INDUSTRIESI13Property & Real Estate
Agents work from
everywhere but the office.
IT for real estate agencies, property managers, and body corporate administrators. Your people are in cars, at open homes, and on someone else’s Wi-Fi, and the trust account is audited regardless.
WHAT WE HEAR
The four sentences we hear most in your sector.
- 01
Agents use whatever device they own.
Frequently on a personal phone, with client information in a personal account. Manageable, but only if somebody has decided how rather than leaving it to happen.
- 02
Each franchise office does its own thing.
Different suppliers, different setups, and no way to support any of it consistently or to move a person between offices without friction.
- 03
Trust account access is broader than it should be.
Usually because it was easier to grant than to maintain, and it is the finding an audit is most likely to make.
- 04
We handle identity documents for AML and they end up in email.
Passports and driver licences sitting in inboxes indefinitely is both a privacy exposure and a retention problem.
THE STACK
The systems you actually run.
Not a list of logos. These are the platforms we support, migrate, and get called about in this sector. If yours is missing, it usually means we have not worked with it, and we will say so rather than nod along.
Property management
Holds tenancy records, maintenance, and trust transactions. Downtime here stops rent and stops repairs.
- Palace
- PropertyTree
- Console Cloud
- Re-Leased
- MRI Software
- Body corporate platforms
Sales CRM and marketing
The agent’s daily tool, used almost entirely on a phone, which is where it has to be judged.
- VaultRE
- AgentBox
- MyDesktop
- Realbase
- Campaigntrack
- REINZ data feeds
Trust accounting and compliance
Audited, regulated, and where a control failure has consequences well beyond an IT conversation.
- Trust accounting modules
- Bank integrations and payment files
- Electronic identity verification
- AML screening
- Audit trail retention
Mobile and field work
Almost all of the working day happens away from a desk, frequently on a personal device.
- Mobile device management
- Personal device policies
- Digital signing
- Open home apps
- Photography and floor plan workflows
WHERE WE HELP
Four things we do for property & real estate specifically.
- 01
Mobile-first, managed properly
Agency data on personal phones protected by app-level policies that can be wiped independently, with no visibility of anything personal. It is the boundary agents accept and the one that actually works, because the alternative they fear is you reading their messages.
- 02
Trust account access under control
Access by role, reviewed on a schedule, with individual logins and retained logs so an audit question about who did what has an answer. Shared logins defeat every other control here and remain common.
- 03
One standard across offices
The same build, the same systems, and the same onboarding across every office or franchise, so a person can move, a problem can be fixed remotely, and a new office is a repeatable process rather than a project.
- 04
Identity documents handled properly
AML verification documents captured into a system with retention and access control rather than accumulating in inboxes, so they are retained as long as required and no longer, and can be produced when asked.
WHAT YOU ANSWER TO
The obligations that shape the work.
We make the systems match your obligations. We are not your lawyer or your compliance adviser, and where a question turns on interpretation we will tell you to take advice rather than guess on your behalf.
AML/CFT Act 2009
Real estate agents have been captured since the phase two extension, bringing customer due diligence, record keeping, and reporting duties. The records duty is a retention and retrievability problem.
Real Estate Authority rules
Trust account handling, record keeping, and client care obligations all carry technology consequences, particularly around access control and audit trails.
Privacy Act 2020
You hold identity documents, financial details, and tenancy histories. That is a substantial personal information holding with breach notification duties attached.
Residential Tenancies Act
Record keeping for tenancies, bonds, and notices has to be maintained and produced on request, which makes it a records management question.
WHAT IT COSTS
Per user, per month, priced per office
Priced per user per month and quoted per office, which suits franchise and multi-office structures where each office has its own accounts. Because every office is built the same way, adding one is a known cost rather than a fresh quote. Trust account and compliance work is scoped separately.
WHERE TO START
The services that matter most here.
FAQ
Questions from your sector
01Can agents use personal phones for work safely?
Yes, with app-level policies rather than device control. Agency email and files live in a managed container that can be wiped on its own, while the personal side of the phone stays entirely private and invisible to the agency. Agents generally accept this readily once it is explained, because what they imagine otherwise is the agency being able to see their photographs and messages. The current alternative, which is agency data on unmanaged personal devices, is the version with real exposure.
02How do we protect the trust account from fraud?
Individual logins with no exceptions, access strictly by role and reviewed on a schedule, retained audit logs, multi-factor authentication on banking and on email, and a verification step for every change of payment details that is done by phone on a number you already hold. Payment redirection fraud in this sector arrives as a believable email at settlement, which is exactly when nobody wants to add a step, and that is why the rule has to be absolute rather than discretionary.
03What does AML mean for how we store identity documents?
You must collect and retain customer due diligence records and be able to produce them years later. In practice that means they should not live in inboxes. They belong in a system with access control and automatic retention, so they are kept as long as required, disposed of when they should be, and retrievable on request. Passports sitting in an agent’s mailbox for six years is the common position and it is the wrong one.
04We are a franchise with several offices doing things differently. Where do we start?
With one office, standardised properly, used as the template. Trying to change every office simultaneously in a franchise structure rarely works, because each principal has their own priorities and their own suppliers. One office done well, with the cost and the improvement visible, is a far more persuasive argument to the others than a mandate.
05What happens to client data when an agent leaves?
This should be settled long before it happens. Contacts and client information belonging to the agency should live in the agency CRM rather than in an agent’s personal phone contacts or private email, and access should be removable in one action across email, CRM, and property management. Where that has not been designed, a departure becomes a negotiation, and occasionally a dispute.
06Do you support property management as well as sales?
Yes, and they have genuinely different needs. Property management runs on a platform such as Palace, PropertyTree, or Console, with trust accounting, maintenance workflows, and heavy tenancy record keeping. Sales runs on a CRM used almost entirely from a phone. Agencies doing both need each supported properly rather than one treated as an afterthought.
Start with one office.
Standardise a single office, show the difference in cost and in support, then use it as the template for the rest.
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