Proptech Pulse: Jared Antin on CRM Strategy and the Human Side of Tech

Featuring Jared Antin, Executive Director at Brown Harris Stevens, this episode reveals why the true value of proptech lies in its ability to "delegate and elevate" the administrative burden of the business. By operationalizing the back-end, agents can reclaim their time to focus on the high-touch, interpersonal relationships that define the industry. 

The conversation dives deep into effective CRM strategies, including Antin's disciplined "doctor’s notes" approach to data integrity and the smart integration of AI tools like ChatGPT to streamline content creation. We explore the shifting landscape of market intelligence and the "flight to quality" that is currently redefining what it means to be a top-performing agent. Discover how to vet new solutions through strategic beta testing without falling into the trap of tech fatigue. 

With nearly two decades of experience transitioning from top agent to executive leader, Antin provides a rare 360-degree view of brokerage modernization. In a market where efficiency is no longer optional, this masterclass offers a roadmap for staying competitive while remaining firmly rooted in real estate’s social nature. Subscribe to Proptech Pulse for more insights and visit our website to explore tools that support your growth. 

https://www.lwolf.com/podcast

Transcript

Kyle Hunter 

Welcome to the Tech Pulse podcast. Your inside look at the world of real estate technology. I'm your host, Kyle Hunter, here to guide you through the latest trends, expert insights, and game changing tech shaping the real estate world. This is your go to source for staying ahead of the ever evolving industry. Let's dive in. 

Kyle Hunter 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Proptech pulse. Today we have a great guest. Jared Antin from Brown Harris Stevens. Jared, I'd love you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about, what you're doing in New York. 

Jared Antin 

Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here, in sunny and warm Las Vegas. It's been, quite the winter in New York City this year. Extra snowy, extra cold. So getting out into the desert heat is certainly nice. I've been in and, in and around brokerage going on 20 years. Started as a as an agent, ran a successful team, and then pivoted really into training and development, and building brokerages. 

Jared Antin 

I ran my last brokerage, for about three years and then made the move over to Brown, Harris Stevens about eight months ago. And there I work as the executive director, managing the 450 agents we have in our flagship office on Park Avenue. And really leading a lot of strategy, execution and modernization, across the brokerage. So we're a lot of hats and have a lot of fun. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. That's great. No, I've had the opportunity to go to New York a couple times this year, and yeah, it sure was cold. That's right. Yeah. But Jared, you know, I'd love to understand, you know, with your background, you know, how have you seen technology change in the real estate space over your, you know, multiple years in the business and multiple companies? 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. 

Jared Antin 

So technology has changed so rapidly. But I think what's more important where we should actually start is how people are interacting with tech. Right. And what we expect tech to do. Going back ten years, people thought technology was going to be able to save the world disintermediate the industry replace the agent. And reality is it's not, news flash, right? 

Jared Antin 

The reality is what's happening is technology is going to help an agent be more human, be more present with their clients, and ultimately be more successful. So I think the important thing is that technology has evolved. Technology has become so much more powerful. But what is more important is that people have evolved and how they're interacting with tech and what they believe the tech is going to be able to do for them and their clients. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah, I know that's and, you know, I hear that we actually hosted a mastermind group, in New York, a couple of weeks ago at Inman and, there was a lot of feedback on the agents and brokerages that really, utilize tech and adapt. They're the ones who are going to survive. Yeah. And they're the ones who are going to thrive in those markets. 

Kyle Hunter 

And if you're not really using the technology in the new thing, new ways of doing business, you know, you're never going to take the agent out of the business. But more of the agents that are leveraging the technology are taking more market share. Absolutely. Is that what you're finding? 

Jared Antin 

Yeah, we're definitely seeing a flight to quality, right where, you know, there are going to be more transactions handled by fewer agents. So fundamentally agents need to figure out how do they do more with less time and technology is a great way to be able to delegate and elevate and operationalize. Is the back end. Having an incredible CRM is a necessity because you need to be able to take the mental load off of who do I follow up with and when, and be able to actually spend the time following up with the people at the right time. 

Jared Antin 

So being able to make sure that you're operate, operationalizing your business is the only way that you will be able to delegate yourself. Otherwise, you're putting all these barriers in place about limiting how successful you could be. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. So you mentioned CRM. And I know CRM is really a kind of a standard. Yes. Everyone has to have a CRM like it's it's kind of your lifeblood. But what are some other technologies and tools that you've leverage and you feel like agents should be leveraging in today's market? 

