A year ago, in April, the real estate industry had one of its biggest drops since the 2008 crisis. Home sales were down 40% compared to the same month in 2019.
It’s not just the sales themselves that were affected. Other metrics — online search queries, search for real estate agents, and offers made — also dropped sharply. You’d typically expect that such a drop in interest would be followed by an equally sharp drop in prices. But that never happened.
As home sales rose back very quickly, the prices never got around to following the trend and stayed pretty much the same.
If you look at these charts, you might think that the drops are just a blip on the radar — nothing significant, nothing to worry about. The market recovered spectacularly fast and by summer last year everything seemed to be business as usual.
However, there is more to the real estate market than residential sales. Yes, I’m talking about commercial real estate. Sales and rentals are down on all segments: office spaces (remember, everyone worked and some still do from home), shopping malls, even restaurants reassessed their need for big spaces and started downsizing.
As the work from home (or work from anywhere) trend seems to be more than just a trend — something that’s here to stay, commercial real estate perspectives look grim. As Investopedia puts it: “short-term pain in rents, long-term pain in culture shift”.
What can the industry do? Adapt and improve, much like everyone else, but…with a twist.
If you think that we just have to ride this last wave of the pandemic and then we’ll be back to normal, I strongly suggest you think again. “Back to normal” means different things for different industries.
Before you accuse me of being Debbie Downer: this is not a doom and gloom perspective. It’s just the perspective that takes the cultural shift into account.
It’s been more than a year since all industries had to “pivot”, “reinvent themselves”, “navigate new waters”, and so on. But it’s not just the impersonal industries that did that.
It’s everyone. It’s the people, too. In fact, it’s only the people. Remember that there are people who make up the industries — all of them. The real estate industry is made up of people who are just as human as their clients.
Together, we went through a global cultural shift. We do things differently now and, even when wearing a mask out in public will be nothing but a distant memory, a big part of our lives will be governed by the cultural shift that happens as we speak.
Well, it means that realtors, real estate agents, property managers, and everyone else in this niche will have to lead with tech. Yes, selling and renting properties is a “people’s business”. Real estate agents talk a lot about connecting to their customers and getting a feel for their real needs so they can offer adequate properties.
We used to do that during face-to-face meetings. Now even open houses have gone virtual. How can real estate agents get a feel for their customers’ needs, how can they acquiesce if the young couple looking for a new home likes this backyard or if they feel like the kitchen is too cramped?
It’s hard. But not impossible.
You may not be able to “read” your customers during a Zoom call. But you can read them if you integrate your software solutions in a way that offers unparalleled insights into their buying behavior.
A lot of the people who attended open houses via conference call will want to go back to the in-person viewings. However, the cultural shift in progress tells us that they will never go back to dealing with their real estate agent 100% in-person or via phone. They will require a lot of emailing, more detailed photos, 3D renderings, and pretty much any digital asset you can think of before making the trip to see the house in person.
By then, the deal will be almost sealed and the real-life meeting will be more of a formality. Because, despite the reason why we got accustomed to doing almost everything online, we have to admit it’s convenient and time-consuming.
Of course, adapting to the new culture will be hard for everyone, especially for those in real estate. Growing pains are always tough, but this doesn’t mean they’re not necessary.
Irrespective of how and when the COVID-19 pandemic comes to a conclusion, the real estate industry has massive opportunities ahead. Historically a laggard when it comes to tech adoption, this is the industry’s chance to lead through tech and to deliver omnichannel strategies and integrated sales tactics at a touch of a button.
Sounds like the plot of a science-fiction movie? It’s not. It’s a technology that already exists and that a lot of real estate companies are already using.
Curious to see how they do it? Read on to find out how we empower companies in real estate with integrated solutions designed to make their lives easier and their businesses more profitable.
Boost your real estate sales and marketing by eliminating manual data entry and reliance on colleague feedback.
OK, now that we’ve scratched the surface, let’s take a look at how easy it is to accomplish all of the above and so much more. Oh, did I mention that it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Cazoomi is on a mission to democratize integration — to make it accessible to everyone, irrespective of their size or budget.
That’s why our pricing is very affordable. And when we say it’s for any budget, we mean it. It’s even for those with zero budget. Have you seen our FREE plans? Yes, they are plans, not free trials.
Real estate contacts and leads are worth their proverbial weight in gold. So you wouldn’t want to misplace them in the indefinite space between your CRM and your marketing automation solution, right?
This is where the Constant Contact and Mailchimp for Salesforce integrations come into play. You won’t just keep all your contacts and leads in a safe place. With real-time syncing of marketing metrics, you’ll always have a bird’s eye view over prospects for sales and closed deals.
Let’s see these integrations in real-life action, shall we?
RCLCO is a consulting firm that helps real estate professionals find an easy solution to sync bidirectional records from Constant Contact and Salesforce. Their choice to empower their clients: SyncApps.
SyncApps is an excellent solution for real estate professionals who hate wasting time on manual data input. I guess you could say that’s all the real estate professionals, right? Want synced records? Just set it and forget it! You’ll save tons of time and it’s entirely customizable: you can opt for monthly syncs, or you can do it yearly (see pricing for subscriptions).
Any brokers or real estate agents who want to sync multiple matching emails to your CRM? Check this article on how these features work. Sync Constant Contact Campaign Metrics to Multiple Matching Email Records in Salesforce
A lot of our real estate clients simply want to sync their active contacts from their CRM to their marketing automation solution or vice versa. After all, why bother syncing contacts that you’ve already helped find a new home? The odds are they won’t be in the market for a new purchase for quite a few years, so why bother them with irrelevant emails?
So how do you get the numbers and the contacts that really matter? Quite easily if you’re on SyncApps.
Multiple Listing Service of Southern Arizona (MLSSAZ) uses our Dynamics 365 to Constant Contact integration to help them filter and sync active records from their CRM to their marketing automation solution.
As an organization that deals with thousands of contacts for every campaign, this feature is of the utmost importance to them. MLSSAZ is the organization to which all real estate professionals look up, so poor targeting and lost contacts aren’t an option.
Apto integrations are an industry favorite. They became part of the SyncApps portfolio by popular demand, and they remained popular. Apto is an extremely valuable tool for property managers and other real estate professionals, so we’re stoked to be able to help them by integrating it into Constant Contact.
Take North East Private Client Group, for instance. They are the fastest-growing investment sales firm in the Northeast, dealing with quite a few types of customers and business lines: investors and property owners who are looking to buy, sell or exchange mid-market properties, including mixed-use, multifamily, retail, and office assets.
To manage all these different stakeholders, they use Apto to Constant Contact which helps them sync records from their CRM and segment them according to location, property type, and more. That’s how they never lose sight of a lead and they never send the wrong message to the wrong contact.
Click here for more details about the Apto integration.
Want to take your real estate business to a whole new level and thrive no matter what the pandemic keeps throwing your way? We’ve got you covered! Sign up to SyncApps — it’s 100% FREE, we won’t even ask for your credit card number.
