What Tools Do Real Estate Agents Use?
8 Types of Software to Help Agents Sell More New Real Estate
In real estate, particularly new development, software tools are often a last minute consideration. But having the right software has a major impact on an agent’s ability to efficiently manage an entire project of new home sales.
If you’re an agent working on new development projects and suffer from chronic lack of time, we have some good news for you. There are many tools that can streamline a large part of your work and let you focus on what really matters — closing more deals.
Here’s a list of apps and services that will help you stay on top of the game.
Mileage and Navigation
One of the constants of a broker’s life is travel. You run presentation centers, meet with buyers, and transfer in and out of the office, all while trying to maximize your time.
Everlance
With all the time you spend behind the wheel, it’s not an easy task to keep track of your mileage or monitor gas bills.
Everlance does that for you and automatically keeps a record of your travel expenses so you can submit them to the company, or deduct them during tax season.
Waze
For navigation, Waze offers an alternative approach to Google Maps by providing driver navigation with crowdsourced information. In a nutshell, the app uses feedback from other drivers to notify you about traffic jams, construction, detours and any other holdups ahead.
Waze also collaborates with Homesnap to provide location-based advertising so you can promote your listings to drivers who happen to be in the vicinity and are using the Waze app.
Property Tours
We’ve said it once (or several times for that matter), but we’re going to say that again. Virtual tours are the thing in new development real estate.
Matterport
Matterport is an all-in-one solution for creating virtual walkthroughs. It covers the entire process, from taking space snapshots with a 3D camera to the final presentation you can share with potential buyers.
The app “shortens” the physical distance between you and the buyers and helps bring in more qualified prospects for better success rates at closing deals.
Lead Generation and Management
Much of the marketing in new development real estate has gone digital. And that’s where you should be if you intend to make the most of your leads.
Spark
The Spark platform combines CRM functionality with lead management, inventory tracking and visualization, email marketing feature, reporting and more, all designed with real estate professionals in mind.
Thanks to customizable templates, you can easily run complete email campaigns or capture leads with built-in forms. The platform supports the entire buyer journey, from lead acquisition all the way to signing an agreement.
If you’d like to give it a try, jump over to sign up here.
Zillow Premier Agent
Premier Agent combines Zillow’s property listing service with a communication platform that connects buyers and sellers directly with agents.
Since buyers make contact with agents after browsing specific listings, it’s much easier to take the qualified leads down the sales funnel and close more deals.
Social Media
Promoting your brand on social media is a must if you want to keep up with the changing market. Finding your target buyers online doesn’t have to be a hassle.
Buffer
Consistency is key when it comes to social media marketing. Buffer is a social media management platform that makes it easier to create, schedule and curate content on social media.
The app supports heavy-hitters like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin and comes with robust analytics tools so you’re not in the dark about what’s drawing buyers in.
Time Tracking
While there’s no way to wind back the clock, you can use the following tools to help use time more mindfully.
Toggl
Toggl is a simple (as in, intuitive) time-tracking tool that records how much time you spend on specific projects, clients and other user-defined activities (such as meetings, planning, or administrative tasks).
The app comes with actionable insights into how you allocate your time between projects/clients and, consequently, which ones yield the best results. Toggl integrates out-of-the-box with many scheduling tools, including digital calendars so you can track the time you spend on appointments.
Rescue Time
Whether you’re uploading a new listing or drafting a purchase agreement in Google Docs, Rescue Time automatically tracks how you spend your time online and provides feedback on how productive you are.
Team Communication
If you work as part of a larger team or organization, efficient communication is key to keeping workflow up to scratch and making sure everybody’s on the same page.
Slack
In a nutshell, Slack is a business chat solution that lets you work on projects and discuss things with coworkers within one app. It supports task management and file sharing, as well as direct calls to maximize productivity.
Asana
Asana is a task and project management platform that gives you a complete overview of all aspects of your work. You can also use Asana to create templates and workflows so you and your team now exactly what to do at each stage of the new home sales process.
Handling Documents
Preparing agreements and managing the back and forth between sellers, buyers, and lawyers on the contract can be a hassle. If you’re tired of hand-delivering documents and wasting energy on analog processes, here’s a solution.
Digital Contracts with DocuSign
DocuSign lets you prepare, sign and distribute legally-binding digital contracts. Through Spark’s integration, you can send agreements directly to buyers via email, managing the signing and negotiation process in a fraction of the time.
CamScanner
CamScanner is a wildly popular document-scanning app. Use it to digitize documents and export them in several file types with just your smartphone camera.
The app supports OCR (optical character recognition) so documents can be shared in an editable format directly after scanning.
Creating Content
These days, real estate agents have to juggle an assortment of skills to stay relevant to the market. On top of marketing know-how, one of them is creating quality marketing collateral for digital campaigns.
Adobe Photoshop Express
A little brother to its desktop counterpart, Photoshop Express makes mobile photo editing a breeze. Whether you need a quick touch-up on your listing gallery or want to blur elements of the image before posting, you can do that and much more with just a few taps.
Canva
If hiring a designer is not within your budget, Canva makes it possible to create your own marketing collateral for free. You can create flyers, listing templates, social media banners or custom ad layouts, all within an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Conclusion
Top-level real estate agents have to manage their time effectively.
Working on new development comes with its own challenges because of the larger number of clients, inventory, and preparation work involved with a new project launch. Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned builder’s realtor or trying to break into new development, these tools are sure to take your sales and marketing to the next level and give you what you need to work more efficiently and profitably.
This blog was written with Dawid Bednarski, freelance copywriter and blogger at OctoScribe. When he’s not writing about tech, he’s enjoying the simplicity of analog photography and daring bike trips with his wife.