Jared Antin 

Yeah. So I do want to hit on CRM for a second. You know, sometimes I talk to agents and they're like, well, I have a yellow legal pad or I have an Excel sheet. For the record, that is a rudimentary CRM. It still is functionally a CRM. It's just not one that is going to work for you. Right? 

Jared Antin 

So when you look at tech, you have to better understand how is that tech giving you back value. Right. So for me, you know, I look at using ChatGPT and I use it in a smart way where it's helping me get three quarters of the way down the field and I got to finish the play. I'm not taking it out of ChatGPT and, you know, sending it or pushing publish on a LinkedIn post, but I'm using it to help me formulate my thoughts. 

Jared Antin 

I'm someone that, you know was horrible writing because to me, you know, if there was four lines, I was writing eight because something in there had to be correct. So, you know, they say it's hard to write a short letter, so it helps me to formulate my thoughts. I use some other tools, you know, that help me be able to formulate graphics or, you know, being able to communicate my thoughts in a visual way. 

Jared Antin 

So you have to be able to look at the pieces of tech and really understand, okay, what do I want to achieve or where are my challenges? And then how do I solve for them? And you no longer have to try to find the person that may have the skill set. You can now try to find the piece of technology that could offer that same value. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah, I know, I mean, you mentioned, ChatGPT and a couple other AI, so obviously it sounds like you're adopting that, and you know, that a lot of the sessions and a lot of the industry news is all about AI. And it is very powerful. And I know that, you know, having, putting your thoughts in, you know, to your point, you can really, overwrite things or you can do things where if you just plug in your thoughts into one of these models, it helps you formulate to, you know, eventually gain business, but also just understand, you know, how things are changing, how to communicate, with agents better and streamline your thoughts. 

So, I mean, I think it's something that at Lone Wolf, you know, we certainly think about, very closely. And how do we incorporate that into our full suite and a smart way that actually produces something for the agent does something of value to take either what you're doing away or, you know, can help supplement what you're actually, you know, having to do on a day in, day out basis. And so that's, you know, again, CRM and that again is your lifeblood. What are some other things that you would use in, you know, your market? Yeah. 

Jared Antin 

So you need a really good market intelligence platform, right. You know, in New York we operate off of an MLS. So we don't have a traditional MLS. We have a lot of different local proptech players that are solving a void in market intelligence. So, you know, we work with a handful of tools that are really helping us be able to get smart with the data, smart with what's happening from an inventory. 

Jared Antin 

And because we work in a three dimensional city, you know, we work within buildings, right? Or, you know, akin to subdivisions, you know, some of our, analytical platforms have a lot of AI built in. Some of the other really important things is making sure that you have a marketing suite so that you can generate really good, really compelling marketing at scale. 

Jared Antin 

And if you can layer that in with an email marketing suite that delivers personalized content at scale, and this doubles back to the CRM, making sure that you're tagging your contacts accordingly, that you're able to group them so that if you know that these five people are looking in this neighborhood and these ten people are looking over there, you're able to leverage, you know, through plug and play, providers the right data and deliver hyper targeted, personalized communication at scale. 

Jared Antin 

What that's going to do is it's going to drastically increase your response rate. It's going to drastically increase the engagement, the quick throw, and it's going to make the person feel like you took the time to deliver that to them and all. Everything that we're doing is about creating a feeling, creating an emotional response in the person whom you are communicating with or trying to communicate with so that it inspires them to take an action. 

Jared Antin 

So that's where this technology is working, is you cannot forget that at the end of the day, everything we do is a human business. It's a people business. Right. And one of the most important things that I say to clients is this you can have the best systems, you get the best tools, the best technology. But if you don't know the right people, you're not going to succeed to your full potential and to the person that knows everyone. 

Jared Antin 

If you don't have the right systems, the right tools, the right processes to scale yourself, you won't be able to fully serve all the people that want to be served by you. So it is a double edged sword. You need to have both sides of that coin between knowing the right people, because real estate is a contact sport, just like football, and you need the right systems, the processes, the right tools to make sure that you can, you know, delegate and elevate your business. If you can't do that, you're selling yourself short and either ended up spectrum. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. No, absolutely. I, was actually a son of a broker. And my dad always said, you know, real estate is a belly to belly business. And I feel like that still resonates to a certain extent, like people want to actually talk to you and be with you. It's a very social business. And incorporating technologies, you know, changed a lot, but you still getting in front of them and making that personal connection, like you said, is, you know, still important. 

Jared Antin 

And by the way, when he started saying, son of, I didn't think broker was what was going to come out of your mouth, right? 

