Top 3 Reasons Real Estate Brokerages Can’t Get Their Data

I speak with brokerages large and small every day about their real estate brokerage websites.  A common concern I hear among them is a frustration with their inability to enter data once, and have it available not only within the tools they use, but common tools their agents may use.  This can include new leads getting pushed into another system, easily allowing your marketing vendors access to your listing or roster data, or getting accounting information into your reporting system from your financial vendor.  Here are three common reasons why a real estate brokerage cannot get their data where and when they want it.

By Vendor Design

Some vendors offer a multitude of products and services, and if you’re a customer of one, they want you as a customer for all of them.   This makes sense from a business perspective, but more the vendor’s business than yours.  You may really like one of the vendor’s offered services, and it may work very well with their other services, but not with others.  You now feel trapped and obligated to use the vendor’s other services, even if those other services are not the best choice for that category.

Vendor’s Technical Challenges

A vendor may have grown organically or via acquisition over a long period of time.  Demand for data was not foreseen when they originally built their technology stack, making it challenging to now offer that capability.  If their growth was by acquisition, it may be their current technology is a facade, hodge-podged together on the front end to provide a cohesive service to the customer, but unable to effectively aggregate the data.  Therefore they cannot expose it via an API or other means of sharing.

Proprietary System

This is a variation of “By Vendor Design” above, but if a technology vendor builds their product on a proprietary system, the data coming out of it will not be of great use to you in another system.   This is another form of entrapment, making leaving the vendor more painful, and creates friction when trying to get data elsewhere.  I often compare this to the casinos in Las Vegas, where it’s super easy to take that motorized walkway from the boulevard into the casino, but it’s a long, sad lonely walk back to street when you leave.  So you cling to that old tech, as painful, productive and liberating as it may be to move.  But eventually you’re going to need to upgrade to improve the flow of data in and out of your platform.

When considering custom real estate brokerage website vendors, consider one that has APIs that share your data with your preferred vendors, allowing for many integration partners, such as those we have at TRIBUS.

Jeff has spent his entire career in and around real estate. He began his career practicing law as a CPA/JD specializing in real estate transactions. He next served as general counsel/broker at a real estate auction firm, where he marketed and sold virtually every type of real estate, from unique residential homes to home lots, new construction closeouts to retail, commercial and industrial properties.
Jeff next helped launch bid4real, a venture-capital backed online real estate auction platform that were licensed by the ‘Chicago Tribune,’ among others. Remaining at the intersection of real estate and the Internet, Jeff was Vice President of Business Development at online new homes broker iNest (acquired by LendingTree), real estate portal RealEstate.com, and VHT, the nation’s largest real estate photography provider.
Most recently Jeff held two newly created positions at Matterport, the 3D media technology and software company, first as Vice President of Sales and Business Development, and then Vice President of Enterprise Sales.
Now Jeff is managing TRIBUS’ Chicago office and overseeing their sales, marketing and customer care teams.
Unlimit Your Brokerage - Get A Brochure Now