Here’s a shocking fact: at least one in three real estate businesses are copying and pasting at least some of the same information across different systems.
Look around your office – if you’re running a typical residential agency, you’re probably using more than ten different tech tools.
Commercial agencies? At least seven. And that’s not even counting basics like Outlook.
Think about that for a moment: Your team is wasting hours typing the same thing over and over, risking mistakes, and losing time they could spend with clients.
I’ve spent years working with real estate technology, and I’ve watched this headache get bigger as more and more PropTech solutions hit the market.
Let’s be honest: at the time, you probably chose each of these systems for good reasons. Maybe your CRM is great at tracking leads.
Your property management software handles trust accounting like a dream. And your digital signing tool is super easy to use.
Each choice made sense at the time.
But now you’re stuck with a bunch of systems that don’t talk to each other, and it’s actually making your job harder.
Here’s a real-world example: A property manager gets a call from a landlord who wants to sell. In many agencies, that hot lead never makes it to the sales team because the property management and sales systems are completely separate.
Or – here’s another: try getting a clear picture of how your agency is performing when your numbers are scattered across several different platforms.
How many hours does your team waste pulling reports from different places just to understand if you’re hitting your targets?
The old answer would be to throw everything out and start fresh with one system.
But that’s not realistic – you picked these tools for a reason, and your team knows how to use them.
This is where a platform comes in. Don’t worry—it’s not another system to add to your pile. Think of it more like a translator that helps all your existing tools communicate.
At MRI, we’re building something called MRI Agora to solve this problem.
Here’s a simple way to think about it: if all your different software systems are buildings in a city, the platform is like the roads and power lines that connect everything together.
What does this mean in practice? When a property manager books that sales appraisal in their system, the sales team gets notified instantly.
When a buyer walks into an open home, the agent immediately knows if they’re already an investor with properties managed by the agency.
When someone signs a contract digitally, you get the notification in whatever system you’re using at the time.
The future isn’t about adding more tech – it’s about making your existing tools work together smartly. This doesn’t just save time; it helps you catch opportunities that might otherwise slip through the cracks.
For principals and managers, here are three things to think about when looking at your tech:
- When choosing new software, ask if it can connect with your other systems. If it can’t it should be an absolute deal-breaker.
- Add up the hidden costs of disconnected systems. This could be time wasted on double entry, missed opportunities because information isn’t being shared, and the sometimes very hidden cost of the stress it puts on your team.
- Look for tech providers who can help connect your systems together. Ask them about their “platform strategy” – in other words, how will they help your tech work as one?
The agencies that will win in the future aren’t the ones with the most technology – they’re the ones whose technology works together seamlessly.
This will free up your team to do what they do best: building relationships and helping clients.
We’re finally getting to a point where technology can actually make your job easier, not more complicated.
The question is: are you ready to get your systems talking to each other?
