Real estate sales have long followed a simple business model whereby interested buyers and sellers contact real local real estate firms or agents who assist their clients with listing their home for sale or finding their dream home. It was at scheduled showings that sellers and buyers and agents would create a sense of camaraderie, helping to seal the deal.
But as our world becomes increasingly technology-dependent, paradigms in real estate agent roles are shifting. New customer relationship management systems can develop and maintain connections among real estate brokers, agents, and buyers more efficiently than ever before. Buyers are more inclined to spend time researching homes online, finding deals that they may have otherwise missed.
With the rising integration of technology into everyday tasks, real estate agents must continuously adapt. Few are more experienced with this continuous use of technology than Roy Dekel, CEO and co-founder of real estate and tech startup SetSchedule. Here, we’ll highlight some unique software and other technology that Roy and the rest of the real estate tech world believe will be useful for agents worldwide.
Property Technology
Perhaps the most exciting collaboration of technology and real estate is in regards to prop tech, the application of technology and platform economics to real estate markets. One of the most familiar uses for property tech is for the comparative market analysis (CMA). Traditionally, preparing CMAs was a labor intensive process of driving a neighborhood to identify a property's proximity to neighborhood assets, like parks and schools, and digging through the MLS to aggregate what comparable homes were sold for. What used to take hours or days can now be done in seconds with apps like Street Peak and Zillow who utilize augmented reality and GPS to provide buyers with virtual home appraisals and listing information. Roy foresees machine learning to be increasingly incorporated into the standard operations for successful real estate investment firms so they can predict more accurately the most profitable investment properties.
Property tech is also being adopted in the prospecting process as agents use predictive analytics to identify individuals likely to buy or sell. Apps like SetSchedule leverage artificial intelligence-powered data, trend insights and automated marketing software and tools so agents can find new transactions they never would have connected with otherwise. Furthermore, once an agent locates the prospects most likely to close with them, they can use the same app to streamline the process and overall shorten the sales cycle.
Paperwork Efficiency Boosters
Sometimes, being a real estate agent feels like filling out endless amounts of paperwork. Papers like seller documents including homeowner insurance records, capital improvement receipts, and mortgage statements, as well as agent-specific documents like purchase agreements, schedules for home showings, and more can take huge amounts of time. Furthermore, these papers are extremely repetitive and can be hard to automate at the human level.
Some technology companies are emerging with smart solutions to this paperwork problem. Apps like Camscanner and other high-quality scanning apps allow real estate agents to scan documents into their databases without going back to the office, saving valuable time when at negotiation meetings. Other tools like Dotloop function as secure paperwork document storage software, allowing agents, buyers, and sellers to share documents via email and text – and sign them securely. This significantly lowers the amount of dead time during deals, as all parties involved can privately read the documents before filling out information and signing. These tools have taken on increased relevance amidst current COVID-19 concerns as these allow transactions to close while involved parties remain safe.
Customer Relationships
Even though real estate business is still a people-to-people oriented business, many new homebuyers use the Internet as a means to research potential homes and contact real estate agents. Similarly, real estate agents can search for those homebuyers in new ways before making the every-important step of meeting with clients in person. This shift in initial contact through technology means that real estate agents must change sales strategies, finding ways to get in touch with potential customers to eventually bring them in for a face-to-face meeting. Not only is technology helping them find prospects they never would have connected with, but it also augments how agents connect by helping agents nurture more leads with personalized automation.
Some companies have emerged to help agents in this space by designing customer relationship management (CRM) software. CRM tools keep track of potential customers by aggregating their contact information, then gently remind agents to send follow-up emails, texts, and especially phone calls to those customers - some will even send these texts and emails for you! Other CRM software, like SetSchedule, actively analyzes potential homebuyers using machine learning to generate new leads for agents that are more likely to buy homes, lowering the time spent on false leads and maximizing time spent prospecting.
These tools often work in nuanced ways that agents may not fully understand at first. However, with enough time spent diving into the systems built into these systems (for example, the artificial intelligence that is integrated into SetSchedule), agents will be able to create deeper relationships with the younger crowd now buying homes. Most CRM providers offer educational resources so even the unfamiliar can master these tools and optimize their lead nurturing.
Collaborative Experiences
Real estate is often mistaken to be an independent business, but agents must work in collaboration to support neighborhoods and commercial areas, ultimately creating thriving communities through targeted real estate sales. However, that collaborative spirit is somewhat hard to access - that’s why Roy Dekel believes that teamwork, and the technology that supports real estate professional networking, is going to be one of the most significant changes this field will see in the next decade. To this end, SetSchedule is rolling out a new product in Fall of 2021 that will unite all real estate professionals and allow them to network virtually not only with agents, but also with lenders, designers, maintenance contractors, architects and other industry verticals. Here they can share job opportunities, ask for recommendations and offer tips and tricks of the trade.
Collaborative technology could be something like shared customer information databases or could be integrated documentation for policies and laws for specific states that are easy to understand for new agents. Internal team collaboration tools like Slack and Workplace can allow agents to share important information in real-time, and store that information for other agents to see. CRM tools can be collaborative for an entire real estate firm as well, with tools like SetSchedule and LionDesk creating databases that are accessible by all agents.
The impact of technology on sectors that have relied on in-person contact cannot be underestimated. As the real estate market shifts to younger generations who have grown up in the Internet age, agents will have to adapt to new technology to attract homebuyers. The technology listed here, along with new apps and software sure to pop up in the next few years, will substantially and positively impact real estate agent work in the future.
