Is online transaction management something brokers and agents must have? According to the dozens of dotcom service providers out there, including homebid.com, tegris.com, iproperty.com, Closeyourdeal.com, bridgespan.com, synteleos.com, and smartclose.com, among others, it is. Homestore's eRealtor.com and HomeAdvisor's Realty Desktop do, too.

From facilitating client and offer management to closing the loan, transaction platforms are designed to accommodate several applications that collectively put control of the transaction back into the hands of the real estate broker. Due to the latest development in application software technologies, brokers can not only use one technology platform for their back-end office management functions, they can also integrate and monitor their agents' activities in productivity and customer service by incorporating them into the same system.

Transaction management suites have their origins in agent productivity software such as VistaInfo's RE/Professional and Homestore's Top Producer, suites which feature marketing, contact management, scheduling, listing, sales, office management, and other tools. Many of the new transaction platforms also feature agent productivity tools, and take them several steps further, namely integrating the suites with the broker back-end technology.

Agent productivity suites have made a lot of money for the application service providers who create them, but at their core, they enable the agent, not the broker, and that's changing with the new transaction systems. The new transaction suite which includes agent productivity modules. Thanks to XML technology, the agent's favorite software suites can be incorporated on broker-centered transaction platforms. The first genesis of this idea is Homestore's purchase of Top Producer, a popular agent productivity software that will now be sold separately as well as offered as part of the broker-centered eRealtor platform, a transaction management suite that incorporates marketing and business management tools in a Web-based and wireless-accessible environment. Other systems are similarly focused on broker back-end office and listings management.

According to TEGRIS' vice president of business development David Tandy, the key to streamlining office efficiencies is in listings management. TEGRIS, a high-speed network system provider, was the technology solutions provider for the original broker reciprocity movement in the Northwest, enabling brokerages such as John L. Scott and Coldwell Banker Bain to share each others listings through the MLS. "We facilitate all the data management but we don't have a consumer portal and are not competing with the broker for consumer eyeballs," says Tandy.

Microsoft's Realty Desktop and Homestore's eRealtor are also listing enablers. Through Homestore's subsidiary Wyldfyre, an MLS information software supplier, listings can be managed on the eRealtor platform. Realty Desktop goes one step further by incorporating real-time MLS data from its strategic partner Interealty. Interealty is the one of the two largest MLS information system suppliers in the nation, serving one out of three agents in the top 350 MLS organizations in the country. Listings and transaction management will be incorporated on a one-of-a-kind suite that is beating all other comers to the marketplace. The system is scheduled for beta-testing as an upgrade to the current system for three of its MLS customers to be rolled out to brokers who wish to test the system. Jim Secord, director of business development for Interealty says, "We've been quiet for a while, but we are in a unique position to help brokers and agents with lead generation where the leads begin - with the MLS listing." See more about Interealty's next generation listing/transaction technology, MLXChange in tomorrow's edition of Agent News.

Homebid.com offers a transaction platform which features its proprietary software Offer ManagerTM. Offer manager harnesses the real-time advantage of the Internet to enable the latest buzzword - peer-to-peer business. The idea is to turn brokers' listings into selling sites and streamline paperwork and communications steps to get the deal done more quickly. According to the site, customized "hotlists" allow buyers and their agents to track the action on prospective homes and make offers with contingencies, all online. Listing agents can accept, counter or set a "countdown" period, which allows interested buyers an additional opportunity to respond to offers on the table. The system's notification system covers all contingencies by delivering email and text messages to phone or pagers. XML-based, Offer Manager can be dropped into other transaction platforms as an add-on module or as a complete transaction system. "This is the piece that everybody wants but nobody has," says Kevin Hickey, CEO of Homebid. "Nothing happens until the offer is squared away and there are too many situations in which minutes count in a hot market. You want your agents to have every advantage."

The Closing Piece

Realty Plus Online's software, CloseYourDeal, combines a listing management MLS system with a closing module. Adopted by one of the largest MLS providers in the nation, MLSNI, the system will is "a progressive step for our MLS as well as the real estate industry itself," says Jay Huffman, CEO of MLSNI. The Listing Manager allows an agent to select and view a listing; perform and view reverse prospecting for his/her listings; schedule an open house or tour for a listing; select a preferred default image for the listing; and add a note and even add attachments to a listing, such as virtual tours, fliers, pest reports, or appraisals. This feature also allows an agent to see how many “clickthroughs” a listing is receiving and compare that number to how many prospects he/she has received out of those hits, a feature which can help agents generate leads with sellers.

Bridgespan is not just a closing agent enabler, it is a closing agent, and is backed by some of the largest title companies in the country including American Title and Chicago Title Company. Although it has a platform that is ripe for licensing, the company has not yet announced plans to do so, but will continue building its business across the nation with a centralized processing center in North Texas, and satellite offices serving field agents as well.

The range of applications that are available on most platforms are so good that brokers will be adopting them to streamline costs, save data entry time and errors, and facilitate and close more transactions quickly.

Published: October 27, 2000

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Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.