Jay Kalinski, the broker-owner of RE/MAX of Boulder has long been a skeptic of RE/MAX’s technology. But that changed this week when the company officially launched the customer relationship management tool (CRM) and core of its new end-to-end technology platform.
Jay Kalinski | Photo credit: RE/MAX of Boulder
“I haven’t been overly wowed in the past with RE/MAX’s technology,” Kalinski admitted to Inman at RE/MAX’s broker-owner conference in Chicago on Monday.
Kalinski said his agents demand that the brokerage keep with the industry, so he’s been paying roughly $100 a month, per agent — at a brokerage with 130 agents — just to keep pace.
“I have been paying third parties a lot of money to be doing what we were hoping RE/MAX would provide us all along,” Kalinski said.
With the launch of booj, Kalinski is finally getting his wish.
“To see what booj looks like and what it will be like is not just a huge relief but its finally a bunch of excitement,” Kalinski said. “For years, we’ve been looking for a spark and what is it going to be that’s going to help us have the tools that are worthy of the agents that we have. RE/MAX has the best agents in the world but we didn’t have the tech to live up to them.”
Kalinski loves how intuitive the user interface is, for a comprehensive and tied together platform.
Nate Martinez | Photo credit: RE/MAX Professionals
Nate Martinez, a broker with RE/MAX Professionals, a three-office, 130-agent brokerage in the Phoenix metro area, knows in his market he needs technology to compete.
“We’re in a market place where we have all of the different noise with iBuyers and everything going on, and I’ve been a strong proponent of working your current database, your past database, your sphere of influence,” Martinez told Inman. “I’ve seen different things in other CRMs over the years, but nothing like what booj has built with a lead score and a client score.”
Martinez estimates with booj, he’ll be able to save roughly $36,000 a year alone, with the subscriptions to other third-party technology vendor solutions.
He knows adoption is always difficult for Realtors, so that’s why he’s already started laying the groundwork by going to training sessions and classes. He’s even considering hiring a full-time technology specialist to come in and help agents get set up on the platform and migrate their businesses.
Martinez also believes the robustness of the platform could be a big recruiting tool in a competitive real estate climate.
“I think it’s gonna be sexy enough that it’s gonna be a pull and some agents are going to want that technology,” Martinez said.
Megan Wyatt | Photo credit: RE/MAX Around Atlanta Realty
Megan Wyatt and Kristen Jones, the co-owners and brokers of the 100-agent, three-office RE/MAX Around Atlanta Realty in the Atlanta, Georgia area, have also been preparing for the launch of the booj platform. They recently attended a 32-hour “train the trainer” session.
“I think it’s a total game-changer for RE/MAX and really the entire industry,” Wyatt said. “So many other companies are attempting to do tech but they’re pushing it out too soon and failing.”
Kristen Jones | Photo credit: RE/MAX Around Atlanta Realty
Wyatt and Jones believe their brokerage is going to have at least 80 percent adoption because they’ve already seen the interest from agents and brokers. RE/MAX is taking the platform on the road with a dozen national trainers and many of the sessions are already sold out.
“We’ve had so many different products over the years,” Jones said. “Agents [have been] hesitant [in the past] to commit to the RE/MAX provided tool because they know in 2-3 years they’re going to have to change and they won’t have to with this.”
Jones said it will also be a boon for consumers in her home market of Atlanta, which is a transient city with a lot of location business. A consumer working with a RE/MAX agent in California can have the same experience from an app and communication perspective as an agent in Atlanta.
