Douglas Elliman is planning to start the new year with a bang, thanks to a new agent-facing platform created by StreetEasy and Bridge Interactive, the latter both subsidiaries of Zillow Group. The platform, which will replace the brokerage’s listings network Limo, will supposedly enable Douglas Elliman agents to quickly and seamlessly input, manage and market their listings in New York City.
“As the leading New York City real estate brokerage, we wanted to partner with the leading names in real estate technology to deliver the utmost in high-touch, convenient and smart customer service by means of enhanced data integrity,” said Douglas Elliman COO Scott Durkin, in a statement.
“This new system will streamline our agents’ ability to accurately input listings directly to StreetEasy or regional MLSs, effortlessly share their new exclusives with the rest of the brokerage community, and arm buyers and sellers throughout the market with better, more accurate data,” he added.
StreetEasy will power the platform by “leverag[ing]” its current desktop and mobile interfaces to create a Douglas Elliman-branded portal. Agents will be able to directly enter and update listings, with the information being automatically updated across the StreetEasy and Elliman.com sites. Moreover, agents will have access to StreetEasy’s historical data. Douglas Elliman says they’ll be introducing a new CRM shortly.
For those worried about accuracy, StreetEasy’s general manager Susan Daimler told The Real Deal that the platform will have built-in quality control measures that test agent-entered information against the data StreetEasy already has. For example, she said, if an agent enters a unit number that doesn’t exist, the platform will send an alert.
The platform will roll out in New York City in early 2018, with a gradual expansion throughout the rest of 2018 to Douglas Elliman’s offices and listings in Long Island, N.Y.; Westchester, Conn.; Florida; California and Colorado. The brokerage will enter Massachusetts later this year.
Despite the partnership with StreetEasy, Douglas Elliman will “absolutely” be feeding listings to The Real Estate Board of New York’s Residential Listing Service (RLS), which was introduced on August 1, said Durkin.
Meanwhile, Zillow Group and StreetEasy have maintained their decision to not accept listings from the RLS.