5 steps to a scalable tech stack for real estate teams

Does your real estate tech work for you? Or is it the other way around? When it comes to auditing and amplifying your success with technology, you can’t afford to cut corners.

In this article, we’re sharing practical tips to help you build, evaluate, and optimize your real estate tech stack. You’ll learn how to increase adoption, integrate your tools, and bridge the gap between software and ROI. Ready? Let’s get started.

1. Understand the three core elements of a real estate tech stack

According to experts like Justin Benson, fractional Chief Technology Officer, Founder and CEO of Bara Agency and Shilo.ai, no matter what size team you have, there are only three necessary elements to a real estate tech stack: 

1. A great website to generate leads
2. A way to track transactions and monitor agents
3. Your real estate CRM

The way Justin sees it, any technology you adopt should support your goals—not the other way around. For Justin, the most important question you can ask when evaluating any new technology is: 

What process or system of operation do you want to implement or improve?

But what if you already have too much tech? Start untangling the mess by building a complete picture of your lead sources to identify and eliminate redundancies. From there, you can create a 3-6 month roadmap to streamline your tech stack. 

"If you try to change everything all at one time it's going to be chaotic and nobody's going to adopt it. You'll be worse off actually than if you would have just stayed on your older, inefficient system. Create a game plan that is a digestible way for starting to swap out some of those systems that you might want to sunset and move into a different system," says Justin.

Here’s how he explains it:

2. Read the freaking manual

It may sound obvious, but too many teams still don’t use the software they’ve invested in to its full potential. Instead of trying to force your tech systems to do things they weren’t made to do, use it for its intended purpose and look for ways to make those use cases as effective and efficient as possible.

“Life is so much better when you buy software for what it's for and use it for what it does,” says Lee Adkins, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer at Amplified Solutions. If you’re like most users, you might be surprised to find new features and processes you never knew your tools could handle.

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To make sure you’re getting the most out of the tools you’ve invested in:

• Read the manual: Watch the training videos, read the support articles, and focus on optimizing each process for your ideal workflow.
• Explore all of the features: Give your team at least one full day to tinker around inside the platform. Without the pressure of having to get other things done, they can explore freely until they find power tips that work.
• Join support communities: When in doubt, head to any private user communities your vendor offers to ask questions and learn from other users.

Last but not least, have a budget and stick to it. This will help understand whether a specific tool you’re on the fence about is truly valuable to the team. To get a better feel for how much each tool is contributing, Lee likes to ask questions like: What gaps does your tech fill? How will it be used and adopted for your team? Who can you bring on to help train the team to use each feature effectively?

Here’s how Lee sees it:

3. Get agents to actually use your new tools

Whenever you’re introducing a new concept or real estate tech tool, it’s important to nail the presentation. Take it from Chelly Herren, Real Estate Operations Coach and Chief Operations Officer at the Hyland Group, eXp Realty:

“If the tech solves a problem for us then that introduction and adoption and training goes a lot smoother. If it's just a bell and whistle that I think is cool? That’s the hardest one to get adoption on.”

Make sure agents know exactly what problem you’re trying to solve and how the system will solve it. If a specific tool is going to take 5 days of training just to make it work, seriously consider whether there’s really a benefit.

It takes time to learn the technical skills and build the habits you need to become more efficient in the long run. Assess whether the output is worth the input timeframe, or whether it simply creates more work.

And if you decide to go for it? When introducing a new agent tool, leaders like Chelly believe there needs to be clear communication, including:

• An initial verbal presentation, webinar, or introduction. 
• Centralized SOPS/process documents for more visual agents and team members
• An announcement on your chat channel and in your team meetings

With tools like Follow Up Boss, leaders and admins can use widgets for top-of-mind placement of key features as a gentle reminder to help increase adoption amongst the team.

Here’s what Chelly has to say about it:

4. Use AI and automation to its fullest potential

Rockstar transaction coordination expert Lisa Vo is big on automations. 

If you notice your team’s doing a lot of repetitive tasks that you think your software should be able to take off their plate, she’s a big believer that low- or no-code integrations can help make it happen, without the support of a full-time IT specialist. 

Tools like Retool, Make, API Nation, and Zapier have AI bots that you can ask for help setting up automations with easy commands like: “I want to connect my FUB to my Google Sheets.” 

The software will get to work creating a workflow for you using if-then scenarios. Some systems, including Follow Up Boss, have low-code, no-code, and full-stack developers inside their customer communities who’ll be happy to help figure out a solution that works for your specific needs.

Remember, when it comes to building a tech stack you can scale, the key is not to overcomplicate it. “Find the Goldilocks ‘just right’ amount of tech—not too little, no Frankenstacks,” says Lisa.

If you’re juggling too many systems, she recommends putting them all down in a Google Sheet. From there, you can eliminate anything that doesn’t have a clear purpose and consider replacing it with a free or low-cost alternative.

Check out Lisa’s top automation tips:

5. Integrate with tried-and-true old school methods

As a firm believer that “technology shouldn’t replace us,” Chase Whitney still loves old school methods like door-knocking, postcards and direct mail. His philosophy is that teams should use a hybrid strategy of tech and good old-fashioned face-to-face relationship-building.

“You can’t outsource yourself,” says Chase. And for him, it really is that simple. Chase and the team use auto-texting, for example, but they avoid AI calls. For them, authentic connection comes from actually talking to potential clients. 

To bring the physical and digital together, they send out postcards with QR codes. The recipient scans the postcard and fills out their information. That information directly integrates into Follow Up Boss to easily help guide the team’s outreach. Agents know exactly when and how to reach out and can even go knock on a prospect’s door, or find another way to connect in-person. 

“We can see when they scanned it and how many times, then I can go call them, knock on the door, email them, text them, whatever it is to be proactive into getting your house in front of them and find out who they might know is looking to buy or sell,” he explains.

The way Chase sees it, there are just simple rules when evaluating tech — all technology must either: generate business or provide a higher level of service to the client.

Here’s how Chase explains it:

See better returns on your tech investments

In real estate, using the right technology can make or break your success. By following these steps, you can boost user adoption, integrate your team’s tools effectively, and see better returns on your tech investments. 

Follow Up Boss is the team operating system that adapts and changes as you need it to. With the ability to import leads from any source, build systems to automate your unique processes, and change parts of your system without interrupting your team, you can create a successful tech strategy for today and tomorrow.

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