Success in real estate looks different than it did just a decade ago. In the age of Zillow, social media, and ostensibly AI-powered everything, today’s real estate agents must adapt and evolve to find business success (or to experience more success than ever before).
In today’s landscape, every real estate agent needs the right set of tech tools. To help you reach your goals, we’ve collected six categories of tech tools that will help you grow your real estate business, assisting you with everything from client workflows to virtual floor plans to keeping track of important documents.
Let’s get started with one of the most important tech tools that helps you with email marketing, social media management, and many other aspects of the customer journey: customer relationship management software, or CRM software.
1. CRM systems
A CRM system might seem like overkill if you’re just starting out. But over the course of a few years, real estate agents typically collect a significant number of contacts (customers and leads).
Manually keeping track of all those contacts gets difficult. A CRM system keeps track of customer and referral information for you and can automate customer outreach. When someone contacts you, you’ll have a place to instantly pull up every data point you have on them from previous interactions.
In other words, if you’re losing track of customer details or your desk is overrun with sticky notes containing those details, you need a CRM.
Benefits of a CRM system
- Catalogs customer data so you no longer have to rely on memory
- Allows for sending automated text messages and emails (automated lead nurture)
- Makes you more consistent in your communication and outreach using templates and auto follow-up prompts
Top CRM systems for real estate agents
- LionDesk: Affordable real estate CRM perfect for independent agents and smaller brokerages
- Market Leader: Provides unique high-quality leads in real estate every month
- BoomTown: real estate focused CRM with predictive capabilities
2. Property listing platforms
Property listing platforms like Zillow and Realtor.com have driven one of the biggest shifts in the way home buyers approach real estate. Where listings used to be confined to individual brokerage websites (at best) or hidden from consumers completely (at worst), now consumers can view high-quality photos and sometimes even video walkthroughs of nearly every home listed by a real estate agent.
These tools can work for you as an agent as well, delivering quality leads and giving you a quick way to see what your clients are seeing (about pricing, number of beds/baths, acreage, and more).
Benefits of a property listing platform
- Allows homebuyers, prospects, and real estate professionals to quickly and easily browse new listings
- Provides a user-friendly experience that consumers can easily understand
- Streamlines the searching process by consolidating listings so users don’t have to spend a lot of time searching individual real estate brokerage sites
Popular property listing platforms for real estate agents
- Zillow: Leading consumer-friendly real estate marketplace and listing service
- Realtor.com: Incumbent real estate listing service with more than 100 million listings
- Trulia: Similar service to (and subsidiary of) Zillow with a better interface for rental listings
3. Virtual tour software
Virtual tour software allows customers and prospects to visualize a home for sale in a more immersive way than photos alone. Virtual tour software takes a few different shapes, including tools that create 360-degree photos, video walkthroughs, and even 3D-mapped models of a home.
If you want to attract out-of-market buyers, virtual tours can be a big draw. They can make a difference for Zillow surfers as well.
Another reason to consider virtual tours is that they can cut down on the number of showings and open houses. Usually, a virtual tour can reveal whatever dealbreaker the prospective buyer would have run into.
Benefits of a virtual tour software
- Gives clients a better understanding of a home’s layout
- Provides a more immersive experience that helps clients envision a home as theirs
- Attracts warmer leads (prospective clients know more about the home)
Best virtual tour software available
- Matterport: Simple app for 3D real estate maps that real estate agents and brokers can use themselves
- Kuula: A powerful app that creates 3D and 360-degree virtual tours, plus interactive cards, labels, and background audio
- CloudPano: Cloud hosting platform for 360-degree virtual tours + mobile app for creating those tours
Lapentor: Freemium VR platform with a functional free tier and optional paid add-ons
4. Marketing and lead generation tools
In real estate, getting a steady influx of new leads and clients is vital to continued success. So that means you’re going to need a toolkit full of marketing apps and products that can help you with lead generation.
Even if you don’t necessarily rely on foot traffic stopping into your physical office space, you do rely on in-person sales and points of contact. That means brick-and-mortar marketing strategies can make an impact.
What are brick-and-mortar marketing strategies? They’re the tools and tactics that get people in the door of a physical (brick and mortar) store. Digital marketing tactics, out-of-home advertising, geotargeting, and in-person events (such as a client thank-you picnic) all qualify.
This is one place where Bitly shines. One real estate agency uses Bitly to create QR Codes and custom, branded links that can point audiences to the agency’s website and appropriate landing pages. Memorable custom short links make your digital advertising easier to read and more trustworthy, and custom QR Codes help audiences reach you more easily from out-of-home advertising.
Looking for additional free marketing tools and tactics? Check out our 12 free marketing ideas to boost your brand and drive growth, as well as our roundup of the overall best marketing tools and techniques.
Benefits of marketing and lead generation tools
- Lead gen tools provide warm leads so you can grow your business and reach more clients
- Marketing tools equip you to market yourself more effectively
- Both make it easier to reach more people with less effort
Best marketing tools for real estate agents
- Bitly: Powerful link shortener, QR Code creator, and link redirect tool to help you polish your image and better direct audiences to the right locations
- Realtor Pro: Real estate-focused lead gen and marketing platform with a “pay when you close” option
- Zillow Premier Agent: Flexible marketing and lead gen solutions for individuals, teams, and brokers
5. Document management systems
The world of real estate generates a ton of paperwork and documents, and these can quickly create storage and organizational headaches. The longer you’re in business and the more successful you are in terms of volume, the worse the document management problem gets.
Document management systems help you digitize and organize important documents. That means no more scrambling to find that one obscure document or form on your way to closing (or anywhere else in the home-selling process).
Benefits of document management systems
- Safely store electronic copies of documents for as long as you need them
- Quickly retrieve any document using powerful search tools
- Effortlessly surface information and data from stored documents
Notable document management tools in the real estate industry
- DocuSign: The industry standard for electronic signature service
- Dotloop: Intuitive real estate transaction management software that stores your documents and much more
- SkySlope: Wide-ranging brokerage platform that manages documents, collects signatures, and drives transactions
6. Real estate market analysis tools
To be effective at selling real estate, an agent must master their local market. Real estate market analysis tools are the key to learning, understanding, and keeping up with the changes within your market.
These tools deliver demographic information at the city and county level, as well as other insights that help you maintain expert advisor status with your clients.
Especially in the age of real estate websites like Zillow and Trulia—where every buyer feels like an expert—it’s vital to have market analysis tools that deliver insights your buyers can’t find themselves.
Benefits of a real estate market analysis tool
- Understand the realities of your local real estate market and the factors driving them
- Watch trends as they develop nationally and locally
- Find comparable sales data (comps) to help both buyers and sellers
Leading real estate market analysis software available
- NAR research and statistics: Offers data down to the state and metro area levels from an industry market research leader
- Neighborhood Scout: Provides details on neighborhoods using matching criteria from your clients
- Multiple Listing Service (MLS): Delivers data on recently sold properties in an area (comps), among other important data points