The challenges of agent and client engagement, disparate databases, and clunky user interfaces often get in the way of brokerages operating at their full profit and efficiency potential.
However, recent tech advances promise to increase brokerage profits and efficiency approaches fuller realization.
T3 Sixty has analyzed and consulted with hundreds of leading brokerages and teams, and has learned some of the successful technologies they leverage to operate more efficiently and effectively. From this broad, deep experience, T3 has identified three technology areas starting to bear fruit for brokers, including predictive analytics, data integrations and cloud-based accounting with agent accessibility. These are each covered in more detail below.
Predictive marketing
With the advent of machine learning, predicting the likelihood of someone selling their house has become more refined. Many of the products available to brokers and teams incorporate these analytical tools that assimilate big data sources including consumer online behavior, public records data, and localized data and overlay it with machine learning to predict, with surprising accuracy, the probability of which consumers will buy or sell a home.
Estimates put the number of contacts the average agent has in his or her database at approximately 350 contacts. Using a predictive analytics tool helps agents target likely sellers and buyers using this powerful technology, and leads to thousands of additional commission dollars for brokers and agents. Some of the technologies with these features that T3 Sixty has seen brokerages and teams find success with include: Likely.ai, Constellation1, SmartZip, Offrs and ListTrac.
Data integrations
Most brokerages have too many data points siloed into disjointed systems, which requires them to rekey important information multiple times. This leads to an exponential waste of time, which contributes to a financial drain. By eliminating multiple data entries into separate technologies, brokerages not only improve their data accuracy, but improve their staffing resources.
Thankfully, real estate technology has evolved to address this pain point. Several companies offer brokerages the opportunity to leverage application programming interfaces (APIs) that provide better data exchange. Additionally, third-party companies like API Nation, Zapier, and Realsynch provide an intermediary solution that brokerages can use to regularly manage the API process and updates.
Integrations across important business units, bring significant benefits such as better tracking and capturing ancillary business from brokerage clients, for example.
Cloud-based accounting platforms
Real estate accounting platforms have lagged those in other industries in making their software available to users as cloud-based systems. But that is changing. Newer real estate accounting platforms have moved their products to the cloud, which provides anywhere access to their brokerage mission-critical tools such as financial information, transaction data and direct access to agents for their reports, paystubs, 1099 documents and more.
Brokerages waste a tremendous amount of administrative time on delivering reports and information to their agents, but these emerging, cloud-based accounting features provide a solution for automated, do-it-yourself reporting (for agents) and dashboards that brokerages can access and evaluate from anywhere.
Companies like Accounttech, Brokerage Engine, Constellation1 Back Office, Back at You and Zipi are a few companies that offer cloud-based accounting systems.
Takeaway
Technology is advancing at an exponential rate. This year, we’ve seen dozens of technology acquisitions that will only propel this great real estate tech development underway. If you have any questions about any of these suggestions or technologies or would like assistance in evaluating the appropriate solution for your brokerage, please reach out to me, Jonathan Peterson, T3 Sixty vice president of brokerage solutions, at jonathan@t3sixty.com.