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Software has been helping real estate agents do more — faster — for decades. But its downstream impact is harder to measure. After all, if agents are more automated than ever, why do they still struggle to prove their value?
In a conversation moderated by technology analyst Mike DelPrete, Courted CEO Sean Soderstrom, Bramlett Residential Real Estate owner Eric Bramlett and Zoocasa CEO Carrie Lysenko on Thursday debated the impact new technology has on home sales — and the tools they use to move the needle on transactions.
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“If you’re going to focus on growth, and need to focus on talent, why wouldn’t you start by freeing up time?” said Lysenko, who explained that it’s the simple chores that add up. “Who wouldn’t want another 120 hours per month?”
Asked what’s working well for him, Bramlett agreed with Lysenko that small tasks, like wishing a client a Happy Birthday or shopping for closing gifts, add up quickly. Bramlett’s team uses an automated gifting process that sends important clients post-closing thank yous. Lysenko uses a program called Axiom.ai designed to expedite common tasks in browser-based software.
Bramlett believes that moving the needle comes from being consistent in communication with buyers and sellers — and that his team’s best return on investment comes from phone calls.
“The majority of an agent’s business comes from their sphere of influence, and we automate that,” he told the audience. “It’s not sexy, but it does move the needle.”
Soderstrom’s Courted solution has moved up the industry ladder with speed, sprouting from an agent-networking app to a powerful machine-learning-based recruiting and retention platform. And inside that operation, the focus is on empowering software engineers so they can hone the product.
“Two things on the technology front, our software development team uses a product called GitHub. It doesn’t replace anyone on the team, but it allows them to focus on more complicated tasks,” Soderstrom said.
GitHub expedites repetitive coding tasks, keeps teams communicating and betters productivity.
“Internally, we have a candidate identity resolution. So, if someone comes to a website in real-time, our sales team gets a Slack message in real-time, even if the person didn’t fill out anything or give any contact information,” Soderstrom said. “So they’ll get a phone call while they’re on the website.”
Delprete confessed that the longer he stays in the business, the more he learns that it’s the boring stuff that moves the needle.
Bramlett surprised the audience to that effect when he said that an investment in agent headshots has gone a long way to bolster agent confidence.
“They’re very proud of it,” he said. “It went incredibly well, because it’s how they interface with their clients. We decided to really elevate their profiles in the website beyond the standard, one-by-one photo.”
In a technology-driven real estate market that is seeing the industry rely more and more on machines to find leads, generative AI to stage homes and video avatars on social media posts, it seems counterintuitive that things like professional headshots and sending gifts faster would make the difference.
But in a market like the last two years, it sometimes pays to be boring.
