There’s been plenty of talk lately—and just as much uncertainty at times—about what the future looks like for the real estate industry. Between massive reveals and moves between industry players, it’s been a lot to take in.
Last week, we held a webinar hosted by our very own Kyle Hunter, GM of Franchise here at Lone Wolf, to discuss the current shifts happening in the real estate industry and where that leaves real estate professionals in terms of software usage.
In case you weren’t able to attend, here’s a quick recap of what we learned—and don’t forget to check out the full recording.
Tech bloat—or SaaS sprawl—is a very real problem.
These days, technology tends to be a lot like dust: When you’re not looking, it builds up. And tech bloat, sometimes referred to as software-as-a-service (SaaS) sprawl, is the term born of this phenomenon.
In our recent report with T3 Sixty, we discovered that on average, brokerages have over 20 different pieces of software involved in their businesses.
“As the real estate industry continues to evolve, technology fragments. Since it’s growing at a faster pace, what happens is that you’ll have various solutions that are built for specific reasons, and then…you’ll have another solution that takes place, and it sprawls out of control from there.”
–Kyle Hunter, GM, Franchise, Lone Wolf
These sprawling solutions tend to create additional headaches for everyone involved—because they often mean speedbumps in processes through extra logins, extra costs, and disconnected data syncs.
There isn’t one root cause of the problem…
As Hunter explained, there are multiple reasons why tech bloat happens. Whether it’s through increases in agent count—many of whom bring their own favorite solutions—or mergers and acquisitions that introduce new solutions and processes that need to be resolved with existing ones, it isn’t uncommon for new technology to sneak into a business.
What’s more, the last few years have also set up a unique situation for brokerages especially in that they’ve needed to introduce multiple new solutions, some of which are industry-agnostic solutions like Zoom and Slack, to help with remote communication.
…but there is one solution.
The trick to handling sprawling solutions within any business—whether it’s an agent’s day to day or a major franchise’s inter-office process—comes down to modernization. Simply put,
“It’s not about providing more technology. It’s about trying to focus on the need for technology to do more. Rather than having information move from different solution to different solution, why not have all of those things work in harmony?”
–Kyle Hunter, GM, Franchise, Lone Wolf
That’s something that the team at Lone Wolf recognizes needs to happen—real estate needs its software to go through an era of modernization, and come out on the other side ready to support the industry’s needs for the future.
Earlier last week, we shared the news of the upcoming Lone Wolf Foundation, the platform made to bring together the various tools of real estate, into one solution—and in the event, Hunter gave viewers a little preview of what that would look like.
What’s next for real estate?
Discover more about the future of real estate software here—and don’t forget to watch the full event for more key insights about what’s to come.
