Why is Real Estate Transaction Management So Hard to Do Right?
Last Updated on February 9, 2023 by Morgan Beard
Commercial real estate transaction management can be a complex process for brokers (and their tenants, too). Any one broker may manage several or dozens of clients, who themselves may have dozens or hundreds of properties around the globe. For each property, nothing is black and white. Complexities, negotiations, and critical deadlines can easily fall through the cracks if each transaction isn’t managed carefully.
Some brokers rely on solutions that aren’t purpose-built for commercial real estate, which can be confusing to use and counter-intuitive. Others keep manual processes in place that have been the same for decades. We’ll show you some of the popular ways that organizations manage commercial real estate transactions today, and how to improve the process for the future.
Mistake: Using a Patchwork of Unrelated Solutions
Some commercial real estate brokerage firms rely on a patchwork of technology solutions that are built for other industries, whether it’s digital signatures, CRM, accounting, file sharing, collaboration, or otherwise. What usually happens is that information is siloed across each of these platforms, and as they say, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. As a result, brokers or their team members can miss critical deadlines — or miss out on deals altogether.
The Fix: Use a Single System of Record
Rather than relying on tools that aren’t built for commercial real estate, brokers should look for a solution where all real estate transaction data can live in a single system of record. If clients and brokers share this system, the client will remain in the loop as the broker completes key tasks in the deal process. Documents can easily flow from broker to tenant, and be stored in a central repository for when they’re needed for review or lease renewals.
Mistake: Relying on Legacy Tools
Many firms are of the mentality, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” For years, they may have managed transactions through Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, phone calls and emails. They continue to train new brokers on these old tools and methods, when new brokers are used to dealing with real-time, cloud based tools and instant gratification in other areas of their digital lives. If spreadsheets or docs go unmaintained, they can easily become outdated and irrelevant for use across the entire team.
The Fix: Modernizing with Cloud-Based Tools
It’s time commercial real estate caught up with other industries when it comes to real-time, cloud-based tools. Teams need a way to standardize the transaction process with templates; create teams to collaborate on deals; and access all of their lease, renewal and comp info in one place. A new generation of tools like Occupier’s broker CRM are built exactly for this use case.
A New Way to Collaborate on Real Estate Transaction Management
Occupier for Brokers helps brokerage teams and their clients collaborate on all of their deals and documents using a single system of record. In addition, the broker CRM tool can help manage new deals for every client and ensure no critical deadlines ever fall through the cracks with real-time alerts. New, digital workflows can help broker teams streamline the site selection process, bring tenants in to speed up decision-making, and share essential information on comps.
Want to learn more about Occupier for Transaction Management?
