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Constellation1 is an end-to-end real estate business solution for brokerages, MLSs, and franchises.
Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: Mid-size to large brokerages, franchises, multiple listing services
Top selling points:
- Back- and front-office integration
- Consumer-facing search websites
- Deep national MLS data integration
- Multiple transaction management options
- Can be purchased in separate components
Top concerns
As with other whole-office systems, customers will need to be comfortable making sacrifices in its tech stack to integrate the multitiered Constellation1. It can be purchased in parts, but doing so opens each component to competition from other stand-alone competitors in the market.
What you should know
As its astronomic name suggests, Constellation1 is made up of an interconnected system of stand-alone products, all owned by parent Constellation Real Estate Group (CREG).
To alleviate confusion in the marketplace after years of acquiring a number of technology products for lead generation, accounting and website creation (among other needs), Constellation Real Estate Group put seven solutions under the Constellation1 brand. For example, Birdview, Relocation Specialist (ReloSpec), Real Estate Digital, and Constellation Web Solutions each built websites for agents and brokers. Baynet World did some of that, too.
Additionally, generally speaking, the industry is plagued with redundancy, and it’s often hard for brokers to understand how one vendor’s product will work alongside another’s. For a brokerage (or any business), to truly scale, uniformity in operations is crucial.
The goal here is to offer a seamless, single sign-on experience to access what’s needed to run a thriving real estate business.
Again, you can pick and choose if you like, but there are obvious efficiencies to be had for bigger organizations when installing the system as a whole.
Constellation1 demonstrates a good deal of functionality from front- to back-office and a few sharp features make it worth considering among the industry’s other total office solutions — but I didn’t see anything here that will make waves, which is odd given the collective tech at the company’s disposal. But again, the rebranding effort is relatively immature, and it’s reasonable to assume it’ll grow into its potential. This is a big puzzle to solve.
Let’s get to it.
Its web publishing tools offer a good deal of value to brokerages and MLSs, especially because it’s backed by Constellation1’s robust, high-volume data services, which is also offered as a stand-alone product.
The portal-quality property search capabilities is backed by information from more than 600 multiple listing services and 225 million deed and mortgage records, offering consumers and brokerages a high-definition picture of countless U.S. markets.
This kind of data power makes search more accurate, from local culs-de-sac to well across state lines. It helps ensure more accurate comps and market reports, and it gives consumers a comprehensive view of a market’s activity in general.
Websites can come ready to publish with a selection of templates, or they can be custom designed.
Constellaton1 has designated design and SEO/SEM teams, meaning you don’t have to settle for a canned list of milquetoast SEO tactics or ineffectual widgets, another web advantage.
Front-end design plays a role in your website’s ability to be found online; search engine success is more complex than a footer full of keywords.
Typically, this model is common to stand-alone web development firms, but Constellation has acquired multiple website and lead-gen companies, so it knows how this works.
Property pages include activity metrics, such as number of showings and days on market, and are presented in a single-page continuous scroll.
Sites and pages can be edited live and on-screen, and visual assets, such as logos, images, and color schemes, can be updated as needed.
Some other cool touches include in-image photo scrolling, INRIX drive times and traffic data, and a pretty cool set of tools for calculating monthly payments with different rate and down payment scenarios.
Leads generating from a website stream into the CRM, and a host of sources can be linked as well using the “lead ingestion” settings. Brokers and team leads can set lead acceptance deadlines and arrange a number of lead routing rules.
Instead of offering a passive text field for recording notes after initial contact with a lead, the Constellation1 CRM encourages interaction by asking, “What did you learn?” about price, location, pre-qualification or their need to sell.
Included or custom action plans help agents stay in touch with leads and spheres, there’s a ShowingTime connection for scheduling tours, and brokers can tune in to meter the responsiveness of their agents.
Constellation1’s office oversight is rooted in its acquisition of Emphasys, a sharp, no-nonsense back-end tool that earned 4-stars in 2018.
As is the case with the source solution, Constellation1’s back end emphasizes rich reporting, detailed bookkeeping with either native tools or a QuickBooks account. Reporting is also a point of pride here, and I like the drag-and-drop aspect to building custom reports.
Agents can dig into the numbers, too, but they aren’t privy to everything, per admin settings. Commission structures are quite malleable, transactions can be managed in-app or with through your dotloop or zipLogix interfaces.
Lastly, the majority of the solution is mobile-ready, including the web content management tools.
I think it’s OK to be a little confused about what’s happening here. The name “Constellation1” envelopes a series of existing technologies that could also be purchased as stand-alone solutions. Car companies do this by sharing motors and other parts among their varied brands.
Constellation Real Estate Group has more of a sales problem than a product problem. I’m having a hard time envisioning a scenario where a brokerage dumps everything it’s already using to onboard the entire Constellaton1 suite. That’s a tough sell, but they’re likely prepared for it.
Understandably, this is why it keeps intact the various integrations. Still, I’m not sure the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman. He lives near Lake Tahoe in the northern Sierra Nevada of California.
