Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.
The proptech money tap pumped at high flow rates throughout 2019, and the line of companies with cupped hands snaked around the corner. There’s no putting a kink in the system, and as of now, everyone is benefitting from it.
However, good technology can’t exist for the sake of itself or thrive only because its coffers are swollen. It needs an idea to power and a mission to help carry out; it takes more than stringing together a bunch of ones and zeros and looking good on a smartphone screen to remain effective.
The following 10 companies (not ranked in any order) did a great job this year of putting tech to its highest and best use on behalf of you, the real estate agent, and most importantly, for your mission to serve clients openly and efficiently.
1. DashCMA
Market report and presentation software
DashCMA was developed by Karen Abram, an agent and Hollywood advertising executive, whose job it was, in brief, to contrast marketing spend with box office return.
From the standpoint of the buyer being recommended an offer price or the seller a listing price, the user experience within DashCMA is a sure winner. Users should enjoy the pointed terminology and sleek iconography that communicate critical metrics such as selling pace, pricing favorability, pricing rate of change, fresh/stale and current active shelf life.
2. Majordomo
Majordomo is a post-inspection pricing and repair prioritization tool
Majordomo reduces the time between inspection delivery and per-item negotiation. Its value proposition is pretty spot-on, billing itself as “the second half of the home inspection.”
It does a great job of humanizing clinical and text-heavy inspection reports. Property inspectors’ jobs are hard, and they don’t have time to make their summaries visually appealing.
3. TopHap
TopHap is a market intelligence platform for real estate professionals
The most simple way to describe TopHap is to say it’s a map-based comparative market analysis tool. It uses a hexagonal map grid, a design scheme used historically in map-based games, but now used by Uber to measure ride demand and predict dispatch times.
It offers a better way to compare data by location. But it isn’t all about the maps — TopHap also provides great looking property pages for in-depth looks at individual listings.
4. Loft47
Loft47 is web application for managing back-office brokerage business
Aimed at fingers-in-the-mud brokers who love to get dirty with numbers, Loft47 does a superb job of laundering the proverbial feature fluff, leaving a clean, unblemished solution for tightly run, high-performing shops.
It deftly handles complex transaction structures. This is tight software meant to help you run a brokerage and help your agents understand how they’re doing.
5. Clozio
Clozio is software for agents and their clients to better manage and monitor post-contract processes
A light, fast task and time management tool for ensuring everything that happens after the offer is accepted gets done and everyone who should know about those things does.
Clozio looks as if it can make transactions fun to manage while limiting the number of questions your buyers and sellers ask you about them. In fact, rare is a tagline so appropriate: “Share experiences, not contracts.”
6. KW’s Command
Software for managing marketing, leads and supporting agent productivity
Command is more agent operating system than CRM, and a deeply featured, exceptionally well-designed product. Its sophistication in email marketing, social media management, lead qualification, task management and general business oversight would allow the broadest segment of users to drop the majority of their monthly software subscriptions.
7. SquadVoice
SquadVoice is a data services platform helping real estate brokerages better leverage CRM data and leads
SquadVoice wants the industry to know it is not a lead generation company, unless you consider pulling “left-for-dead” contacts from your CRM a form of lead generation.
The software models carefully ensure each person is worth asking for an appointment and that an agent’s lead follow-up time is profitable.
8. MoveEasy
MoveEasy is a relocation resources portal
In two years, this web application grew from working with two brokerages to 77, with close to 30,000 total agents.
This year, it launched an Amazon Echo VAI (voice activated internet) app extension of its portal. Its super clean and insightful user interface helps users make sense of the stressful litany of decisions that accompany moving and helps agents stay top-of-mind the entire way.
9. Copper
Formerly ProsperWorks, Copper is a multi-industry CRM solution with a designated product for real estate
This updated version has a browser experience outside of Gmail, but it still maintains that seamless back-and-forth should an agent want it. It remains the only CRM officially recommended by Google.
The user experience is all about quick access to information, smart sliding menus and visual ergonomics that encourage interaction. There’s little noise, and menus and features don’t try to grab your attention when you aren’t using them.
10. Ricoh Theta Z1
A 360-degree, 23-megapixel camera launched specifically for real estate tours
Considered the Theta line’s flagship product, the Z1 can snap still images at 7K (22.5 MP) thanks to its 1-inch sensor, and video at 4K. The body is more stout, made of magnesium and offering only four buttons to access all features, which are read and adjusted on its 0.93-inch, on-board monitor.
The 6.4-ounce Theta Z1 is also an ideal live-streaming camera, another quickly growing tactic for web-savvy real estate agents.
What did we miss? What were your favorite tech products in 2019? Please share in the comments section below.
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.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
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