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| TECH-SCAPE COMPANIES INNOVATING REAL ESTATE IN 2016 |
The featured product this month at the Center for REALTOR(R) Development at 25% off is the e-PRO(R) Day 1 and 2 bundle of online courses, which is the educational requirement for NAR'se-PRO(R) certification. This certification aims to help real estate professionals broaden their technology skills to connect effectively with today's digitally-savvy consumer. To match the featured course, all of our posts this month will be technology-focused. We'd like to begin with a contributed article from Jonathan Aizen from Amitree, whose Tech-Scape chart has been providing insight for years.
You may have heard: real estate technology is hot. Every year, at Amitree, they publish a chart of all the companies innovating the real estate process. That's 384 companies, with billions of venture capital dollars invested in technology which helps bring buyers and sellers together. But without a little bit of extra explanation and context, it's mostly just a collection of logos. To help make sense of it for you, let's focus on just a few of the categories which are making the most impact on agents’ lives today. We’ve chosen a few categories which are particularly interesting this year and included some of the salient companies in each and hope to bring you more. In 2016, there was a lot of investment and hype around these categories:
Agent/Client Collaborative Search
Remember when listings were in physical books accessible only to real estate professionals? With the success of online search portals, many consumers now have the false impression that they have access to the same listing data as their agent. Collaborative search platforms like RealScout and Zurple put the agent back in the drivers’ seat to own the buyers search process (using the agents MLS). You get to see what they’re searching for and where they are in their search process at every step.
CRM/Lead Management Solutions
Lots of great companies are going after agent CRM. Placester and BoomTown are two of them coming at it from very different approaches. Often, these platforms also help take control of your inbound leads as well as your outbound marketing. That said, its a tough category-the most popular CRM system in any industry continues to be the humble spreadsheet.
AI/Agent Chat
Artificial intelligence is creeping into every industry. What does it look like in real estate? For now, it looks like smart chat bots that harvest your inbound leads and inquiries and guide next steps. You might even call these tools an automated assistant that helps you focus your time on the most promising leads. Check out Doss and Riley for early peeks at how this works.
Transaction Management Platforms
This category has been making more and more real estate offices paperless. Instanet, DocuSign, and dotloop are the leaders and focus mostly on document-signing. Beware of platforms that purport to do too much-many transaction management platforms also include CRM, lead management, and even marketing automation. Its difficult enough to do one of those well, let alone all of them.
Remember when listings were in physical books accessible only to real estate professionals? With the success of online search portals, many consumers now have the false impression that they have access to the same listing data as their agent. Collaborative search platforms like RealScout and Zurple put the agent back in the drivers’ seat to own the buyers search process (using the agents MLS). You get to see what they’re searching for and where they are in their search process at every step.
CRM/Lead Management Solutions
Lots of great companies are going after agent CRM. Placester and BoomTown are two of them coming at it from very different approaches. Often, these platforms also help take control of your inbound leads as well as your outbound marketing. That said, its a tough category-the most popular CRM system in any industry continues to be the humble spreadsheet.
AI/Agent Chat
Artificial intelligence is creeping into every industry. What does it look like in real estate? For now, it looks like smart chat bots that harvest your inbound leads and inquiries and guide next steps. You might even call these tools an automated assistant that helps you focus your time on the most promising leads. Check out Doss and Riley for early peeks at how this works.
Transaction Management Platforms
This category has been making more and more real estate offices paperless. Instanet, DocuSign, and dotloop are the leaders and focus mostly on document-signing. Beware of platforms that purport to do too much-many transaction management platforms also include CRM, lead management, and even marketing automation. Its difficult enough to do one of those well, let alone all of them.
Agent/Client Workflow
Transaction management platforms often aren’t the best client-facing tools for managing workflow. Hence, most agents adopt an ad hoc system of managing the workflow of the transaction with their clients using phone calls, emails, or hiring an assistant. A few use project management tools like Basecamp, and Amitree has built a workflow tool that plugs into Gmail for this (DISCLOSURE: I'm the CEO of Amitree).
Transaction management platforms often aren’t the best client-facing tools for managing workflow. Hence, most agents adopt an ad hoc system of managing the workflow of the transaction with their clients using phone calls, emails, or hiring an assistant. A few use project management tools like Basecamp, and Amitree has built a workflow tool that plugs into Gmail for this (DISCLOSURE: I'm the CEO of Amitree).
Agent Websites
Placester and WebsiteBox both service IDX search-enabled websites as well as tools to manage leads once they come in via your website. Think of them like Wix or SquareSpace for real estate professionals.
Placester and WebsiteBox both service IDX search-enabled websites as well as tools to manage leads once they come in via your website. Think of them like Wix or SquareSpace for real estate professionals.
3D Modeling Tools
I've saved the coolest for last. These are the companies you probably see advertising all over Facebook to make 3D walkthroughs of your properties. Matterport powers 3D listings, and despite their technology’s steep price tag, agents are harnessing 3D modeling to help drive more buyers to their properties.
I've saved the coolest for last. These are the companies you probably see advertising all over Facebook to make 3D walkthroughs of your properties. Matterport powers 3D listings, and despite their technology’s steep price tag, agents are harnessing 3D modeling to help drive more buyers to their properties.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the categories of real estate technology you should care about, but it’s a good place to begin to understand who is bringing innovation to the real estate process, or, in some cases, putting pressure on real estate practitioners to adopt innovative technology for themselves. Feel free to dig into the rest of the chart, and I’m happy to answer any questions via email.
Jonathan Aizen is the founder and CEO of Amitree, the makers of Folio http://www.amitree.com/, an automated workflow tool for busy real estate professionals. Jonathans technology experience extends beyond real estate, but his passion for connecting society with technology led him down a path aimed at improving the home buying process. Prior to Amitree, Aizen founded and sold an online advertising technology firm to Yahoo!, and the web giant kept him around to be general manager of its Smart Ads division. Aizen has been building websites and web companies since 1994 and learned to code when he was 8 years old. He is an advisor and mentor to a number of tech startups and established companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jonathan's email is jonathan@amitree.com.
The views and opinions in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Center for REALTOR(R) Development or AZ Social Realty, nor constitute its endorsement of any specific product or service mentioned herein.
Jonathan Aizen is the founder and CEO of Amitree, the makers of Folio http://www.amitree.com/, an automated workflow tool for busy real estate professionals. Jonathans technology experience extends beyond real estate, but his passion for connecting society with technology led him down a path aimed at improving the home buying process. Prior to Amitree, Aizen founded and sold an online advertising technology firm to Yahoo!, and the web giant kept him around to be general manager of its Smart Ads division. Aizen has been building websites and web companies since 1994 and learned to code when he was 8 years old. He is an advisor and mentor to a number of tech startups and established companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jonathan's email is jonathan@amitree.com.
The views and opinions in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Center for REALTOR(R) Development or AZ Social Realty, nor constitute its endorsement of any specific product or service mentioned herein.
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