Practically every brokerage has the same problem when it comes to technology.
There’s one system for transactions, another for CRM, still another for marketing, accounting and signatures and now AI.
Each promises efficiency, but collectively, they create friction.
AI may be the hottest topic in real estate technology, but according to Lone Wolf’s new CEO Matt Fischer, the industry’s biggest challenge isn’t artificial intelligence. It’s the growing tech complexity agents and brokers are navigating every day.
Matt Fischer
Fischer didn’t come up through the real estate ranks. Before taking the helm at Lone Wolf earlier this year, he spent more than two decades at Bullhorn, a staffing and recruiting software firm. There, he helped grow the startup into a market leader and, in recent years, oversaw the integration of AI into its platform.
His outsider perspective combines with his personal experience buying and selling multiple properties. Fischer understood the transaction from the consumer side, without preconceived notions around brokerage operations or transaction management.
He said he’s spent his first months listening to customers, watching how they use the company’s products and repeatedly questioning why things are done the way they are.
AI is making fragmentation worse
According to Fischer, real estate already had a tech stack fragmentation problem, and the point solutions that followed the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022 have made that problem worse.
Now, every workflow has an AI company attached to it, leaving brokerages to spend money on increasingly fragmented tech stacks and agents to become system integrators instead of real estate practitioners.
For many agents, that means ignoring new tools to avoid the friction of figuring out how to make them work together.
Fischer’s philosophy is that technology isn’t supposed to create more work. It’s supposed to simplify and remove effort. “Software needs to get out of agents’ way, and it needs to actually help them,” he said. “You should always be trying to make experiences easier, more intuitive and have less friction.”
Instead of another login, dashboard or AI assistant with a clever, human-sounding name, technology should eliminate integration bottlenecks like duplicate entry, repetitive tasks, unnecessary clicks and manual handoffs, Fischer said.
The customer nobody in proptech talks about
Because proptech companies typically sell to brokerages, MLSs or agents, they think of them as their customer. But ultimately, it’s consumers who determine whether agents earn repeat business, referrals and long-term loyalty.
That happens, in part, based on seamless tech integrations that improve the customer experience rather than adding unneeded complexity during an already overwhelming experience. Every technology decision at the brokerage level ultimately shapes the client experience.
When technology removes friction, it gives agents the opportunity to focus on the consumer. Real estate, Fischer said, “is a relationship-oriented business. We have to help the users of our solutions focus on what really matters, which is building those relationships. Software can get in the way, or it can help.”
While consumers don’t care which transaction platform their agent uses, how many integrations the brokerage is juggling or what compliance software sits behind the scenes, they care whether:
- Communication is timely
- Documents arrive when expected
- The transaction feels organized
- The process feels less stressful
Technology is invisible until it creates friction, so reducing operational complexity becomes a customer experience strategy.
That means brokerage leaders must measure their tech investment by this question: Does this help agents deliver a better client experience?
“Software needs to get out of their way and it needs to actually help them,” he said.
The best AI isn’t another app
For Fischer, the answer isn’t less AI. It’s better integrated AI that’s part of the agent’s workflow and trained on “excellent, high-quality data sets. You don’t want to send users off into a separate workflow in order to use AI.”
In Fischer’s view, that makes simplicity an increasingly potent competitive advantage. Currently, customers are the ones rebuilding integrations every time a new product rolls out, forcing them to assemble the puzzle pieces. Proptech companies that want to succeed, then, need to have fewer moving parts.
However, that’s not as simple as the ever-popular super app solution. Instead, it means platforms that leverage open ecosystems, intuitive integrations, customer choice and fewer silos.
“Software can get in the way, or it can help,” Fischer said. “Our goal, obviously, is to make sure that it’s not getting in the way, and it is helping.”
Troy Palmquist is the founder and principal at HomeCode Advisors. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
