Agents at a regional residential real estate company this week introduced a new version of technology developed by a Wilmington startup, according to a news release Wednesday.

The new texting service, Sea Coast Home Text, can be used by Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage to provide new listings to potential buyers and generate leads for the firm’s more than 400 sales agents, the release said. The announcement also said Sea Coast Home Text is exclusive to the company’s 11 offices in the region, from Jacksonville to Ocean Isle and including Wilmington.

“The Sea Coast Home Text program is a win-win for buyers, sellers and agents,” said Tim Milam, president of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage, in the release. “We are always looking for new ways to use technology to make the buying and selling process easier for our customers, and this new texting service is a great asset to both our customers and our agents.”

The program was developed by XiLi Mobile, a startup technology company headquartered in Wilmington-based tekMountain and uses a new platform called XiLi Enterprise. Agents advise buyers to save the Sea Coast Home Text number, (910) 208-0556, in their mobile phones, along with a key word or phrase unique to each agent, according to the announcement. If they see a home they’re interested in, the buyer can text the key word or phrase to receive information about that listing and nine other properties closest to the buyer’s GPS location, whether or not the properties are Sea Coast Advantage listings.  

In turn, the release explains, the particular agent receives a text alerting him or her about the caller so they can follow up, also receiving data if the buyer looks up information about any of the 10 properties.

Milam said in the release that buyers “can get immediate information from their phone without having to access a website.”

If the buyer is looking in a rural area, the release said, the search expands to 10 square miles.

“We have worked with the Sea Coast Advantage team since the very beginning of our company, and they have enthusiastically embraced the technology and how it can simplify the buying process,” said Chris Colin, director of marketing and SEO for XiLi, in the announcement.

The program provides the residential real estate firm with the third generation of XiLi’s software on an exclusive basis in the Cape Fear region, Colin said. XiLi plans to launch the platform nationally in the next few months, he said.

XiLi is one of five Wilmington startups that will participate in this year’s Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Tech Venture Conference that starts Sept. 15 in Raleigh. Nationally, XiLi generated more than 80,000 text messages last year, resulting in 50,000 leads, the news release said.