How REOEngine Builds REO Brokerage Software Around Brokers, Not Asset Managers

My close friend, a non-techy, told me that they needed a system to support their business as they moved from New Mexico to California. They needed workflows and automations to allow them to work remotely, improve productivity and quality of their residential real estate work products (broker price opinions and monthly status reports) for corporate asset management companies. The product was born. My friend's need stalled. The product still got finished. It facilitates the multiuser workflows, quality checks, daily rhythm and process controls that residential REO (Real Estate Owned - the nickname for bank-owned homes) brokerages require. Overall, this business suffers from antiquated, poorly architected systems and minimal to zero automation. The business problems, however, are highly automatable and repeatable. The systems are designed to ease the performance of the asset managers - even at the expense of the users who are actually adding valuable data to the system, real estate brokers. These compromises aren't necessary, they've been self-imposed by a software development team who is focused on their paying stakeholder instead of the main user, people who enter data into the system. REOEngine fixes that issue without making compromises.

So far, what has worked is a robust waterfall development process that has built out a tremendous set of functional tools. As an SME myself in this arena, it's easy to build the things the customer wants - I'm a former customer of this process. The disadvantage, however, is that a great deal of time has been invested in making the product work nicely, but lacks customers. That's the next step, add the right Alpha participants to the program, let them implement it, and then begin to market the product more widely. My next step is an expansion into marketing. Perhaps that's why I'm investing time here to promote the product and make it more available and market aware. One tactic that I expect will work is direct engagement with ICPs that might want this tool. One tactic that has so far flopped entirely is making a post series about it on LinkedIn. My only hope, however, is that the post series will be there, live on, and be available to prospective partners and customers who will see it later.

They complain that the system doesn't do a specific function. They call that "Autopopulate". They want data bulk entered on asset management portals. It doesn't do that yet. The reason is that this function is needed by a specific, narrow, but needy and vocal large audience - but not my target audience. These people are running a separate business of completing "fee for service Broker Price Opinions" - that's actually a different task with a different motivation and compensation model. So far, I'm ignoring their requests, developing it in the background, and maintaining my focus on my real ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), a REO brokerage with 10-20 bank owned listings where they have a field service technician and a data entry specialist, three roles. These are the teams that really will use the system as it currently is built and envisioned. There will be time to help the others later.

They think it does "Auto-populate" as a regular function. That's a commodity function done by other systems. So far, we don't do it. They also greatly underestimate the efficacy and efficiency of AI and how it speeds productivity and improves quality. Often, these systems are used by a relatively small group of people - the industry has consolidated drastically. Furthermore, it's probably entirely a USA-based business problem, foreclosures do happen in other countries, but the maturity of the US market for home loans, laws and foreclosure processes are probably the most robust, I'm not sure this system applies anywhere but in the USA. I also wonder if the system can be enhanced and developed for small asset management companies - a potential different kind of customer with an adjacent business problem (related, but different use cases, more analytics, more automated value model (home value) needs, vendor management and management of payables and receivables).

We will onboard 3-5 of our ICP and we will enhance the tool to better suit them. We will also work on developing "auto-populate" in parallel. We will probably find some partners in education and advertising. This will greatly increase distribution. I moved in this direction because we anticipate a growth (potentially a significant one!) in foreclosures in the USA, interest rates are high and potentially going higher. Although we don't relish the thought of a challenged real estate market, I do think we want the best tools possible to improve our outcomes and mitigate our financial challenges to the greatest extent possible.

Proud of developing the tool to this level of robustness within 90 days. We have passed several technical, security, code quality and development milestones. Development is highly automated, tested and secure.

I had 8 years in SaaS for a major engineering software company in an implementation services, consulting and training role - individual contributor, manager and director level. Since then, I invested 25+ years in residential real estate - including 6 in REO (management of bank owned homes). This system provides the solutions to the intersection of those subject expertises. I have a degree in Management Information Systems from Boston University. So I had the basic knowledge of database normalization, APIs, system integration, and use of web services prior to attempting this project. I did need to learn a great deal along the way, but Claude helps a great deal with learning Vercel, Next.js, the implementation of an additional VDS, Supabase, backups, coding rubrics, and security implementation.

I'm not sure I've made any drastic mistakes. I wish my first customer hadn't suffered the personal setbacks that led him away from being my first ICP and testimonial, but I persevere and move forward, nonetheless. If I had to do it again, I would have sought two or three additional Alpha customers from the very beginning. I think that would have provided more focus on the tools and features that all three or four Alphas really required - instead of me, as an SME, making educated guesses. That would have led to more focus, specific results, easy conversion to monthly paid subscriptions and would have resulted in publishable testimonials.