The RealtyMogul challenge
RealtyMogul is a peer-to-peer online marketplace where real estate investors and borrowers can browse investment opportunities and connect with capital from accredited institutional investors.
In 2022, the company embarked on a journey to transform its digital platform. As a decade-old digital innovator in a fast-growing and competitive space, RealtyMogul wanted to better showcase its directory of real-estate investment opportunities in markets across the United States. Additionally, it needed to elevate the company brand and its robust set of resources for digital-savvy investors.
Together, the underlying challenge for this pioneering player in crowdfunded real-estate investing was to develop a platform that could be agile yet scalable. This is where Brightspot and its foundational hybrid-headless flexibility came into play.
The Brightspot solution for RealtyMogul
The transformation of RealtyMogul began by leveraging the simplicity of Brightspot's out-of-the-box features. With a comprehensive suite of pre-built templates, content types, modules and publishing tools, RealtyMogul swiftly established a decoupled front end for their new website, making content management and updates a seamless process.
When it came to RealtyMogul's prized listings—namely, its real estate investment trusts (REITs)—the project took an interesting turn, allowing the Brightspot team to showcase their problem-solving skills through a series of custom features that brought RealtyMogul's REIT directory to new heights.
Firstly, a custom search tool was developed to enable filtering of REIT opportunities based on various facets, such as property types, investment approaches or target rates of return. Additionally, the team created custom editorial content types within the CMS, aligning with all the specific fields required for RealtyMogul's new REIT content type.
The final step, which serves as a testament to the true extensibility of the Brightspot CMS architecture, involved integrating an in-CMS renderer built with Handlebars (a JavaScript templating language). Essentially, RealtyMogul implemented a customized inline headless solution that delivers REIT data as objects into the CMS via the project's GraphQL endpoint. Using Brightspot's out-of-the-box content management APIs, RealtyMogul could then push data into the CMS from its external REIT data sources. Once ingested in the CMS, these objects can be efficiently managed and showcased on the front end, allowing investors to explore and engage with the offerings.
The outcome for RealtyMogul
With its innovative new hybrid-headless implementation, RealtyMogul is empowered with a robust set of brand-storytelling tools alongside with automation and autonomy for the REITs that have garnered over a billion dollars in investment since the company's founding in 2012.
The company was able to move fast with the assurance of an industry-leading CMS feature set in support of its corporate marketing goals. Beneath the surface of a modern and forward-looking website, the RealtyMogul team enjoys the benefits of a secure and reliable headless implementation. This implementation is specifically tailored to support their crown-jewel portfolio of investment products. The team can confidently showcase their offerings to potential investors, knowing that the website's infrastructure is optimized to deliver an exceptional user experience while ensuring data security and reliability.
RealtyMogul in brief
