RESAAS attracts real estate agents with potential for industry distruption

Over the last two decades, a number of conglomerates have changed different industries around the world. Amazon revolutionized retail, fintech revolutionized financial services, Uber has revolutionized the taxi industry, airbnb has revolutionized vacation rental industry, but the real estate industry proper has yet to experience something as ground breaking.

That may all be changing with a new professional-only platform for real estate agents by RESAAS Services Inc. that lets agents communicate about off-market listings, find referrals and generally facilitate communication among agents.

"We felt that the professionals in the real estate industry needed a better way to work together, so we created a technology platform that is the real estate industry's only professional collaboration, communication and transaction destination," Tom Rossiter, CEO of RESAAS, told Streetwise Reports.

The cloud-based and blockchain technology platform allows real estate agents to communicate with each other away from the eyes and ears of consumers. It gives real estate professionals access to the network of agents to see sales activity, current listings and listings that are not yet on the market.

Communication Platform

"Agents use RESAAS to discuss listings that are coming onto the market but have not yet been made public on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS)," Rossiter noted.

About a dozen of the larger real estate associations in the U.S. have signed on to use RESAAS, including the real estate associations in San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, Miami, the entire state of Rhode Island, Beverly Hills and the Greater Los Angeles Association of Realtors. The two largest real estate firms, RE/MAX and Keller Williams, also use RESAAS' technology.

Jay Pepper-Martens, director of MLS and IT for the San Francisco Association of REALTORS, told Streetwise Reports, "Leveling the market for all agents who want to have access to see pre/off-MLS listings has been the key objective of the platform and the ability to enter, see and contact agents about those listing opportunities is without a doubt the best aspect of the platform."

"When seeking a solution for our 'off-MLS' problem, we knew no company would have exactly what we wanted off-the-shelf. RESAAS demonstrated not only an excellent software platform that was very close to what we needed, but the willingness to modify it to precisely fit what we wanted," he stated.

"RESAAS has been more than a vendor, it is a true partner. They have helped us refine and improve the platform and have supported us at all levels from our customers who use the system every day, to our staff who administer and manage it," Pepper-Martens added.

Shawna Gilbert, Vice President of Global Development for RE/MAX World Headquarters, said her company was attracted by a combination of RESAAS' vision and its "world-class platform, which is easy to use and could be customized to meet the needs of our agents in over 100 countries. We are a complex, global network with high expectations of our technology partners. And RESAAS has come through for us in every way."

High Adoption Rate

The technology is now used by over 460,000 agents globally, 90% of whom are in North America.

Pepper-Martens explained, "Our pitch to our members of the San Francisco Board of REALTORS was that the platform would provide a clean mechanism for sharing off-MLS listing data before it "goes public" on the MLS, and other public websites. Adoption has been steady over the lifetime of the deployment and it now enjoys strong use and boasts success stories about transactions that were completed based on the visibility of the listing on this platform."

On the adoption of the technology by RE/MAX agents, Gilbert said, "When we implemented Single Sign On (connecting RESAAS with RE/MAX's login system) and made it easy for our agents to access the platform, adoption really took off. Our agents are busy serving buyers and sellers, so reducing the number of steps involved made a big difference. Technology adoption can be a real challenge, but RESAAS has been a great partner in helping our agents take advantage of the tools we offer."

User adoption has been high, with more that 90% of eligible agents taking advantage of the RESAAS platform in some markets.

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