In real estate, technology is no longer a novelty.
Nor is it always a timesaver.
That's why Edina Realty is developing a suite of digital tools aimed at streamlining and integrating the existing software and other technology that the company's agents now use to list, market and sell houses.
Move over Siri and Alexa, Edina Realty has dubbed that initiative "Emma — a real estate assistant."
The name is a nod to Emma Lind Rovick, a suburban housewife who in the early 1950s went to a work for a struggling real estate brokerage called Edina Realty to help buy her daughter a piano.
In 1955, Rovick bought the company and helped make it one of the biggest in the state.
Edina Realty has more than 75 real estate offices throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin, and it's now a subsidiary of HomeServices of America, which is an affiliate of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
Sharry Schmid, president of Edina Realty, said the idea for a virtual assistant for agents has been percolating for at least a couple of years. It's an idea, she said, that emerged out of several meetings focused on finding better ways of using technology the agents are already using.