Commercial real estate is experiencing the fastest wave of technology adoption in its history. According to JLL’s 2025 Global Real Estate Technology Survey, AI adoption across CRE teams surged from under 5% to 92% in just three years. Investment in proptech is accelerating. Digital platforms are reshaping how deals get done.
And yet, when you speak to the brokers, operators, and agency leaders on the ground, the people actually doing the work, you hear something different. Not resistance. Not scepticism. Something quieter.
Friction.
Not the dramatic kind. Not system crashes or failed implementations. The everyday kind. The deal update that lives in someone’s inbox, rather than on the platform the whole team relies on. The report takes 45 minutes to pull together from three different tools. The follow-up that slips through the cracks because there’s no single place to track it.
This is the friction most CRE professionals have stopped noticing, because they’ve been working around it for so long, it just feels like the way things are.
At ZYNC, we believe that’s precisely where the biggest opportunity lives.
The Problem Isn’t Too Little Technology. It’s Too Much Disconnected Technology.
Here’s something worth sitting with: the average CRE firm now runs 12 to 15 different software systems. Large organisations operate with upwards of 350 distinct tools across their business. That’s not a technology deficit. That’s a technology overload.
And the data backs this up. JLL’s research found that 81% of CRE companies have at least three existing systems that aren’t generating the results they expected. Meanwhile, 60% of CRE executives still use spreadsheets as their primary reporting tool, and 54% cite legacy system compatibility as the number one barrier to adopting anything new.
The industry didn’t underinvest in technology. It over-accumulated it, one tool at a time, one problem at a time, until the stack itself became the problem.
We see this with the brokers and operators we work with every day. The friction isn’t in any single tool. It’s in the gaps between them, the handoffs, the duplicated entries, the context that gets lost when information moves from one system to another.
What the Best Firms Are Doing Differently
There’s a pattern emerging among the firms leading CRE’s recovery, and it’s not what you might expect.
Deloitte’s 2025 Commercial Real Estate Outlook shows 88% of CRE executives expect revenue growth this year. The recovery is real. But the firms capturing it aren’t the ones with the most advanced tech stacks. They’re the ones with the least friction in their workflows.
Consider Avison Young. Their CRM adoption sat at just 23%. Rather than adding yet another tool to the mix, they consolidated onto a single unified platform. Within four months, adoption jumped to 90%. Not because the people changed. Because the friction disappeared.
This is the shift we’re seeing, and the one we’re building ZYNC around. The smartest operators and brokers have stopped asking “what tool should we add next?” and started asking a much better question: “What’s slowing us down that we’ve stopped noticing?”
That question consistently applied is what separates the firms pulling ahead from the ones standing still.
Friction Is a Systems Problem, Not a People Problem
One of the most important reframes happening in CRE right now is this: when a team is spending half its time on admin instead of deals, that’s not a productivity problem. It’s a friction problem.
Industry estimates suggest brokers spend roughly 40 hours of administrative work per transaction, on coordination, data entry, follow-ups, and paperwork. At 25 transactions a year, that’s 1,000 hours annually diverted away from the work that actually builds relationships and closes deals.
But here’s what makes this an opportunity, not a verdict: Deloitte’s research found that online transaction platforms alone save brokers 3 to 5 hours per transaction. Teams that implemented automated reminders and document management reduced their average deal closure time by 20%. CRM adoption, when done right, drives a 29% increase in sales on average.
The time is there to be reclaimed. The deals are there to be won. The friction just needs to be noticed and then, deliberately, removed.
The Recovery Rewards the Friction-Free
CRE is at a genuine inflection point. Investment in proptech is projected to more than double over the next decade. 99% of CRE professionals plan to maintain or increase their software spend this year. The appetite for better tools and smarter workflows has never been higher.
But the firms that will benefit most won’t be the ones that simply spend more on technology. They’ll be the ones who spend more wisely by identifying the friction in their current workflows and systematically removing it.
That means fewer tools doing more. It means one source of truth instead of five. It means workflows where information flows naturally between the people who need it, without extra steps, without manual transfers, without things falling through the gaps.
That’s what we’re building at ZYNC. Not another tool to add to the pile. A CRM designed from the ground up for how commercial real estate actually works, one that makes friction visible so it can be removed, and gives brokers, operators, and agencies back the time and clarity they need to focus on what they do best.
Start with One Question
If there’s one thing we’d encourage every CRE professional to do this week, it’s this: pay attention to friction. Not the big, obvious kind. The small, everyday kind.
The extra step you take without thinking. The workaround you’ve built so many times it feels normal. The information that lives in your head instead of somewhere your whole team can access.
Notice it. Name it. Then ask: Does this need to exist?
More often than not, the answer is no. And that’s where the real progress begins.
Sources
- JLL 2025 Global Real Estate Technology Survey
- Deloitte 2025 Commercial Real Estate Outlook
- Altus Group CRE Innovation Report
- Building Engines / BOMA / JLL: State of Commercial Property Management Technology 2025
- HubSpot / Avison Young Case Study
