Real estate agents: What software tools are missing today?

[Chris Talley]

I've noticed that the 2 real estate agents I've worked with tend to manage their sales processes extremely manually. Some examples:

(buyer's agent): Tracking potential properties for a buyer client in a spreadsheet.

(seller's agent): Tracking open house leads on a paper sign-in sheet. They never follow up on these leads, since doing so would require manual data entry that they don't have time to do.

(buyer's & seller's agent): Tracking to-do items either in a spreadsheet or by memory as the deal is in escrow. They'll have a checklist written down somewhere, but occasionally things fall through the cracks if the agent isn't 100% on top of every task in every deal that they're involved with. 

I've heard plenty of horror stories, especially around the third point, where a lack of clear client-agent communication on escrow to-do items leads to problems and delays in closing. E.g. buyer doesn't realize they need homeowner's insurance, delays closing as a result.

So I have a few questions as I explore opportunities to build software with the mission of giving real estate agents better leverage of their time:

1) Do you see any places in your real estate businesses where there is a lack of proper automation?

2) What's the most error-prone part of your business today?

3) Are there tools that the big brokerages have built in-house that the boutique brokerages are lacking?