“Because Glide is cost-effective, extremely easy to use, and extremely powerful, it’s a perfect platform to test and do a lot of rapid iteration, specifically for internal tooling like we have here with First Look.”
The team at TTR Sotheby’s International Realty used to use a spreadsheet to share and keep track of their inventory of private exclusive real estate listings. Due to the disruptive nature of COVID-19 and the already-distributed nature of the residential real estate industry — where real estate agents are always on the go — the spreadsheet-based process inevitably became obsolete.
“We were forced to digitize a lot of our operations very rapidly,” said Byron V. Hughey, Vice President of Digital Media and Engagement. “We had a very specific problem we needed to solve. Glide and the no-code movement arrived at just the time we needed it.”
Using Glide, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty developed First Look, an internal repository for all of its private, exclusive, and coming-soon listings. That was almost five years ago, and Glide is now an essential part of their operations.
The role of private exclusive real estate listings
The role of a Private Exclusive real estate listing may not be obvious because most homes are marketed publicly through a Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
“TTR Sotheby’s International Realty believes firmly in the power of marketing real estate listings to the broadest possible audience,” says Hughey. “The best way to do that is through a public listing in the MLS.”
Nevertheless, there are cases where a customer may have a very legitimate reason or desire to list their home privately—including those who may be high-profile public figures, or who are experiencing a unique life event where public marketing may not serve their best interest at the time.
“With Glide, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty has developed a safe, secure, and intentional solution that not only serves the best interest of the customer, but also offers a delightful user experience to our agents.”
Using spreadsheets resulted in bottlenecks
“There were bottlenecks in our operation. For a long time, we were sharing private listings internally with our agents through a spreadsheet,” explained Hughey. Inevitably, the data would be outdated, and we would have to re-circulate a new spreadsheet. Information was scattered, and the spreadsheet wasn’t easy to use or visually appealing. “It was very simple, very boring,” he added.
“When we found Glide, we discovered it was so easy to just take a spreadsheet and create a really wonderful, mobile-friendly, interactive application.”
First Look helps agents market private listings more effectively
“First Look is really important to our firm because it allows us to engage with private, exclusive, and coming soon listings in a way that’s much more robust and much more impactful.”
“I believe today we have close to $150 million worth of private exclusive and coming soon real estate listings within the app,” said Hughey. Whenever a new listing is uploaded, it automatically gets sent out to all of their 500 real estate agents. ”It's a really powerful automation, and I think really something that's only feasible because of what Glide brings to the table.”
First Look is available to all 500+ of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty real estate agents. The app includes photographs and detailed information about every property. Each listing even has a button to call or text the listing agent, and agents can also use the app to share listings with their buyer clients.
“First Look gives our agents the ability to go at any time and look at our inventory in a very engaging and detailed way.”
In cases where there’s a low inventory environment on the public market, agents may explore additional options that are only available privately. Getting quick, detailed information about those private, exclusive listings helps agents serve their clients’ needs better. “It's a very powerful tool for the agent and it definitely adds a little bit of appeal for a prospective purchaser who might be looking for something special,” he explains.
Agents can add and edit their own listings with Glide
Agents can upload and share their own listings independently to the app, wherever they are. “Since we launched First Look, we've seen great engagement from our agents. It couldn't be easier to upload content to the app. Agents can do that on their own time. 24/7, 365 days a year. To us, that has been transformative because it shows us the constant stream of new inventory in a very real-time way.”
“It's really, truly unique and something that can only be done on a platform like Glide that offers something super easy to deploy and maintain, but also a really delightful and modern, sophisticated user experience.”
Agents can also upload their own listings to the app from a phone or computer. “The First Look app has allowed our agents complete autonomy to upload listings whenever they want. It empowers the agent to do it themselves, which I think is a very underrated feature.” They can edit listings if the price changes, or if they want to rewrite a description or add new photos.
“Glide makes it super easy to go back into the listing and edit it all from your phone, so it's a really delightful experience.”
TTR Sotheby’s International Realty partnered with a skilled agency
“We've built an incredibly robust, secure, and responsive tool.”
Hughey built the first version of the app himself, based on a Google Sheet. “I'm not someone who's super, super technical, but I know enough to get something like Glide up and running,” he said. Over the years, they scaled the app to meet an evolving marketplace and the growing needs of the business. They added helpful features like Zapier integrations to send text message alerts to agents when new listings were added.
“Version two came about a year ago when we realized, this app and this platform are actually really, really critical for our business and for our agents.”
TTR Sotheby’s International Realty partnered with LowCode, an agency specializing in Glide app development, to help them create a more engaging version of First Look.
“They've been such a pleasure to work with,” said Hughey. “They're incredibly smart. They're incredibly savvy when it comes to architecting user experiences, and we've been very pleased with how they've been able to take that first version that I cobbled together and take it to a completely different level.”
Now they’re working with LowCode to “thoughtfully and tastefully” implement AI and leverage more of the functionality that artificial intelligence has made possible.
Solving more problems with Glide apps
Now, Hughey is working with LowCode to figure out where else Glide can benefit their business. “Given the impact that the app has had, because of Glides' native capabilities, I can see us building not only additional features and functionality on top of the existing First Look app but also separate use cases that solve real problems for our customers.”
“There's such an open window to explore, and to implement something and rapidly prototype something quite sophisticated in a very short amount of time.”
“There's an abundance of different use cases for a Glide application,” says Hughey. “We're really excited to keep serving our agents and making sure we're meeting them where they need us to be, and I think the First Look app is a fantastic example of how that magic can happen.”