Kyle Hunter 

S.O.B. no. But yeah. How are buyers and sellers adapting? Like, are they changing the way that agents are processing as it relates to technology? Like, are you finding them more tech savvy and, like, pushing the envelope on the things that they're asking for? Or how's that changing? 

Jared Antin 

So it depends. Part of the issue is that buyers and sellers infrequently purchase and sell real estate, right. That is part of the reason that it is so difficult to change the behavior in the sales cycle, because it is an infrequent behavior. It's not like buying a pack of gum where you're doing it, you know, every time you go to the airport, because people do this so infrequently, they're not used to it. 

Jared Antin 

They may not even remember the last time that they did it. I think there's some generational shifts where the next generation is so used to buying and selling things online that they're expecting certain things, but I think that they're also realizing sometimes not early enough in the process that they need handholding. Right. The job of an agent has drastically changed from being the gatekeeper to information, right? 

Jared Antin 

People didn't know what was out there, so we needed to better show them. Now our job is almost harder in the fact that it we now need to be able to synthesize the information we need to narrow down the noise, you know, narrow in and create that focus. So our job has changed and we need to meet that. 

Jared Antin 

At the same time, there's this generational shift where consumers are used to, you know, one click on Amazon, but you can't and shouldn't buy real estate that way. So it becomes this sort of, delicate dance where the agents have to adapt to consumers, have to adapt. And it is interesting that we do see, you know, consumers that may be later, in their circles of friends of buying or selling, and they've seen what their friends have gone through. 

Jared Antin 

And we're getting very intelligent questions from them because it's clear that they're like, hey, you know, they had four people that were like, hey, we made all these mistakes like, don't do these kind of things. And that's interesting. And the, you know, an educated consumer is sometimes the best consumer. And I like working with that. But yeah, we have to understand where the expectations are from the consumers. Are they realistic or not. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. Well, and I was actually, thinking about this, a couple days ago and looking up some stats and. Nah, it's actually the highest number of agent usage for transacting real estate in the history. I think all but 4% of transactions, even with all this technology. And I think you said something very important and that is it's it's infrequent, it's an infrequent purchase, and it's still one of the biggest purchases. 

Kyle Hunter 

And unlike something that happens over and over we're used to, you get used to it and you kind of know the ropes. Things change. So if you're not buying a house, but every seven years or eight years or whatever the time frame, you know, there's a lot of scary things that can happen. And so with all the technology in the world, they're still going to need that realtor that representative, to help them through that process. 

Kyle Hunter 

And to make them feel more comfortable in, you know, many times making the biggest purchase of their life. So I can see where that resonates. So, you know, one of the challenges, I think, when you're working with 450 agents, that's a lot. And so you have a lot of different personality skill sets. How do you look at adoption of technology? 

Kyle Hunter 

I mean, you probably provide things to them. And, you know, the whole idea is to get them more productive, right? So when you are rolling something out or doing something, tell me through how you actually, you know, get them to start using whatever you're giving them. Yeah. 

Kyle Hunter 

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Kyle Hunter 

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Jared Antin 

I think the first fallacy is that 100% adoption is the goal. It's not right. The goal is making sure that you have the right agents adopt the right tech. So when we look at our tech stack and this is part of the change that I'm trying to usher in at our company right now is there's two buckets. 

Jared Antin 

You have your core tech stack. That is a requirement that everyone must use. Right. So your email system, great. We got to use this email system. You got to get paid, you know, this way. So there's two places where a firm will have pretty much 100% adoption emails and how to get paid with accounting. Everything in between is a crapshoot. 

Jared Antin 

So what we look at is there's certain tech that is going to be institutionalized across to brokers. So for instance there's a CRM. The brokerage has one CRM that we support on an enterprise level. If other agents want to use their own CRM, they do them right. So there's certain things that we are providing because we vetted for our agents, our situation, our held that we believe that these are the best in class, and then we want to make sure that we have a suite of different tools that are right for different type of agents. 

Jared Antin 

So if we have agents that are focused on the buy side, if we have agents that are focused more on prospecting and trying to win more listings, you know, these are a different set of tools. So what I'm trying to usher in is being able to create these different buckets where agents can opt into different technology suites, and that we're trying to make sure that we're always looking at the newest technology that's out there, that we're trying to do some beta tests and adopt it. 

Jared Antin 

We're not trying to roll out, you know, firm wider enterprise agreements, but we're trying to say, okay, for these types of agents, this product is going to be able to fulfill it. Or if I'm looking at a new piece of technology, what is the use case? What's the issue? What's the problem that it's going to solve? And what are my agents or who are my agents that are going to be able to benefit from that? 

