In this week’s Real Estate Sales and Technology news, we look at how Realogy shows us the value of Real Estate Technology, Zillow’s position in Real Estate tech world, the evolutionary process of Real Estate Technology, and how to become a Real Estate Tech Ninja.
Realogy shows us how much real estate technology is worth
Realogy, parent company of Sotheby’s International, Coldwell Banker & Century 21, announced this week that they will acquire brokerage & technology company ZipRealty for $166 million. The deal underscores what has become a new reality of the home brokerage business: Technology, increasingly, is making the difference between winners and losers.
“The importance of generating more Internet leads and doing a better job in converting these leads to a closing is a key business objective,” said Bruce Zipf, the chief executive of NRT the Realogy division that owns about 700 brokerage offices nationwide.
By making this big investment, Realogy is signaling that it’s serious about providing its franchises with technology that’s ahead of the curve says Brian Boero at 1000 Watt. Zip has developed a proven, successful tech platform in the past 10 years, and has has been selling its tech to independent brokerages on a white-label basis. Realogy plans to make that tech exclusively available to its local brokerages.
This puts Realogy in the growing competition between Trulia, Zillow, MOVE, and Redfin, among others, vying for pole position in the evolving real estate data and information market. Read more at Estate Pulse or the Wall Street Journal.
Positioning in the Real Estate Tech World – Zillow Acquires Retsly
Zillow announced this week that it has acquired Retsly, a one year old Canadian based startup that helps developers access real-estate data from multiple listing services (MLS). The service takes the data from these sites and normalizes it so developers can more easily use the data in their own applications.
MLSs are the central hub for real estate data in the U.S but every region has its own so there are about 1,000 different MLS systems use different software and often describing homes in different terms.
By acquiring the leading platform in MLS data normalization, Zillow gets to further bolster its position at the center of arguably the industry’s most important technological revolution. As developers, MLSes, brokerages, and agents alike increasingly embrace Retsly’s technology, they’ll also be embracing Zillow as a crucial piece of their chosen solutions.
Chief Revenue Officer Greg Schwartz tells TechCrunch that he believes Retsly is a great fit for Zillow. “This is an extension of our efforts to provide productivity tools to help MLSs, brokers, franchisors, teams and agents be more productive and successful,” he said.
Read more about this latest real estate technology deal at The Motley Fool or Housing Wire.
Real Estate Technology: Adopt or Die
At Real Estate Connect last week, Valerie Garcia, senior technology coach at Re/Max Ontario-Atlantic discussed the evolution process of real estate technology, specifically the natural selection or lagging behind realtors.
“We have to stop having the conversation of how to get people to adopt [technology], and we need to start having the conversation of how do we just let those people that don’t [adopt] fall behind,” Garcia said.
How should brokers handle agents resistant to change? Scott Nagel, president of real estate operations at Redfin agrees with Garcia. He says in terms of new hires, the broker shouldn’t bring any agents on board unless they demonstrate that they’re real estate technology savvy and capable. “Time is not on the side of agents who aren’t technologically savvy,” Nagel said.
To succeed in tomorrow’s business, Realtors must invest time and money in new technology. Tech Savvy Agent says “to embrace the changing technological marketplace they must also predict and embrace new emerging tools and be willing to take the necessary risks to succeed.”
To harness future trends and turn technology investor revenue requires a technological infrastructure where tech tool solutions are implemented at all stages of a realtor’s business, behind the scenes and in the field. These are the realtors who will survive the real estate technology ice age.
Read more examples of real estate technology keys to success at Tech Savvy Agent.
How to become a real estate tech ninja
Inman just posted this awesome article on how realtors are using real estate technology to squash their competition in “Behold: a Real Estate Tech Ninja”. Here are some inspiring steps on how to Become a Real Estate Tech Ninja like San Diego based agent Jordan Clarke. Clarke’s half day’s work of digital wizardry bagged his out-of-state clients an accepted offer on an unseen home in a matter of hours — a tour de force of tech skill that the Redfin agent recounted during the Real Estate Connect panel “Shiny Object Showdown.”
Through using cutting edge real estate technology tools, Clarke was able to close a deal in less than two hours. Using tools like BlueTooth, a Redfin app, FaceTime, iPhone hotspots, ZipForms, and DocuSign enabled Clarke to close a deal before anyone else had a chance to even look at the property.. Within 30 minutes of it hitting the MLS, Clarke was FaceTiming his clients. Two hours later the offer was accepted. The sellers later received two more offers that day, one which was significantly higher. But it was too late.
And that is how you become a Real Estate Tech Ninja. Read the fascinating story over at Inman News.
Clearview’s Tuesday Tech Tip: DocuSign
Like Real Estate Tech Ninja Jordan Clarke, many tech savvy realtors are catching on to the value of DocuSign. DocuSign offers complete transaction management services. This technology empowers brokers and agents with the ability to get work done without the paper, and without being tied to the office. Being prepared at any moment out on the road can make or break a deal and give you the advantage with your competitors.
DocuSign comes highly recommended as it is the National Association of Realtors official & exclusive provider of electronic signature services under the Realtor Benefits Program. To watch how real estate agents use DocuSign, check out the video below. And for more information and pricing, you can go to DocuSign.
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