Matt Farrell
Managing Broker
Corcoran Urban Real Estate
Chicago, Illinois | www.urbanrealestate.com
Region served: Chicago and the surrounding suburbs
Years in real estate: 18
Number of offices: 1
Number of agents: 40
What is one piece of technology that you can’t live without?
Anyone who doesn’t say their mobile phone is lying. For us, though, the answer extends even further to any tool that empowers us to get things done while offering a cohesive experience that eliminates redundancy. While Corcoran offers a lot of tech tools that tie everything together, my favorite is Corcoran’s Presentations tool. Rich with data, this tool allows us to quickly compile all the necessary information we need to paint an accurate picture of the market.
In what ways has your technology background proven beneficial to your real estate career?
My business wouldn’t have existed without my technology background. In fact, I was doing some work for real estate clients who wanted a website that would give the consumer everything they needed while empowering them to see what was on the market. While this is more normalized today, it wasn’t the case 18 years ago. Technology is just a tool, and whether you’re doing virtual tours or drone tours or anything in between, at the heart of the transaction is an individual who is trying to buy the most expensive thing they’ve ever purchased, so make sure you’re using technology to help them understand the process.
You affiliated with Corcoran in 2020. What does it mean to be a part of Corcoran?
I’ve long been a fan of the marketing work done by Corcoran, so when we were looking to shore up our own marketing, there was never any question as to who we should affiliate with. Even though we dominated our market with the technology we brought to the table, Corcoran had so much more to offer, from the network they were building to their marketing and brand power. Corcoran was already doing the things I wanted to do, so there was no need to reinvent the wheel. I want my agents to be empowered with tech tools, so it was mission critical that we align with a company that looks at technology in the same way we do.
Please describe some of your technology best practices that have shaped Corcoran Urban Real Estate’s forward-thinking culture.
One of our best practices is ensuring that our agents can access all of the applications, tools and everything else we offer via a single sign-on experience. In addition, it’s critical that the data our agents can access through various APIs is all being pulled from one data pool—so that when they log into a product such as DocuSign and begin to write an offer or a contract to purchase, it’s simply a matter of pulling the information in rather than having to input it into the database. We’re committed to using technology to do things smarter and faster so that we can work smarter, not harder.
How has being part of Corcoran helped you navigate these challenging times?
We were very fortunate to have launched with Corcoran days before the city of Chicago shut down because of the pandemic. At the time, we didn’t know much about COVID, and our agents very quickly found themselves in a position where they couldn’t conduct business the way they normally do. But Corcoran’s investment in building out virtual training classes and sessions allowed us to simply flip a switch. Our agents were able to jump into business planning and learn from top producers throughout the network regarding challenges they were experiencing and what they were doing to successfully pivot.
For more information, please visit www.corcoranaffiliate.com.
Paige Tepping is RISMedia’s managing editor. Email her your real estate news ideas to paige@rismedia.com.
