RealtyTek is a mobile app for real estate agents and their customers to help automate transaction business functions, but it struggles with growing pains in a few critical places.
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RealtyTek is a mobile business automation app for real estate agents.
Platforms: iOS
Ideal for: New and growing agents, homebuilders
Top selling points:
- Developed by an agent
- Nimble, inventive user interface
- Quick summaries of recent activity
- Connected client version of app
- Direct buyer input of wants/needs
Top concerns:
Growing pains, ultimately. The app’s developers are challenged by establishing relationships with reticent MLSs, affecting scaling, data feeds and integration of agent data.
What you should know:
RealtyTek is a mobile app that offers users immediate summaries of their business each time they tap it open. It relies partially on being shared and used by leads and clients to drive some of that content. Users manually input listing data, or the company will do it on your behalf upon onboarding.
Listings are presented in a horizontal scroll with data summaries and images, and leads get profiles with what homes they may like, have toured or have actively under contract. The agent can count a lead as anyone with whom they’ve shared the app, which is sent via a link for downloading and setup.
Pending sales are given full breakdowns of dates and details, basically when each escrow milestone is scheduled to happen. There’s also a shared calendar for booking showings and document storage.
Everything about this app is well-intentioned. I can see what the developers are aiming to do with each function, it merely lacks the impact of that next step in a couple of critical places, such as listing input and CRM integration for widespread access to contacts and past clients, too.
I think relying on and worrying about a person downloading the app to start working with you is a lot. It’s a point of friction. Maybe they can add an automated text outreach to re-engage the individual and nudge them to download it.
That said, once downloaded and running, RealtyTek does have some sharp two-functionality. The consumer can use it to plug in properties they want to see and directly arrange tours, a great way to avoid the digital back-and-forth of email, voicemail, etc. Just drop it on the calendar. Nice.
On their end, the agent can see what the consumer has saved and liked and recommend similar homes from there. Their budget, move goals and opinion of homes already seen are visible as well.
Thus, it’s easy for agents to stay abreast of what their contacts are up to on the search front. With the in-app chat tool, the communication can stay siloed within the context of the relationship.
For a team new to software engineering, the UX/UI design is impressive. The app looks great and reflects a typical agent’s workflow, in terms of putting right up front what’s most important each day.
However, RealtyTek’s brief tenure in the proptech space is also evident in the app’s lack of awareness on what users expect, which is to say, it needs to be able to connect to an existing CRM or contact database.
Few agents use their phone’s contact directory as a tool for relationship tracking. It’s not designed that way and is likely rife with outdated or partially present data.
Activity within RealtyTek needs to be used at some point by larger business systems, such as transaction management solutions and long-term outreach campaigns. The concerns with this app lie more in concept than execution, as I find the team more than capable of getting there. It’s so close.
RealtyTek, still, can be of great use to new agents, and those who are growing into their next phase of productivity. It’s easy to learn, and efficient, and its code is layered with industry experience. Let’s see what they do next.
And hey, MLSs, pay attention to what your members are building and consider helping out.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
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