How Technology is Changing the Way Real Estate Leaders do Business

Written by Janet Case Posted On Thursday, 20 July 2017 19:27

In recent years, real estate developers, builders, and brokerages have been faced with rapidly changing social, demographic, and technology realities, and all of which have had an enormous impact on how the real estate industry markets and sells both listings and new developments.

The combination of changes in technology and the speed of social media have meant organizations must quickly adapt to an online and mobile world, ready to meet client expectations for the delivery of multimedia property information, while still retaining an informed and engaged sales staff with strong client relationships. Additionally, business has become more global, providing additional opportunities to sell to buyers far from a property or project's location - while creating more competition to attract those buyers. More importantly, however is that when those buyers are found, they do not speak the same language as the sales team, which, in turn, creates additional challenges.

The ever-evolving market is creating opportunities unlike any we've seen in the past. Real estate organizations that plan on staying ahead of their competition will quickly adopt digital technologies, enabling them to reach more prospects, close more deals faster, and gather more relevant information. Those who rise to the challenge must leverage online collaboration to extend their reach into markets where they may not have offices. In so doing, these professionals will streamline the sales process for themselves, while making it more engaging for their clients.

As technology and competition in the global real estate market come together in real time, real estate organizations need more enhanced tools to manage and grow their business, without adding significant complexity and/or cost. Organizations traditionally have a website, and CRM tools; however there is a big gap in-between, which means it's likely that the marketing and sales teams are not properly equipped to meet today's digital display property information challenges, all of which are designed to engage clients and capture leads.

The industry needs the ability to bring this together, so agents are able to share and follow properties, find and connect with other agents across multiple languages, in a manner that is both easy and accessible. The solution does exist and it is called a collaborative real estate sales platform.

Here, real estate companies can automate and enhance their marketing and sales processes, improve the creation, control and distribution of property information, accelerate the sales cycle, and track results in real time.

Proxio's Collaborative Real Estate Sales Platform is an enterprise-wide solution producing consumer-facing marketing for every property in inventory, and then leveraging a collaboration model, by enabling agents to "follow" and "share" these listings, and connect with each other via a LinkedIn-type model. The marketing is branded so leads come back to them, thus creating a motivated virtual, global team that promotes listings and properties, while providing new opportunities for connected agents.

Real Estate is a traditionally non-techie field. As a result, Proxio was designed to reside in the cloud so organizations don't have to worry about additional technology to run the platform. It provides valuable feedback by tracking and revealing the activity of both agents and consumers, as they engage with and share inventory. It is genuinely user-friendly from all perspectives.

For example, Coldwell Banker's new luxury brand, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury, recently adopted Proxio's Collaborative Sales and Marketing Platform as its underlying technology for it's 8,000 luxury agents around the world. Coldwell Banker Global Luxury, which was recently introduced to the public this past April, encompasses 8,000 agents, representing 12,000 exceptional listings globally.

Agents connected to the platform now have the ability to leverage their client networks to find buyers for distinctive properties in some truly amazing places.  Agents' listings are shared and promoted by this large, vibrant network of talented luxury agents from all over the world. In a space that is traditionally more local than global, the way we do business has truly changed -- for the better.

Succinctly put, traditional sales processes in real estate haven't kept up with the speed of business or the speed of the enterprise. Digital presentations and extensive visuals have become the new norm, while global has become the new local. Real estate developers, builders, and brokers can finally take advantage of the technological advances that could not be utilized in the past. Going 100% digital means more control and lower costs; while multi-lingual capabilities increase reach and maintaining a collaboration model, which delivers more qualified leads in real time. In today's world, where everything is changing so quickly around us, it's reassuring to know there are solutions enabling both the real estate enterprise and the real estate leaders to stay ahead of the market, rather than be left behind.

About The Author: Janet Case lives and breathes the real estate industry. Before founding Proxio, Janet was CEO of two of the largest Associations of Realtors® in the U.S. –simultaneously – providing services to over 7500 agents in hundreds of brokerages; she also ran an online real estate forms company and participated in the governance of Silicon Valley's MLS. Today Janet is a recognized speaker at industry conferences and real estate associations on the topic of internationalizing real estate practices and building professional referral networks. Janet previously held senior management roles in Fortune 500 companies Varian Associates and Tencor Instruments, where her responsibilities included international marketing for Europe, Asia and North and South America, and launching new products worldwide. Janet holds a BA in Economics from the University of Maine and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Rate this item
(1 Vote)

Agent Resource

Limited time offer - 50% off - click here

Realty Times

From buying and selling advice for consumers to money-making tips for Agents, our content, updated daily, has made Realty Times® a must-read, and see, for anyone involved in Real Estate.