The Real Estate Industry Is Slowly Becoming a Systems Game

For a long time property was a trade of personalities. The agent who knew everyone and could talk to anyone did well. That still counts, but more and more, deals are won and lost on something less charming, which is whether the office has systems that do not forget.

Think about what a single sale carries. The offer has a date by which the bond must be approved, or the deal lapses. It may have another date for the sale of the buyer's own home. The seller has to produce compliance certificates, the transfer attorney needs FICA documents from both sides, and if the property is a sectional title unit, someone has to request the levy clearance. Add every other live deal in the office, then the rentals with their lease end dates and deposit refunds, and no diary or memory can hold it all reliably.

An office that tracks each of these dates in a system gets a warning before a condition runs out, instead of a phone call after it. One that relies on memory will be fine on most deals and badly hurt on the occasional one that slips. Talent still matters. A good agent with a good system simply outperforms an equally good agent without one, month after month, in ways buyers and sellers feel without being able to name.