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I’ve been asked to put together some recommendations on what a “brokerage technology stack” should look like as well as what teams and agents should be thinking about. As I pondered that request, and how I might try to not overcomplicate this, I kept coming back to “it’s not that simple.”
HW+ Analyst
How would I slice this up? What lens should I look through? What problems am I trying to solve with this tech stack? So here’s the way I thought about dissecting it.
Brokerages wear a lot of hats. I don’t mean that in the negative way that it sounds. I mean it in the way that brokerages are both businesses that need to operate as a for-profit concern, and they are real estate businesses that need to create value for agents (primarily 1099 contractors) so they can maintain a healthy retention rate and generate commission revenue. This is important because many of the systems that run the “business” are there for the W-2 employees to use day-in, day-out for operations. While the systems that help to run the real estate business (the brokerage) are there to help 1099 agents generate revenue. And both need to (ideally) work seamlessly together.
And when you really think about it, anyone who runs a team and individual agents as well have things they do related to real estate, then they have a business to run. All of these companies need to be able to do things like track expenses, make sure they pay people or get paid, communicate with people and manage information about the business. These are just basic needs.
This initial article focuses on the systems you need to run your business. And while many of you already have some of these systems in place, when is the last time you checked their effectiveness? You may find that some of the newer systems on the market better support your needs as you’ve grown or evolved. You might also discover that you’ve become complacent (we all do) with your providers even though you’re potentially paying three, four, five times more than you should be.
The post Part 1: A third-party opinion on how to build your broker tech stack appeared first on HousingWire.