Ray White embarked on its journey with the PropTech platform NurtureCloud in 2021 to reshape the way real estate is conducted in Australasia.
Mark McLeod, Ray White Chief Strategy Officer for Real Estate, has spearheaded the rollout of the platform for the group, which has ambitions to become a complete operating system for the network.
NurtureCloud uses propensity modelling, artificial intelligence and machine learning to help agents generate leads and improves the overall performance of all real estate businesses.
“The simplification of agent tasks coupled with lead enrichment is a game-changer,” Mr McLeod said.
“Propensity shows the agents which people in their database are behaving as if they’re going to list their property and the tool picks that up before they actually do.
“The machine learning in the back end of this app is quite fascinating. And it’s these indicators that give us the assurance to call and offer value.”
Mr McLeod said NurtureCloud enabled the group to scale in a significant way, making 306,000 prospecting calls last month alone.
“We’re only just getting started,” he said.
“We are getting data now that allows us to reshape and refocus all our training to suit what the data tells us.
“We’re set to release our buyer journey next, which includes our open for inspection data, vendor reports, and tracking our buyers like never before and we’re really excited about that.”
Mr McLeod said the group was entering an exciting phase and looking to expand the team.
He said NurtureCloud would launch in New Zealand in May and he expected to make the same high rate of connections there as well.
“Our propensity is just over 50 per cent for the group,” he said.
“Some of our offices have propensities at 70 per cent, which means that NurtureCloud pushes us forward the people in our database who are acting on our systems in a way which would indicate that they’re considering coming to the market.
“When we call a potential client, they say, ‘It’s so funny you called, we are thinking of selling’. We heard that time and time again.”
The technology uses AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) at the same time.
NurtureCloud Operations Manager Courtney Martin said this is the tool everyone in the real estate industry had always wanted.
“For such a long period of time, we’ve always wanted to contact future vendors at the right time and now we can,” she said.
“This tool tracks the behaviours of property owners in our database and surfaces those who are the most likely to list.
“The real game-changer is the propensity modelling that just leaves every other lead generation tool for dead.
“We look at people’s activity through open for inspections, and inquiries on listings across the Ray White network.
“You can have an agent with a property owner in their database in Perth who inquires on a listing in New Farm, so you could say, ‘I have noticed you’re looking at properties in Brisbane, what’s your plan for your property in Perth, do you need to sell that one in order to move to Brisbane’?
“Having some insights helps our members to craft better quality conversations.”
Ms Martin said the goal was to create a NurtureCloud operating system where members can manage their entire business by the end of this year.
“We’ve been working on cleaning data for such a long time but it is the key to predict 100 per cent of properties that will come to the market because everyone follows the same predictable path,” she said.
“No one wakes up on a weekend and says, ‘Let’s get the house on the market today’. There’s lots of signs along the way.”
The data indicates that when someone requests an agent to come to the property, they will be on the market within 60 days. NurtureCloud has so far been rolled out to 525 offices across Australia, with the New Zealand network to come from May.
Mark McLeod is looking forward to speaking at Elite Retreat in Bali in July, sharing the lessons and learnings of the leading group in stock management. More info here.