Jared Antin 

And that's the way that we start because it's more manageable, because what then happens is when you start hearing from the agents that are using the field, that they're seeing value, hey, it got me this deal or that's you or hey, it got me in touch with Bob, Sam or Sue, who I never would have remembered to reach out to. 

Jared Antin 

And that led me to get Sam, Sarah or Susan. Phenomenal. And then the agents become the best sales force within a brokerage because they're raving about it. At the end of the day, managers can know the system. We can believe in the system, but we're not using it in the same way the agents are. So if we can get a few agents out there selling it, raving about it, that's the best pathway to being able to get more adoption within the brokerage. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. You know, I mean, real estate estate's a very relationship based not only with the customer and their customers, but also with other agents. So having, someone vet something for you or, you know, prove it out, like, that's the best way for adoption. And I guess a company like, you know, brown Hair Stevens, with so much history, you know, to innovate, you know, sometimes you have people probably stuck in some of their old ways and, you know, they're looking to, make some changes, and that could be hard. 

So, so what do you think's going to happen in the next five years with real estate technology? Do you think there is going to be major changes or, do you feel like, you know, it's still going to be just different flavors of what we have today with some incremental improvements? 

Jared Antin 

I, I'm first going to say I have no idea, but I can make some guesses. You know, I think that we are seeing an acceleration of how technology is evolving, right? You know, AI is becoming ubiquitous. But I think the biggest thing is that, you know, you can look at AI, right now and think that we're in the dotcom bubble, right? 

Jared Antin 

Because there's an AI for everything. So there needs to be and there will be consolidation within the AI space. Right? You will start seeing applications or companies be able to absorb one another, merge together and be able to speak together. But the question still is, is how do we get the value out of the information that's being processed in a digestible way that allows the recipient, the user, to take a human action and that is the lens that I have been switching. 

Jared Antin 

My frame of thinking to is that every piece of technology needs to create an actionable behavior that I, as a human, can do to create an interpersonal relationship and interpersonal communication or some other action. Because again, this is a people business. I cannot sell a piece of property. I cannot build or manage a relationship without picking up the phone or some other way communicating with you. 

Jared Antin 

So to me, it's about how does technology put in front of you an actionable item, right? So for instance, can it go through everything and help me understand, okay, you need to call this person and say that about this by this date. And how does it then pull the information within my email or my text message or my CRM to be able to wrap it all up? 

Jared Antin 

So it's a matter of saying, okay, how does technology start working together? How does my CRM, my design center, my email, my e-signature platform, how does it all start becoming this super app and be able to start helping me make sure that my day is easier? Because one of the challenges back to the previous question with adoption is sometimes people don't just know what app do they need to go to do what? 

Jared Antin 

And that in and of itself can sometimes be a hindrance to adoption right there. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. So that kind of leads me to going back a little bit. How do you evaluate what makes sense? You know, there's so much noise. There's so many different tools that come along, especially now with AI. Everyone's got something when you sit down and do an evaluation like what are the what's the process that you go through to see if this is something that works for you? Or do you look at the bulk of your agents and say you think it's going to work for them? Or, you know, talk me through how you would do that? 

Jared Antin 

Yeah. So first and foremost is I want to be able to meet and speak to the leadership team, right. If I understand where they're coming from, if I understand what their background and what problem they, you know, set out to solve, that's the first place, right? The other piece is, you know, I sit in a unique position because we don't operate in that MLS market in our core, other of our, out or out, our markets do operate in MLS. 

Jared Antin 

So we're operating both. But we need to understand, you know, will this work in a non MLS sort of setup. Does this work in a you know 3D sort of city with the high rises. So that's number two. Number three then is understanding how is this going to play with the rest of the technology stack. Because the last thing that we want to do is roll out tech that replaces something else. 

Jared Antin 

Is that good reason to do it. And layering in more is not always better. So we also want to be able to reduce the noise. So I try to understand what is the problem that it's solving, right. Where is it coming from. And then who within the brokerage might be right for it. And then we set up small beta groups. 

Jared Antin 

We have those conversations. And if my agents come back and say, hey, I really see value in this, then great, I know we have something we can move forward. If they come back and say no, then no harm, no foul. Let's keep moving. But if we never try, we're never going to get better. So I always want to be out there understanding the next best thing. 

