Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
While new technology aims to make businesses run more smoothly, the opposite can often be true. An article in RisMedia points out that there are so many different options available, but few are designed to work together.
HomeSmart International is aiming to solve this problem by launching a marketing and integrated proprietary platform for brokers and agents. To do this, it has built an in-house technology company that creates, maintains and continually updates its proprietary platform. This enables HomeSmart to provide an integrated system for brokers that will allow agents to access and use the systems at no additional cost.
The real estate franchising company was created by Matt Widdows because he felt there wasn’t anything available that could offer everything required by brokers and agents to service consumers. Since its inception more than 16 years ago, this concept has attracted nearly 11,000 agents in 94 offices over 15 US states. Users get eight different technology systems on just one platform. By accessing this single platform, it is able to feed data to and from each of the other systems. The company’s ability to build all the technology in-house enables them to provide everything required to agents and brokers, without paying user fees to outside defenders.
HomeSmart provides a centralized service from its corporate office in Scottsdale, Arizona so that every consumer gets a consistent experience when choosing a HomeSmart agent, regardless of their location. At the beginning of last year the company launched its Centralized Services division which provides a menu of services to franchisees at a much lower rate than normal. These services include agent support, virtual reception and recruiting and marketing, with more services due to be added next year. The idea is to free up a franchise owner so they can focus on areas of their business that will help it grow.
The technology applications provided by HomeSmart include RealSmart Broker that aims to centralize paperwork and broker to agent communications regardless of the size of the franchise. It’s a paperless transaction system provides greater efficiency so productivity levels can be quickly tracked and managed. Real Smart Agent is the company’s hub from which all agent business is conducted. Agents are able to access listing information, marketing materials, websites and transaction documentation as well as other features from just a single login. Other applications include Centralized Services, SmartSites and SmartTools.
