While 2020 was a year of tough changes that were mostly forced upon us individually and as an industry, I see 2021 as the year the real estate industry embraces those same changes. A new chapter in the real estate story is about to begin, and I see our industry rising to the challenge.

It seems that nearly all the real estate firms we speak with are working on acquisitions and mergers, while also working on streamlining their business with office, technology provider, and marketing platform consolidations, and more workflow automation.

The change that excites me most is the workflow automation.

All the other changes have been very common in the real estate industry for the past twenty years, but, workflow automation, true workflow automation, has not been common to the real estate industry as a whole. In fact, it was only the "disrupters" in our industry that focused on workflow automation like Zillow, Redfin, Movoto, and other "digital" firms.

However, I would strongly argue, that true workflow automation is upon us in 2021 for traditional, brick and mortar real estate firms. And I think this is a very good thing!

While you could argue that the industry, as a whole, had access to utilize automations in the past, you would also have to admit that only a few really did it. As we change the calendar, and turn our attention to the new year, that's all about to change.

Before I go any further, I should probably discuss what automations I am talking about. So, let me go over just a few.

Marketing Automation

What is marketing automation?

If you search for a definition of marketing automation, you'll find options such as this one from Wikipedia: Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online and automate repetitive tasks.

Read on to learn more about the future of automations and how it can make your work life even easier in 2021.