Above: Kim Luckow and David Mussari.
Real estate transactions are moving faster than ever before, and for anyone moving money in the real estate business, streamlining the process of collecting earnest money deposits, sending and requesting commission payments, issuing refunds and requesting rental deposits is critical.
Searching for a way to simplify payment processes, thanks to a partnership with DepositLink, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Professional Realty’s COO Kim Luckow and Managing Partner David Mussari have lessened the strain on the firm’s agents.
“Real estate can be clunky,” says Luckow, who was introduced to the mobile-responsive payments platform while attending an industry conference. “A lot of the methods in the industry are outdated, and with so many things that are digital now, I knew there had to be some sort of solution for what I was seeking.”
While numerous compliance issues can arise when working with earnest money, according to Mussari, having to ferry the funds back and forth makes everything more complicated.
“We were always trying to keep our agents compliant, while having to be the earnest money police,” he says. “DepositLink simplified that. It took all of the complications out of the equation and allowed us to streamline it.”
Forging a partnership with DepositLink back in 2020, prior to the pandemic, put the firm ahead of the curve as far as utilizing a technology that real estate professionals across the board would need to quickly adapt to as the way in which transactions were conducted changed seemingly overnight.
And while there’s always some level of pushback from agents and/or clients when rolling out any new technology, according to Luckow and Mussari, due to the timing, everyone was pretty much onboard right out of the gate.
Adoption aside, one of the biggest benefits in working with DepositLink, says Mussari, is the security that’s baked into the platform—a level of fraud protection that can’t be found when dealing with paper checks.
“We’ve seen falsely presented checks quite a bit in addition to a lot of hard check fraud, but we’ve seen almost zero digital wire type fraud,” he explains.
For Luckow, the automations are another strong selling point. Not only does the platform provide notifications for items that haven’t been followed through on, it also alerts real estate professionals if a payment fails.
Beyond what the platform can do for agents and their brokerage, client satisfaction is also critically important. In fact, when Luckow and Mussari brought the platform to their agents, their overarching message centered around getting agents to understand that their clients are going to be happier if they make the process easier on them.
“More and more people are getting away from doing any sort of in-person banking, and many of them don’t even have checks,” says Luckow. “DepositLink is slotted in there really nicely. It’s easy, it’s convenient and it’s a win-win for the agent and the client.”
The DepositLink team is a key piece of the puzzle as well. Taking the time to listen and truly hear what is being said, they work to make changes and updates to the platform accordingly.
Real estate is a grind, something both Luckow and Mussari can attest to, but in order to be successful, you have to be amenable to change and growth. This includes adopting new technology.
“If there’s going to be commission compression or any kind of change in the economics, the more efficient you are, the more you can push back against it,” concludes Mussari. “If five years from now you have to do twice as many transactions to make the same level of income, that’s easily cured by efficiency.”
For more information, please visit https://www.depositlink.com.
