Technology can be empowering, but it is also capable of creating new challenges that real estate agents need to overcome.
Understanding the obstacles it creates is the first step to coming up with suitable solutions, so let’s explore a handful of the most significant hurdles as they stand in 2022.
Choosing The Right Transaction Management Software
The first issue is a good one to have; excessive choice. The more software options there are, the harder it can be to decide between the available tools, which perpetuates indecision and increases the likelihood of a wrong choice.
This problem applies to all sorts of software packages but is especially relevant in the context of transaction management tools. Handling transactions efficiently and accurately is key to keeping a real estate organization ticking over, so you cannot afford to compromise the software solution you select.
This is where comparing transaction management software helps real estate agents significantly. If you have an idea of the features you need and know your budget, then whittling down the field to one or two platforms will grease the wheels of the decision-making process.
Adapting to New Trends
Real estate is a reasonably tech-savvy industry, yet it is also easy to fall behind the curve if you are not agile and adept enough to embrace new technologies and implement them comprehensively across your operations.
The other side of the coin is that you do not want to be an over-eager early adopter of tech tools that turn out to be a flash in the pan fads rather than delivering long-term value.
The answer is to be aware of the technological options out there, and before rushing to adopt them, thoroughly analyze how they will integrate with your day-to-day duties. This goes for agents as well as brokers and managers.
Keeping Clients In The Loop
Another issue with rapidly rolling out new systems and solutions in real estate is that not all of your clients will be tech-literate enough to take advantage of them.
For example, suppose you move towards a paper-free approach to courting clients and carrying out transactions. In that case, this could alienate older buyers and sellers or create bottlenecks rather than alleviating them.
Essentially it would help if you were prepared to embrace new technologies while still being able to offer more traditional equivalents to those that need them, whether that be paper brochures for properties you list or face-to-face viewings in addition to virtual tours.
Wrangling Remote Working
Like many industries, real estate has been rocked by the remote working trend in prior years, and in 2022 it seems like this is here to stay.
The disruption to the classic office environment, which leaves team members working separately from their own homes, or spending more time out in the field, does throw up some problems. For example, feelings of isolation and a lack of a cohesive culture can come about when agents are not sharing the same physical space as one another daily.
As with lots of challenges in the real estate industry right now, technology is the cause and solution. Keeping colleagues engaged and in touch with one another through communication tools and putting together a cohesive schedule for catch-ups and socializing should allow agents to feel part of a team.
Hopefully, you now have some talking points to tackle when approaching real estate technology this year and some routes around the obstacles you encounter.