LAUNCH: Industry-first tech platform that can ‘pay for itself’
Industry major, Iamproperty says its tech offers agents a 'pick and mix' approach to integrating their existing or its own tech across the firm's new One service.
A platform has launched providing estate agencies with an industry-first approach to the technology they employ to run and grow their businesses, including the potential to pay for itself.
Built by Iamproperty, the One platform offers a financial and operational model that, if embraced partially or wholly by an estate agency, can lead to a cheaper and even ‘zero cost’ tech stack.
One is home to a range of Iamproperty’s both established and recently-launched or acquired services including auctions, prospecting, conveyancing, CRM, onboarding, property data and market appraisals.
The system enables a ‘pick and mix’ approach because agents can integrate their existing CRMs with the One platform but alternatively choose which of the iamproperty’s services to use – or not – as well as being able to sign-up to One lock-stock.
At least three estate agencies have been using it prior to the official launch including East Midlands firm Pygott & Crone, Staffordshire agency Webbs, and Wakefield-based Richard Kendall Estate Agents.
Frustrated
Paul Wood, Director at Pygott & Crone, says: “We chose to work with Iamproperty for our entire tech stack because we were getting frustrated with dealing with lots of different suppliers and trying to get technology to integrate. It never quite worked in the way we needed it to.
“Having everything under one roof has made us really efficient as a business, and the additional revenue it helps create and the rebates we earn far outweigh anything we spend on software.
“Our sales and lettings teams can access the same information, we can identify business opportunities quickly and we’ve got the data we need to see how our branches are performing every day.”
Jamie Cooke (main image, right), co-founder of Iamproperty, tells The Neg that the new platform is the ultimate result of the journey that his company has been on since it successfully launched its ‘modern method of auction’ in 2009, going on to take 60% of the online property auction market and working with some 4,000 partner agents.
Since then, a raft of services have either been acquired in the CRM and prospecting sectors or developed in-house, including MoveButler, its conveyancing platform.
“Agents can be dealing with up to eight different service suppliers which isn’t efficient, whereas we can now offer all the component parts whether partially or across the board, and integrate them on a much deeper and enterprise level than other ‘integrations’ which tend to be not like that,” adds Cooke.
Technology should help agents win more business, grow their revenue
His One system does not encroach on estate agencies’ existing referral arrangements but instead offers ‘credits’ the more that agents use its transactional services, reducing the overall costs and management normally required for this kind of tech via its modular approach.
Cooke adds: “We’ve built One around a really simple principle. Technology should help agents win more business, grow their revenue and deliver a better experience for their clients.
Cooke’s co-founder, Ben Ridgeway (main image, left), tells The Neg that the system will also go a long way towards speeding-up sales transactions via greater up-front information, something that will be music to the ears of Government ministers.
“This capability comes from Iamproperty’s established auction business, where up-front ‘sales packs’ are the norm, and which have been broadened to service the private treaty market,” he adds.
Cooke adds that One will provide all the basic (i.e. the A,B,C) material information for estate agents for free, but charge £100 for a much deeper ‘sale ready’ service including all standard enquiries and title searches.
