positive, but agents wanted a system that was more automatic and foolproof. So the XiLi team spent another eight months refining and simplifying it.

When it was time to roll out the product, the XiLi team hired Colin, who has an extensive background in online marketing. The company is selling its service to real estate firms across the country.

“We’re in all 50 states but have the strongest presence in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, California, Arizona, Washington state, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio,” Brailsford said. “We’ve had an inquiry from Canada.”

Brailsford said XiLi is in talks with Reology and its subsidiaries, which are among the largest real estate companies in the nation – Coldwell Banker, Century 21, ERA and Better Homes and Gardens.

The service is simple to use, Colin said.

“Agents put in their phone number and pictures; everything else is done for them, based on what’s in the system,” he said. “Whether you are an independent agent or a 100-agent company, it takes the same amount of effort. We want to make it so easy and so inexpensive.”

“[Agents] can sign up in two minutes, set up and load their listings and stick a sign in the ground [next to a For Sale sign],” Brailsford said.

He noted that the XiLi sign works anywhere in the country. Agencies can brand the service by substituting their name for “XiLi” in the text message.

The cost to subscribe to the XiLi network is $10 per month per agent.

Milam said that many of his Realtors were already receiving leads from XiLi.

While it’s currently targeting the residential buyer market, the XiLi team has its eye on adapting its system to serve the rental and commercial markets as well.

Agents get a one-month free trial. “What they discover is how powerful it is,” Brailsford said.

Business Journal reporter J. Elias O’Neal also contributed to this story.