Building a prosperous company in the real estate industry resembles building a house. First, you need solid foundations: people, resources, and funds. Without them, the entire structure slowly cracks and crumbles or completely collapses if things go south.

With COVID-19 and current political and economic turbulence, the foundations of many real estate companies have become all but solid. The property industry is marred by issues such as:

• inflation and economic slowdown,
• supply chain inefficiencies,
• political and regulatory uncertainty,
• labor shortages,
• declining consumer confidence.

Despite these hardships, the real estate market growth forecasts project a steady CAGR of 1.9% in the next five years. This shows that the growth potential is still there for those willing to face these challenges. One way to lessen their impact is by maximizing the output while minimizing costs and effort through Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

If you’re unsure what RPA is and what processes in the real estate industry are good candidates for automation, read on. You will learn how RPA implementation can benefit your real estate business and see two examples of companies successfully launching automation projects.

Learn more about using Robotic Process Automation in other industries, like RPA in insurance, RPA in logistics, e-commerce automation, or consulting automation.

Increased productivity is the holy grail for all businesses, regardless of size and industry. No wonder any reasonably priced tool that can lead even to a slight efficiency boost is in high demand.

Enter RPA. It’s a scripted automation solution that excels at dealing with mundane, rule-based tasks. RPA platforms like UiPath are perfect for data-heavy workflows, and they scale well as more tasks are added to the pipeline. We’re not talking about a “slight efficiency boost” anymore here; if implemented correctly, RPA can handle many repetitive tasks independently and save businesses thousands of hours.

It is no surprise then that recently, RPA has been finding use in increasing sectors. In some, like healthcare and finance, it’s become a staple solution and an excellent driver for growth, with plenty of hard data to back this claim up. In healthcare, for instance, RPA is estimated to help cut costs by up to half. And in finance, a sector closely intertwined with real estate, Juniper projects a 60% year-to-year growth in automated investment until 2023.

At this point, you’re probably asking yourself, “If RPA worked there, would it work in real estate, too”? The short answer is ‘yes,’ but let’s see why that is the case.

It is estimated that even 50% of RPA opportunities are missed. That’s because a successful RPA launch requires a clear vision and an inside-out understanding of an organization’s workflows.

You can think of the first stage of an RPA implementation as recruitment. Ideally, you’re looking for a candidate that suits all your requirements. In the case of RPA, the perfect “hire” is a manual routine that’s time-consuming, repetitive, performed frequently, and involves heaps of data. Fortunately, in the real estate industry, there’s no lack of processes that check all these boxes, like:

Introducing each new tenant consists of several subtasks: creating an application, verifying the tenant’s income, employment, and criminal history, and finally, accepting or rejecting the applicant. Rules can be easily set for all of them, allowing RPA bots to extract and enter data and run the necessary checks.

Reconciliation is another task focused on simple, repetitive activities such as extracting and comparing bank statements with your ledger. Again, why not spare your employees the effort and leave these tasks to pre-programmed scripts?

In property management, there’s no escaping payment delays. But what you can do to reduce them is to automate reminders rather than tracking and verifying payments (or lack thereof) and then sending notices to tenants all by yourself. You can go even further and let bots handle other standardized communication, such as contract renewals or rent increases.

The Net Asset Value is an essential indicator of ROI potential in CRE. Calculating NAV involves collecting, verifying, and processing market data—all these tasks are perfect candidates for automation. Bots will handle them faster and more efficiently than humans. Plus, they will leave no room for error.

As you list more and more properties, following their statuses and values and then updating them on all your sites will quickly become a dull but necessary chore. Since portfolio management lies in data checks and entry, you can easily avoid the frustration by relaying it to an RPA bot.

Here’s one more task that becomes nasty as the number of properties in your portfolio grows. Once again, RPA comes to the rescue, enabling automatic maintenance scheduling and requesting and utilities reporting.

Handling payments and invoices is tough enough as it is, so your accountants will greatly appreciate any help. And RPA is not just any help: bots can verify data, run forecasts, or pull payment details from invoices and upload them into your system. All that fast, error-free, and regardless of volume and format.

RPA algorithms are no strangers to compliance validation in other industries and work just as well in real estate. Just have them scan customer information for potential regulation breaches or extract customer information needed for other compliance assurance duties.

Having all the above processes handled by an RPA bot sounds sweet, but you’re probably curious about what’s in it for you and your business. Here are some tangible benefits of Robotic Process Automation in real estate.

Although automation systems require investment, the initial costs are bleak compared to the potential long-term savings generated by RPA. Property management and real estate involve high operational costs that can be significantly reduced thanks to time savings and a productivity boost. Note that the key to an RPA implementation that brings ROI is thorough planning and hiring the right people.

Growing your real estate company means more properties and more micromanagement. So you’ll soon face a tough choice: hire more staff or hold back on the expansion. RPA offers a third way, allowing you to scale up your portfolio without scaling up your recruitment.

RPA helps your real estate firm deliver its services faster, better, and with fewer errors. That’s why it’s hardly a shocker that RPA implementation makes your customers more satisfied—and more likely to return. It’s really that simple!

Every time a human employee repeats the same boring sequence of actions, the risk of mistake looms larger and larger. Regulatory noncompliance or payment error can cost you dearly, and we don’t mean money but something much more valuable: the trust of your clients and partners. The answer? Hand over arduous tasks to the algorithm that never sleeps and always stays sharp.

Even though it takes over some ‘human’ tasks, RPA isn’t here to replace your staff but to support them. With the jobs they hate to have to do now handled by bots, your employees are free to focus on customer outreach, negotiations, and high-impact projects.