How automating everyday interactions between key applications enabled a real estate startup to slash data processing costs by 60% and save up to 30 hours per employee monthly.
Industry:
Real estate
Web Development
Enterprise Automation
According to McKinsey, up to 69%* of data collection and processing tasks can be fully automated. Meanwhile, without automation, they become significant drains on time and resources.
Avenue One, a rapidly growing US-based real estate startup, discovered it firsthand. Doubling down on scaling their single-family rental (SFR) service platform, they put process automation on the back burner until it began to impact productivity.
Manual data checks, follow-ups, and the constant back-and-forth between different tools ended up wasting employees’ time — 20 to 30 hours each month per person. But the time loss was just the tip of the iceberg. The manual operations:
All these problems arose from the lack of seamless, automated communication between the client’s most-used tools, including Monday.com, Box.com, SiteCapture, Spruce, and Qualia.
Given Avenue One’s AWS-based event-driven architecture, choosing event-driven automation and connecting disparate apps through a custom multi-tool API integration was a quick-win option. Nevertheless, this win was not easy to achieve due to other challenges:
to take on this side project without trade-offs in product development.
to hire new specialists on the core team, as automation needed to be done ASAP.
Expanding their in-house team with external experts was the fastest way to get things moving.
Our approach was simple yet powerful. Avenue One’s AWS-heavy tech stack (including S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB) provided a solid foundation. We enhanced it with:
In just 2.5 weeks our backend engineers created a consolidated software ecosystem with automated workflows by designing 100+ events and setting up routes for them.
Well-orchestrated automation also granted seamless scalability to the client’s software ecosystem. New tools can be easily added to established workflows.
The new solution connects the client’s project and document management, on-site operations, logistics, and title & closing services. Now, tedious tasks that once bogged down employees are handled automatically. Staff can focus on real problem-solving and strategic decision-making.
Here is how the automation powers several key workflows across Avenue One’s business functions.
The creation of a project item with a new property in Monday.com triggers several parallel routes:
That way, staff from different departments can access error-free data on the new project within seconds.
When an on-site inspector uploads the property’s photos
That way, essential information on the project is never lost, and on-site workers and office personnel always stay on the same page.
An update of a property’s address in Monday.com starts a sequence of actions:
That way, all addresses are correct from the onset, eliminating the risk of transaction delays.
An upload of a new contract, inspection report, etc., to Box.com kicks off a route for automatic document indexing:
That way, new documents become searchable company-wide within seconds after they’ve been uploaded into any of the apps.
Moving a deal’s status in Monday.com to “Ready for Title” sets in motion a multi-step route:
That way, vital real-estate documents are processed immediately and stay safe from human error.
10 minutes here and 15 minutes there don’t look like a big deal. Until you do the math: 10 min × number of times an employee repeats this action throughout the day × number of employees.
That’s how our client wasted hours on repetitive mundane tasks daily. Now all these actions are done in milliseconds without human input.
The team demonstrated effective project management, timely delivery, and responsiveness to our needs. They established open communication to facilitate ongoing dialogue and held regular sprint meetings to keep stakeholders informed and engaged throughout the development process.
The problem of wasting employees’ potential on dull work refers to industries across the board. It’s easy to overlook the time spent on small tasks, but when you add it all up over weeks or months, the cost becomes significant.
Luckily, process automation, in all its forms — from API integrations to AI agentic solutions — offers an opportunity to save time, reduce costs, and improve accuracy, unlocking your team’s full potential and elevating your business to new heights.
