The Real Estate Tech Stack: A Simple Approach
Property Base Managing Director STEVE SIMMONS Joined Revaluate at NAR to discuss dealing with the complexities of new Real Estate Tech.
Q: How should we vet technology solutions?
A: You want to make a sophisticated judgement, so crawl before you run. You need a way to reduce the noise to find value in the chaos of technology that exists. To do so, understand your landscape, build exposure to what you observe. Do you want the latest and greatest, the fastest or the cheapest? Take things step by step.
What is a Tech Stack?
The Tech Stack are the solutions and tools that will help you grow your business. The parts need to work well together, aligned in a stack.
Our industry is in a conundrum. We are not efficient, we are disconnected. Agents and brokers and companies are all under the same roof yet using different tools that don’t work well together. We should ask ourselves: “How can I put these together to get more out of what I have in front of me”. That outcome, is an efficient tech stack.
How to create a Tech stack that can scale
- Observe what others are doing
- Walk before running
- Define a 5 year direction
- Budget and plan for growth
- Strengthen your core (database)
- Assess all outside costs, but move forward
Where are you now vs where will you be in 5 years? What are other growth oriented companies doing differently?
Are you going to ride the wave you’ve been on till your luck runs out? Many in our industry are deciding to find new solutions to innovate. If you want to be a top producing agent, team or company in the future – its going to be very difficult with out utilizing new technology. Redfin and Opendoor are showing that consumers don’t have “old brand” loyalty, and will follow better tech and systems.
All of us want to know whats going on in our business. But lots of people have no idea whats going on in their business – simply because their tools are not integrated. Integrated tools provide more insight, so you can make better decisions.
Ensure your technology can integrate and talk to each other. As an example, Propetybase and Revaluate are integrated via API. Revaluate scores the prospects inside Propertybase, letting real estate professionals stay more efficient in only one system. Your systems must communicate with each other in order to provide insight and enhance your productivity.
Analyze the impact of the tech stack decision going forward in 5 years. Don’t just patch holes on the boat – those replacement costs (time, frustration, damage to brand) are high each time you change.
Remember to plan to avoid Analysis Paralysis. Decide to make a choice. Make a decision to move forward and commit to giving it your best effort.
KISS: Keep it simple. Focus on your core at first (Database, CRM) To reduce failure, Don’t overly complicate your tech stack – make it work for you.
Did You Know?
Revaluate is integrated in Propertybase – to learn more select a time to chat with our Real Estate Data expert.
This post is created from the original Steve Simmons presentation at the Revaluate NAR stage.
The original video presentation in its entirety is available at http://Revaluate.com/nar
