How Tech Is Changing the Face of Estate Agents

Technology is rapidly changing careers and industries and in no place is the more the case than in the estate agent industry. Here’s how technology is altering the landscape dramatically.

Shifting to Mobile

Consumers are increasingly shifting away from desktops and towards mobile devices, which has left real estate brokerages struggling to stay relevant when it comes to their marketing. Several brokerages have adopted both agent-facing and client-facing mobile apps, in an attempt at staying current in a world that is increasingly mobile-focused.

Douglas Elliman developed Elli, an externally facing app, that’s dedicated to allowing prospective buyers browse properties and get in touch with an agent, all from their mobile device. Simultaneously, the company released MyElli, which is an app for its agents. MyElli lets agents manage and monitor clients, sharing lists, and chatting with them using an in-app messaging platform.

Traditional brokerages are currently truly aware of the fact that all their mobile content needs to be optimized for mobile devices and that most clients expect to be capable of engaging with their real estate brokerage and agent via a mobile app.

Using Data to Engage Customers

Identifying these frustrations as the perfect opportunity to capture market share, various online estate agents have started offering a wide variety of resources for prospective homebuyers aimed at providing the independence and clarity that the traditional real estate process lacked.

Tools such as Zestimate by Zillow and the Compass Market app capitalize on the abundance of data that’s publicly available to provide unprecedented insight into the real estate market, which is access that was traditionally only available to real estate agents.

Brokers want people spending more time viewing their digital properties and collecting as much information as possible in one location.

Data is just as important to real estate agents. Brokerages such as Denver’s Porchlight are currently offering tools, both custom built and off-the-shelf, that ensure that agents are as informed as possible on the markets that are constantly changing around them.

Start-ups Looking to Disrupt

While the data and analytics aspect of the real estate market is the focus of some companies, others in the field of tech have found opportunity in the complete circumnavigation of the brokerage process. Websites such as StreetEasy, HotPads, and Very Apt are aimed at empowering buyers to handle their own property search, set up viewings, and connect with property owners.

The proprietary platforms mentioned above utilize intelligent algorithms for customizing your search so that you only view the kind of apartment that you would like to see. It is a feature that gives users total autonomy over the search process while providing an experience that feels personal and customized. Furthermore, they connect buyers and sellers directly to minimize transaction fees and costs.

While numerous start-ups in this space have built amazing technologies and seen success, real estate is one industry that’s largely undisrupted. Zillow is usually the company that comes to mind when you mention tech and real estate.

Zillow is definitely a powerful force in the industry, but it is no disruptor. The company doesn’t actually sell real estate. It simply makes its money by selling ads to real estate agents. It is an exceptional top of the funnel tool for lead generation, but it cannot close deals.

Blockchain

Blockchain allows you to perform various transactions without having to use intermediary bodies such as banks, credit card organizations, governments etc.

Now, when it comes to buying and selling real estate, this is certainly what qualifies as a large transaction. So, once it is possible to perform this type of transaction, it can bring a greater deal of transparency, efficiency as well as security to the real estate market. There are two areas in which blockchain can actually make big changes and these include smart contracts and Tokenization.

1. Tokenization: With regards to real estate, this is where cryptocurrency is used to divide various assets into tokens on the blockchain. If you want a great and thorough explanation of tokenization, be sure to check out Hacker Noon's posts by Matt Markham. Basically, tokenization creates two huge changes:

It enables landlords to sell parts of their homes and it also allows investors to actually resell their personal shares via secondary exchanges on an open market.

This allows different people from all types of income levels to be able to make investments and benefit from these investments that were once out of reach for them.

2. Smart contracts are capable of putting together transactions between sellers and buyers as well as landlords and renters. This technology allows buyers to provide their personal details via an encrypted block to the relevant seller as oppose to having to do so via a financial institution like a bank. There is the complete removal of the middleman and any type of human interaction. This decreases the chances of fraud as well as makes the transaction go through much faster. If you want to learn more about using blockchain in real estate as well as smart contracts, be sure to check out Chloe Diamond at Foam Media.

Optimized Internal Processes

The real estate industry is completely commission-based, which means that whenever an agent isn’t selling, a loss is being recorded. Between negotiations, appraisals, mortgages, legal work, and commission splits, real estate deals come with an incredible amount of usually tedious but very important work. However, that work is at odds with the interest of the agent to be selling as often and as much as possible.

Brokerages, whether small or large, have turned to technology in an attempt at reconciling this. Internal tools used for facilitating this process and automating much of the tedious work have proven to be game changing resources for agents at some of the leading brokerage firms in the country.

Products such as Folio, which is a Gmail plugin that allows real estate agents to manage transactions better have empowered real estate professionals to handle their business more concisely.

As the wave of technology keeps sweeping across the real estate market, the brokerages that have taken advantage of the 4 trends discussed here are differentiating and growing at a faster rate than ever before.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes