Real estate agents and brokers today must contend with a lot of red tape, including the problems imposed by the DANGER Report (as administered by the National Association of Realtors).
The DANGER Report does not outline solutions to issues in the real estate industry. Rather, it puts problems in the real estate industry on the table to encourage discussion and proactive solution forming for the issues it outlines.
The report outlines a danger index, ranging from 0-100, the higher the score of a particular issue in the industry, the more damage or danger it imposes to agents, brokers, the NAR, etc.
The implications of the report are relevant to document management systems because the real estate industry is interconnected by a unique web of causes and effects.
Although we will detail how real estate document management systems can solve the problems mentioned in this report, we will first outline the issues with a danger index of 80 or higher:
Agent Over-saturation: Danger Index = 100
This will mostly impact agents, as there will be a greater number of them than ever before, even when adjusted for population growth. To remain competitive, agents of all stripes and backgrounds will have to convince others their services are unique, tailored to them, and different from the rest of their competitors.
You’d think that a proportionately large percentage of these agents would raise the industry’s credibility, but the barriers to entry are lowering, making the race for competitiveness easy, but confusing.
How Document Management Systems Can Resolve Agent Over-saturation
To generate buy-in to the educational requirements of the real estate industry and reduce agent turnover, greater efficiency must be fostered in one form or another, and information management software in the form of a real estate document management solution is a top contender for this slot.
Why? Because being able to keep track of your information and have it readily accessible and easy to locate can give agents the education they need to increase their own credibility.
Regulatory Storm: Danger Index = 100
Legislation galore is on the horizon, and the costs of noncompliance and compliance alike will grow significantly. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) notes that this will mostly impact brokers. Additionally, RESPA regulations may follow suit. No pun intended.
How Document Management Systems Can Simplify Impending Regulatory Storm
Although technology may not prevent a regulatory storm, it can certainly simplify it after the fact. Real estate, as a paper and document-driven industry, stands to benefit via paperless technology tremendously, especially when it comes to compliance.
If regulatory authorities such as the SEC are any indicator as to how the real estate industry will augment its compliance standards, document management systems will likely take center-stage in simplifying compliance.
Hindered Decision-Making Structure: Danger Index = 100
This will mostly impact the National Association of Realtors, which is now the biggest trade organization in the United States. The NAR, however, has such a complex and confusing decision-making structure that advancement in a unified direction will prove difficult. Real estate document management systems are one of the first steps to overcoming this issue.
Resolving the Problem through Document Management
A document management system has the enduring efficacy of a legacy system, but the flexibility and customizability of contemporary technology solutions.
Under these circumstances, if the people above you can’t get it figured out, why wait for them to pave the route for you? No matter how disparate their objective, strategy, and purpose, they won’t condemn any software or system that simplifies your internal decision making.
Leaders Not in Unison with Fast-Paced World: Danger Index = 100
Although this will mostly impact associations, brokers and agents must remain privy to how they can get ahead of the curve despite uncertainty in the market. Many of the industry’s authorities and leaders, who are supposed to oversee positive, impactful technological changes, are resistant to the benefits these changes can create.
How Real Estate Document Management Systems Can Solve This Issue
Embracing change will make it easier to come by, but the simplicity of the changes is also crucial in ensuring successful tech changes are made within the industry.
With a real estate document management systems, brokers, agents, and regulating authorities can simplify system activity through audit trails, role-based user permissions, Zonal OCR, and further automation of security and document processes that span the business context.
Too Many Uninformed Decisions Are Taken: Danger Index = 80
As realtors take on an increasingly diverse set of roles within the scope of their profession, the complexity of doing many different things on a day-to-day basis creates flawed decision making. And many of these uninformed decisions are made based on assumptions rather than data—a surefire way to get things wrong, and on a variety of levels in the real estate industry.
How Real Estate Document Management Systems Can Help This
The only way uninformed decisions can be made is if brokers and regulatory authorities within the real estate industry can quickly leverage the information they need to make informed decisions. Too many paper-dependent brokerages and realty professionals spend the bulk of their time searching for, losing, or needlessly re-creating information.
A realty document management system resolves this issue by automating boring, redundant office processes, eliminating misfiled documents, and enabling security in information interchange through an encrypted web portal.
Additionally, the metadata enhancements of the eFileCabinet document management system make retrieval effortless and quick. Rather than having to search for information repeatedly and in a variety of time wasting ways, you can retrieve a file without knowing much about it.
With most document management systems, if you forgot what you tagged the document or labeled it, you won’t be able to find it any more quickly than you would be able to with a typical Windows folder structure. For more information on how a document management system can benefit your brokerage or realty business, visit our home page or learn about the parts of a document management system.