Jared Antin 

I always want to be out there seeing what is new, because that is the only way that you're going to get smarter, more nimble and that soon, whether you're going to find something awesome. 

Kyle Hunter 

So what it's you know, you mentioned the beta groups. I love that, you know, basically you pick some who you know that are going to be adapting and you basically let them run that. What is a mistake that you see agents making when they go out and pick their own tech or, you know, they choose something that that doesn't work for them? You know, tell me a little bit about that. 

Jared Antin 

Yeah. So they don't always know what their goals are. They certainly, in many times don't stick with it. And the number one rule that I say about CRM is, is garbage in, garbage out. If you don't feed it, you're not going to get anything out right? You know, the way that I coach agents right away is I say you're not ready to adopt it if you don't treat it like a doctor who writes their notes after every patient visit. 

Jared Antin 

Not at 5:00 when I'm ready to sign out and go do whatever. Then I'm like, oh, now we got 30 minutes of work to going up to my CRM. If that's your mentality, you have fundamentally failed. You're not ready to adopt it. So the agents need to not bite off more than they can chew. They need to understand how it fits into the business and process. 

Jared Antin 

If this is successful, their life or their business will do X right, and then they need to make sure that they're using it in a productive way that is going to add value to them. If they're not ready to do those things, they're going to start and stop. And it's just going to be a waste of time and effort and in many cases, money as well. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. No, that's that's certainly, you know, you got to use it. 

Jared Antin 

You got to use it. 

Kyle Hunter 

For one thing that if agents are just buy a bunch of thing, you know, buy a bunch of software, you might as well just cancel your credit card every year and, get all that stuff that you're carrying off of there. So, so I guess, one last question for you. How's the real estate market in New York going to turn out in 2026? 

Jared Antin 

You know, the real estate market in New York has been doing really, really well, for all things considered. The market moves counter-cyclical to the national market, so we don't have the same inventory glut that the rest of the country does. And our prices now are starting to increase. I write on my LinkedIn, weekly, monthly and seasonal market updates. 

Jared Antin 

In fact, I think I'm on 315 weeks in a row of writing a weekly market update, something that I started in the early days of Covid, has now turned into something that is one of my favorite things to do each week. But the market's really interesting because we had our previous peak in 2016, and then we were faced with the salt cap limits, we were faced with some other legislation effects and, you know, some of the effects with foreign capital flowing in from China that led our market into about a 4 to 5 year sort of slow decline, from a price perspective. 

Jared Antin 

And the market was starting to rebound right before Covid. And then obviously Covid happened in the early days. People thought it was a density issue. We realized very quickly, Covid is not a density problem, and our market started to claw its way back. We are doing really, really well. There were some concerns around Mamdani. Those concerns obviously did not materialize. 

Jared Antin 

And our market is humming along where we're seeing really good, you know, sales volume, we're seeing above average contract volume. It's really interesting because we've had an abysmal winter, right? The west of the country was warm and not snowy. The northeast was as cold in as snowy as it's been in a long, long time. And what we saw is that it didn't really hinder buyer demand. 

Jared Antin 

What it did do was keep homes off the market. So we've we've had a more competitive market because we've had a lack of supply. And we're seeing now prices start to increase. We're seeing some annualized depreciation. And we're seeing a healthy market. Now that interest rates have come down just below 6%, or at least as of taping, so the first time in three years or sub six and the world is moving on. 

Jared Antin 

And the other really interesting thing about our market is that our holding periods are a lot shorter than the national average. They're 4 to 7 years because it's so expensive. You buy buy bedroom sides, you're not buying a four bedroom house. You can grow into over the next 10 or 15 years. So we also have a larger prevalence of adjustable rate mortgages. 

Jared Antin 

So people that bought in 2020 or 2021, they have their adjustable rates of resetting their aging out of their property. They're ready for more space. And that's what I'm really excited to see that turnover where we'll have motivated sellers, we're gonna have motivated buyers, and a market is really doing, you know, it's thing. 

Kyle Hunter 

Yeah. Well that's very optimistic I love it Jared Hansen thank you for joining today. 

Jared Antin 

Thank you. Happy to be here. Appreciate it. 

Kyle Hunter 

Thanks for tuning in to the Prop Tech Pulse podcast. Looking to take your real estate game to the next level? Check out our cutting edge tools. Visit Al wolf.com to learn more and see how we can help you succeed. I'm your host, Kyle Hunter, and I'll catch you next time as we continue exploring the future of real estate together. 

Kyle Hunter 

Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and stay connected. Until then, keep innovating and thriving in the world of real estate.