In the real estate brokerage technology space, lately you may have been hearing about Application Program Interfaces, or APIs. “What’s an API and why should I care?,” you may ask. Fair questions! They are simply tools that help developers build software applications. Just as an email “send” button performs all the tasks necessary to send an email, an API gives programmers specific functionality to access just the data and functions necessary to code a web page, without having to start building from scratch.
Why should you care about any of this? Because these are the building blocks that make operating and growing your real estate brokerage easier. Now do I have your attention? Alright!
Here’s a simple example: A new lead is created on your website by completing a lead capture form. That data is stored in a database. A developer can use an API to easily send all new lead data to another program, like setting up automated marketing, sharing the data with a mobile app, or creating a calendar invite for a listing appointment. All this can happen automatically, because APIs make it possible.
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Now that we understand on a basic level how APIs work, here are the top three ways they can help real estate brokerages:
Completely Flexible Design
Unlike most other real estate brokerage technology vendors, at TRIBUS we employ a team of designers, developers, project managers, and an implementation team to make sure each launch is a success. This also means that we have the capabilities to completely custom build each client’s site and backend. We don’t have a number of templates that you must choose from — instead we let you drive the design and functionality. Want something completely different from all of the rest of our clients? No problem! So no longer will you have to force fit a solution to fit the vendor’s capabilities — you get what you want from the beginning. This allows the site to match your branding and personality, along with the functionality you want. Some of our clients even want their third-party branding firms, like 1000 Watt Consulting, to design their websites. Because of our custom development process, this isn’t a problem at all.
APIs Play Nice With Others
I’ve written about third-party integrations before, but it is enabled because of APIs. Want new leads to go to your transaction management platform? Want new lead data from Zillow coming into your CRM? How about adding new leads to a Google spreadsheet automatically? APIs make these and hundreds of other third-party integrations possible. TRIBUS features a few of those integrations here.
Real Estate Data Warehouse Capabilities
By having your listing data, lead data and agent data stored in the cloud, you can invite others to access or update your data. Having a master repository for your data in these three categories means data is not stored in different, isolated and duplicative systems, where data can quickly get out of sync. All systems needing this information can use an API to get the data they want, or update data so others have access to timely information. And it’s all sourced from the same data — no need for duplicative data anywhere. For instance, Homespotter is a mobile real estate application developer, and we have a common client. By using an API, both TRIBUS and Homespotter can share user information, so homes searched on either platform can be synced and available to the other platform. Meaning your CRM is always current, whether the user searched for homes on the website or mobile application.
The beauty of using APIs for your data is they are a foundation, upon which all sorts of applications (websites, mobile apps, email platforms, CRM, Intranet applications) can share data. If your broker platform vendor is not building your applications using APIs, you may become frustrated with the limited functionality they can provide, or their inability to tweak your system to your liking. And it is harder for your data to flow freely where you want it to go. For maximum flexibility and scalability, consider using APIs to power your real estate brokerage platform.
