Top Tools and Techniques Real Estate Agents Use For Staying Organized
I’m a web developer, and until four months ago I knew exactly nothing about real estate technology.
I was looking for a new project to work on, and met with a real estate broker who was pitching me on her idea for a checklist app — she felt like her agents needed something to help them keep track of all the things they have to do. At the end of the meeting, she casually mentioned that a few of her other broker friends would be interested in something like this as well and suggested maybe I look into doing it as a product.
It sounded interesting, but I wasn’t convinced there was a need for it. So I started calling around and talking to brokers, trying to figure out whether this is a common problem and, if it is, how they solve it.
Over the next few weeks, I ended up talking to around 200 brokers. Pretty much everyone acknowledged that staying organized in the real estate business is a tough problem, but the tools and techniques for doing it were all across the board.
In an attempt to quantify my research, I put together a spreadsheet of the responses, categorizing the tools and techniques brokers give their agents to help them stay organized. Here’s the breakdown:
A couple things to note:
- Outlook/Gmail includes the calendar, tasks, and documents features of the programs.
- In-house systems were either developed specifically for the agency by a developer, or the franchise provides a system that they use.
- Nothing means the brokers either don’t supply anything to their agents or they don’t know.
- Some brokerages use more than one tool; both were counted.
- I’d assume some brokerages neglected to mention meetings or training since I was specifically asking about tools.
Anyway, I thought these results might be interesting to people here on the Geek Estate Blog. What tools do you use?
Brett Keppler
Posted at 13:40h, 13 JuneI have a similar application called Nekst which was built using my personal insight into the industry as I found frustration with the same tools noted above. Whereas your Checklist platform is designed with the broker in mind, to ensure certain tasks are completed by the agent – mine is designed for complete customization by the agent. As well as the ability to provide transparency, communication and follow up with the other parties of the transaction. Good luck with your application! Check out nekstapp.com as well!
Will Wertheim
Posted at 17:26h, 13 JuneNone are perfect. And “None” is the worst option. I’ve used Outlook (modified by an old program called “Active Agent” not to be confused by the other new active agent), Gapps, Top Producer, and sampled various Salesforce simple notations. I’ve now gone back to Top Producer for its feature list and price/value. It’s not perfect but it is improving and you get up and running quickly with it.
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 10:57h, 16 JuneRobbie, interesting data. Neat app too. We use Asana to track our escrows and I imagine it is similar to checklist as it really is a big check list of things to do assigned to specific people.