Is the phone dying in CRE - or are we just watching worlds split?

Tech is rewriting commercial real estate exponentially. Most coverage is news - who raised what, who bought what. This newsletter covers physics. Structural forces. Patterns before they’re obvious. Atoms and bits. Subscribe for updates →

the physics

Real estate runs on phone guys. The Glengarry Glen Ross types. ABC, Always Be Closing. Coffee for closers. Pick up the phone, never give up, make the call…

That reality still exists. But it’s not the only reality anymore.

Worlds are splitting.

Email was invented in the 70s, but took until the 90s and 2000s to reach mainstream adoption - over twenty years. Now we’re seeing the split accelerate. Some professionals live in the phone world. Others have moved to a different comms reality.

This isn’t about one tool replacing another. It’s about recognizing that behaviors and expectations are changing faster than we acknowledge.

The shift happens silently, incrementally. At first, the alternative versions are close enough that we don’t notice. But different vectors compound over time, and suddenly the distance is undeniable.

the signal

We run the largest commercial real estate marketplace in CEE. 20,000 visits monthly. We connect office and industrial tenants with property owners and asset managers.

For years, we did quality control the old way. A form comes in, we pick up the phone, conduct a 5-min interview before passing the lead along. Time-consuming and definitely underperforming. Hit ratio on first call attempt? Maybe 20-30%.

A few months ago, we tested something different on 50 tenants. Instead of calling, after collecting the form we immediately emailed the same interview questions.

To our surprise, response rate jumped to 60-80% with a majority responding almost immediately!

This wasn’t just a signal that we hit a promising channel, but also a huge opportunity for introducing deeper automation into the process. As a result, we rebuilt the workflow to serve a bi-channel approach. First, email, and if that doesn’t work - phone.

the translation

Is the phone dying? No. It’s still excellent for fast, direct communication. Many people prefer it and always will.

But we can’t ignore the growing group that expects a different approach. The professionals who prefer text to voice. Who want to provide context asynchronously. Who respond faster to email than to calls. If you’re a real estate executive, that’s something worth checking with your leasing team, because they might be missing an entire segment of quality leads. Test alternative comms. Measure response rates.

World split sounds apocalyptic. But it happens silently, constantly. Everything changes, and with every tweak, realities diverge.