Transactions and REALMS
Realm has two objects where most products have one, and getting the difference straight makes everything else easier to read.
A Transaction is one property, one buyer or seller — your private working container. Documents, milestones, key dates, tasks, and your own notes live here. You will usually have several open at once, one per active transaction.
A REALM is the shared room that Transaction can open: your client, the co-op agent, the lender, and title or escrow, in one conversation over one set of facts. Everyone sees the same dates and the same documents, so nobody is forwarding a PDF chain to find out where things stand.
Two objects, not two names for one. The Transaction is yours. The REALM is shared. A Transaction can exist for weeks without a REALM, and opening one is a deliberate act — "Open the REALM" is a real step, not something that happens on its own.
Neither is a Workspace. A Workspace is the org you belong to and switch between (Personal, Team, or Brokerage), and it contains many Transactions. There is no such thing as a "Personal REALM" or a "Team REALM." See the Glossary.
What a Transaction holds
Open a Transaction and everything about it is in one place:
- Documents — the contracts, disclosures, and forms it needs, plus a checklist of what's still missing. See A Transaction's documents.
- Milestones and key dates — offer, contract, inspection, appraisal, financing, and closing, with the stage the Transaction is in. See Milestones and key dates.
- Members — the people on this transaction: your client, a co-agent, a TC, vendors. See Members and roles.
- Messages and tasks — the email, texts, and to-dos tied to it.
- EVE Insights — what's missing, what's at risk, and the updates EVE has prepared for you to approve.
- The Transaction Template timeline — if a Template is applied, the milestones it set up, anchored to your key dates.
What the REALM adds
Opening the REALM puts the other side in the room with you. Guests need no account and never pay: they follow a link, verify themselves once, and see the property, the status in plain language, the key dates, the documents that were shared with them, and the people involved. They can post to the room and upload what you asked them for.
What they do not see is your side of the file — financials, commission, compliance internals, and any document you did not share.
They can also meet you in it. A REALM does video, audio and screen share inside the transaction, so a call happens where the documents and the dates already are, and nobody installs anything or creates an account to attend. See Meetings in the REALM.
Your REALMS list shows only the Transactions that have a room open. A shorter list than your Transactions list is the normal, expected state, not a bug.
How a Transaction comes to be
Usually it's the end of the pipeline: a contact becomes a lead, the lead moves across your pipeline, and when it goes under contract it becomes a Transaction. You can also start one from scratch.
You do not need a property to start. Buyer representation begins long before there is an address, so you can create a placeholder named for your client, work with them through showings, and add the property from the Transaction header when they're ready to move forward. See Creating a Transaction.