The real estate brokerage industry typically operates on a commission basis. Each of the agents gets paid only after closing the deal. But the revenues are also closely aligned with the health of the market. As you might imagine, laggard home sales drastically impact the payment of each agent. According to data, there are about one million businesses in the US.
The virtual real estate brokerage is relatively an innovation in the age-old practice of selling a property. In the age of information, technology is one of the most significant disruptors. The real estate industry is not exempted from technology disruption.
But the only way to thrive is to adapt and innovate. And that is how the virtual real estate service comes into place.
What is Virtual Real Estate Brokerage
As you can glean from its name, the brokerage firm only holds a virtual office. You will not find any brick-and-mortar office. The benefit is that it allows the company to reduce the costs of rent, utilities, and property tax. However, it does not mean that brokerage firms with a physical presence are not good.
The virtual real estate brokerage offers the same benefits, training, and marketing support to its agents. In case of legal and documentation support, the virtual office can also handle these necessities to close the deal faster. The supporting documents for each transaction, meanwhile, are safeguarded in secure cloud storage. Agents and clients can take them out anytime as needed.
Primarily, real estate brokers work remotely. People looking for a new place usually meet the agent at the potential property site. It is rare for them to visit the agent at a physical office.
In the same vein, real estate agents do not typically go to their brokerage firms to report every day. Being an agent allows them to be independent, which is one of the perks of the job.
Why Try a Virtual Office?
According to this report, by 2022, about 63 million houses in the US would be classified as smart homes. By 2020, the smart home industry will reach 40 billion USD in the US, with a large number of millennials owning an AI-powered device.
Even if smart devices are taking over people’s lives, they are still wary about dealing with AI. On YouTube, you can watch video clips of Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa not being very accurate with their answers to the instructions given.
However, real people run the virtual real estate brokerage firm. You have real estate brokers operating the platform. So, when you contact a virtual office, you are talking to a person and not a smart machine.
What the technology does is to automate the workflow and the process to speed up the transactions. The software used is dedicated to making the agents work faster, more efficiently, and more accurately.
The agent can receive data using his smartphone or tablet. He can chat with the virtual office using messengers and other platforms should he need clarification or support. The customer will end up as the ultimate beneficiary of this technology.