Boom Goes the Dynamite

Boom! You’ve heard it in pop music and you’ve seen it at the movies. However, when a boom hits the real estate industry, its reverberations are felt across the entire nation. According to a recent article, Redfin shows that home prices across the country have surged to a median sale price of $386,888. That’s a year-over-year increase of 24.8% paired with a 39.6% tumble in homes for sale and a 20.6% increase in homes sold. Mortgage rates have been in decline since the pandemic and continue to trend downward since late June and the Real Estate market feels a bit like the Wild West. 

However, Fannie Mae confirmed in July of this year that buyers and sellers are not on the same page when it comes to optimism and outlook. Since moving past the mid-year point, 64% of buyers think it is a bad time to buy while 77% of sellers think it’s a great time to sell. So what can agents do to match the right buyers to sellers so they can maximize earnings for their firm, their clients, and their own bottom line? Bitwise Technology Consulting has worked hard with industry experts to provide innovative tech to help brokerages outperform the competition while attracting (and keeping) top producers, helping sellers sell faster, and pairing buyers with the perfect home. Additionally, our technology impact area covers property managers and homeowners, too. Check out the following trifecta of technology. 

What’s a Broker’s Best Tool?

Listing Alert. This is a mobile app designed to give real estate brokers and agents advanced, exclusive access to property listings before they appear on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Bitwise Industries created this app to give agents in brokerages a real competitive edge in an extremely tight inventory market. This mobile app uses a smart algorithm to match buyers’ wants and needs to the available listings within a brokerage, and vice versa. 
Ditch the office whiteboard! Since Listing Alert is mobile, agents can sit with a client and notify the team in real time regardless of where they are in their firm’s ecosystem. From address and room count to square footage and lot size, every agent within that brokerage is armed with detailed info to not only market the listing to their buyers, but to answer any questions about the property for floor calls or cold inquiries. Make sure that everyone else in the brokerage saves time and money by leveraging matches that fit their listings or buyers fast and efficiently before it hits MLS. This open access to listing and buyer data helps agents collaborate together, while staying in compliance with all national standards. Spend more time growing the ROI and less time pouring over written notes, emails and texts with Listing Alert. Read more about how we built this app in this case study.

New Dog, New Trick

Established in 1919, Pearson Realty is California’s largest Ag real estate brokerage. Proactive at addressing any inefficiencies or weak spots in their operations, they approached Bitwise Industries with a challenge to help them better serve their client base; our answer was a two-fold approach. 

The first leg of the project centered on our enterprise software expertise. Pearson Realty recognized that an improvement to the usability of their sizable database was required to provide actionable real estate data for their sales team. Pearson already had a significant wealth of data available within their “vault.” What they needed was a portal that streamlined user access. An internal portal was developed to graphically display property details and show trends that offered agents and clients insight into transactions not currently available with other firms. The Pearson Realty property portal allows staff to easily enter and verify data that other staff can acquire as they serve clients. This property portal grants 24/7 access to a constantly updated database and reporting engine to use for their clients’ benefit.

The second component of this project required a website that would clearly differentiate Pearson’s expertise in the market, their wealth of information, as well as its listings, contact information for departments, and other useful information. The new site improved the visitor experience by functioning seamlessly on any browser or device, while increasing site traffic with enhanced search engine optimization features. Using the improved Content Management System (CMS), Pearson can keep their site up to date and relevant for visitors with the enhanced, user-friendly in-house editing capabilities. These improvements all serve to drive client engagement for the Pearson Realty team. Read more about this project in this case study. 

Who is the King of the Castle? 

Homeowners will spend between 1% to 4% of their home value every year on maintenance. Property managers will allocate even more. And the overall expense is more than money. Homeowners and property managers alike will spend a lot of their time tracking down reputable service companies, coordinating schedules, and juggling multiple projects at once. Tying all that effort into one sticky note on the refrigerator isn’t the best plan. 

Managed Castle^TM is a cloud-based app that addresses the holistic approach to organize and manage everything from simple home maintenance tasks to complex, multi-location property management projects. Accurately tracking these activities is no small feat. With the Managed Castle app, users can go macro on monitoring larger systems (e.g. HVAC, heating, plumbing, AC filters), or stay in the trenches with specific details down to the micro systems (e.g. light bulbs, battery changes, pool filters). Additionally, Bitwise Industries provided Managed Castle with important documentation storage, for home warranties, natural hazard disclosures, home-buying contracts, service orders, and receipts. This app truly allows users to take care of everything, even if they don’t know the first thing about doing it. 

Managed Castle^TM integrates with an Amazon Product Search API, so users can order items like AC filters or sprinkler heads directly through the app. It also integrates with a third-party service provider to list professionals who users can hire for any particular improvement task. 

Homeowners and property managers can be more proactive when they manage their improvement expenses, regulate maintenance, purchase replacement items, or schedule a professional for a consultation with the Managed Castle^TM app. Read more about how we built this app in our case study.

Where’s the Crystal Ball?

No one can predict the future in any industry. And professional speculation is a nice way to say, “I’m guessing smartly.” However, investing in a strong technology backbone to revolutionize a brokerage’s best practices, advancing a 100-year-old company, or automating maintenance tasks builds an effective platform for perpetual growth that will successfully carry any critical desire into the future. So what can technology do for you?

Let Us Help

Technology Consulting is the Software Development-as-a-Service division of Bitwise 

Industries that specializes in custom software development, managed services, and Salesforce implementation. Our technology professionals have deep experience applying cutting-edge technology solutions to help real estate entities of all sizes navigate the technology landscape to find solutions to optimize their operations.
If you’re interested in uncovering the tech possibilities available to your organization, click this link to schedule some time with one of our experts.

This post was written by Jeff Rickels, Technical Writer for Bitwise Industries. When he’s not writing, he’s practicing the art of biting his tongue. Not everyone needs “dad advice” at all times.

If you’re interested in uncovering the tech possibilities available to your organization or want to find more ways to increase your ROI with technology, click this link to schedule some time with one of our experts.