State of Brokerage Technology 2023: What 92 Brokerage Leaders Told Us
Brokerages now average 20 tech tools, up from 12 in 2020. See what 92 brokerage leaders said about technology, costs, and operations.
The average real estate brokerage now uses 20.4 technology tools. Three years ago, that number was 12.4. Nearly double the tools, but nobody we talked to said their operations got twice as good.
We partnered with T3 Sixty to survey 92 leaders from over 100 of the top brokerages in the United States. We wanted to know how brokerages are actually using technology, where the money goes, and whether all that software is helping or just adding noise.
More tools, less clarity
Brokerages have nearly doubled their tool count since 2020. But when we asked how many of those tools brokerages actually pay for and provide to agents, the numbers don’t match up.
60.87% of brokerages pay for five or fewer tools. Another 30.43% pay for six to ten. Only 2.17% pay for more than 25.
So where are the other 15 tools coming from? Agents bring their own. Teams buy their own subscriptions. Offices patch gaps with free trials and workarounds. You end up with a tech stack that nobody fully controls and nobody can report on accurately.
We dig deeper into this in 20 Tools and Counting: Why Brokerages Are Drowning in Software.
The budget is upside down
We mapped where brokerage technology spending actually goes:
- Front office (websites, lead gen, CRM, marketing): 63% of the tech budget
- Back office (transaction management, accounting, commissions, compliance): 20%
Front office tools matter. But the back office is where money gets tracked, compliance gets enforced, and financial decisions get made. Spending three times more on lead generation than on the systems that calculate commissions and track profitability is backwards. That catches up with you.
We break this down further in Your Back Office Gets 20% of the Tech Budget. It Deserves More.
What keeps brokerage leaders up at night
We asked respondents to pick their top three concerns:
| Concern | % of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Rising interest rates | 48.91% |
| Lack of housing supply | 46.74% |
| Recruiting top performing agents | 43.48% |
| Reduced profit margins | 34.78% |
| Agent adoption of technology | 29.35% |
| Institutional investors in residential real estate | 19.57% |
| Finding ways to reduce expenses | 19.57% |
| Less home sales and more rentals | 15.22% |
Interest rates and housing supply are outside your control. Recruiting, margins, and technology adoption are not. And those three are all tied to how your operations actually run: how your systems work, how accurately you track money, how smoothly your agents’ day to day experience goes.
Read the full breakdown in The 3 Concerns Keeping Brokerage Leaders Up at Night.
Most technology is not earning its keep
We asked brokerages whether their technology actually drives performance or just exists. The answers were blunt:
- 39.13% said technology is integral to operating their business
- 28.26% said they use it to drive productivity
- 16.30% said their technology simply checks a box
- 7.61% said it is a unique differentiator
Fewer than one in three brokerages believe their tech makes them more productive. And 16% flat out said their tools are not doing anything meaningful. Keep in mind, 83% of brokerages rolled out at least one new tool in the past two years. The problem is not a lack of technology. It is a lack of connection between the tools they already have.
New tools keep coming, but outcomes are not keeping up
Over the past two years, 83% of brokerages added at least one new technology tool. 16.30% added more than five. But the productivity numbers above tell you how much that actually moved the needle.
Adding tools without a plan just means more logins, more training, and another place where data gets stuck. The brokerages reporting the best outcomes from technology focused on connecting and consolidating what they had rather than piling on more subscriptions.
What brokerage leaders actually want
When we asked about technology wish lists, the same themes kept coming up: integration, platform consolidation, transaction management. Brokerage leaders are not asking for more features. They want fewer tools that actually work together.
That matches what we see in the field every day. The brokerages running the smoothest operations are not the ones with the most software subscriptions. They are the ones with a connected back office platform that handles transactions, commissions, compliance, and reporting in one place.
What this means for your brokerage
This survey puts numbers behind what a lot of brokers already feel: the technology situation is getting more complicated without getting more useful. More tools usually means more fragmentation and less visibility into what your brokerage is actually producing.
The answer is not more software. It is investing in the right connected platform that is your single system of record for back office operations.
TotalBrokerage built its platform for exactly this. Every transaction, every commission calculation, every compliance check, every financial report lives in one place. You stop re-entering data, you stop relying on spreadsheets, and you stop guessing.
If you want to see how that compares to the patchwork most brokerages run today, book a demo.
About this survey
The 2023 State of Real Estate Brokerage Technology Survey was conducted by TotalBrokerage in collaboration with T3 Sixty. 92 brokerage leaders from over 100 of the top brokerages in the United States participated. The survey covered technology usage, spending, concerns, satisfaction, adoption, and wish lists across the industry.
This is the first in a series of posts where we go deeper into the findings:
- Why brokerages are drowning in software
- The top concerns keeping brokerage leaders up at night
- How technology affects agent recruiting
- The back-office budget gap
FAQ
How many technology tools does the average brokerage use?
According to the 2023 State of Real Estate Brokerage Technology Survey by TotalBrokerage in collaboration with T3 Sixty, the average brokerage uses 20.4 technology tools. That is up from 12.4 in 2020. Most brokerages only pay for five or fewer of those tools directly. The rest come from agents and teams buying their own subscriptions and filling gaps with workarounds.
What percentage of the technology budget goes to back office operations?
Only 20% of the average brokerage’s technology budget goes to back office tools like transaction management, accounting, and commission calculation. The front office (websites, lead generation, CRM, marketing) gets 63%. That imbalance is worth paying attention to, because the back office is where financial accuracy, compliance, and operational visibility live.
What are the biggest concerns for real estate brokerage leaders in 2023?
The top three concerns are rising interest rates (48.91%), lack of housing supply (46.74%), and recruiting top performing agents (43.48%). Reduced profit margins (34.78%) and agent adoption of technology (29.35%) round out the top five. Rates and supply are market driven forces. The rest tie directly to how well your operational infrastructure and technology are working.
Why are brokerages not seeing productivity gains from new technology?
Only 28.26% of respondents said their technology drives productivity, even though 83% added at least one new tool in the past two years. The gap comes from adding tools without thinking about how they connect. Every new piece of software that does not tie into a central system creates another data silo. The brokerages seeing the best results are the ones consolidating rather than accumulating.
What kind of technology do brokerage leaders wish they had?
When asked about their wish list, brokerage leaders kept coming back to integration, platform consolidation, and better tech stack performance. They want fewer tools that actually talk to each other, not more tools that each solve one narrow problem. Transaction management and consolidated back office operations came up the most.
How was this survey conducted?
The 2023 State of Real Estate Brokerage Technology Survey was conducted by TotalBrokerage in collaboration with T3 Sixty. 92 brokerage leaders from over 100 of the top brokerages in the United States participated. The survey covered technology usage, spending, satisfaction, concerns, and wish lists across the residential real estate brokerage industry.
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