Real estate professionals usually approach their job from a traditional perspective. But technology hasn’t left the industry behind, and coming to terms with how tech has impacted business is now a requirement.
Property technology, or proptech, is advancing at a fair pace. With many real estate professionals now competing with online agencies and individual sellers of all sorts, grasping this new tech can be crucial to remaining competitive in the industry.
What’s the best way for real estate agents to leverage proptech? Ten members of Forbes Real Estate Council examine the most efficient approaches for using proptech in the real estate industry and suggest how these methods can enhance their business.
Members of Forbes Real Estate Council share how real estate professionals can efficiently use proptech.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Improving Performance
Even though real estate brokerages are mainly sales and marketing machines, they have relied almost exclusively on relationships to drive transactions. The single biggest opportunity remains combining this relationship expertise with the science of CRM and sales methodology. This would not only improve performance significantly but also potentially expand the market for everyone involved. – York Baur, MoxiWorks
2. Increasing Speed And Efficiency
Technology helps agents do things faster and more efficiently. The proptech space is emerging with companies that help agents run faster comps, predict value trends and even identify which sellers are more likely to sell. Adopting technology is essential for agents to evolve as consumers demand a more tech-savvy, data-driven approach to their home purchase and sale process. – Anton Danilovich, TopHap, Inc.
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3. Making Better Decisions
The biggest new wave in proptech is SaaS products that superpower a real estate professional to make better decisions. For example, there are many apps and APIs that disclose permit history using county records, owner identity using title records, repair history, roof quality (using Google Maps) and mortgage exposure on every property in the U.S. Using this data, one can negotiate much better. – Deniz Kahramaner, Altasa
4. Streamlining Operations And Marketing
Proptech provides the most value when it saves the team time by streamlining both operations and marketing. For example, this can include automating manual data entry, demographic tracking and reporting. The benefit lies in having real-time data for decision making across operations and marketing versus managing spreadsheets, paperwork or waiting for someone to update their numbers from last week. – Debra Wyatte, Cecilian Partners
5. Bringing People And Teams Together
Any proptech solution should operate harmoniously to bring people and teams together. Remote technologies have been the cornerstone of human connections during remote working. 3D tours have taken over leasing. In the future, proptech that finds better ways to beat isolation will be a winner—like holograms which enable teams to get together virtually in a meeting room for brainstorming! – Tushar Mittal, Studiokon Ventures Pvt ltd
6. Engaging With Prospects 24/7
One way real estate pros can leverage proptech is by using AI chatbots and virtual contact centers to engage in real-time with prospects 24/7. The amount of missed opportunities due to traditional leasing practices is a staggering 40-60%. – Kent Ritter, Birge and Held
7. Determining Pricing Strategy And Returns
As a partner in a fintech real estate startup, I would look for applications that use machine learning, neural-network artificial intelligence that determines pricing strategy and potential future returns. Artificial intelligence is the future. – Mike Shapiro, Mike S Shapiro
8. Immediately Addressing Client Needs
Access to information and the ability to more immediately address customer needs are the two most important ways proptech is changing the real estate market. Smart operators will take advantage of both opportunities while still realizing there’s value to adding a human touch. – Ellen Calmas, Neighborhood Pay Services / NPS Rent Assurance
9. Amplifying Exposure Of A Property
Proptech is an amazing tool to amplify the exposure of a property and a real estate professional. Once the attention is captured, it will all come down to the real estate professional to convert that into business incorporating new and old-school sales techniques. – Marco Del Zotto, LIV | Sotheby’s International Realty – Breckenridge, CO
10. Enhancing Advanced Networking
Advanced networking by top-tier agents is enhanced by technology. Take the ultra-exclusive group of agents in the REALM network and see how their platform benefits the clients as well as the agents. It’s a win-win-win for buyers, sellers and agents. – Joseph Himali, Best Address Group, LLC