Everything You Need to Know about Real Estate CRMs

Overview

Technology doesn’t really help you if it isn’t easy to use. This is especially true when it comes to technology you need in order to do your job. Anything that gets in the way will easily become more of a frustration than you can handle when trying to close a deal or get in touch with a lead quickly. That’s why a real estate CRM is great for agents: it was specifically created to be useful for your job. However, any CRM you choose also needs to be easy to use and integrate into your follow-up methods in order to actually make your job easier and your real estate follow up more effective. If your CRM can help you achieve your tasks easily and efficiently, it can help you achieve your goals in home sales, too.

How an Easy-to-Use Real Estate CRM Can Boost Home Sales

Saved Searches:

Most agents without real estate CRM software are sending property listings or saved searches through their MLS. They need to log in to this separate system and send listings to interested leads through the third-party site. Doing it this way creates friction in the process, and means that your listings will be in competition with other real estate agent names. Naturally, you don’t want your leads to be distracted by other competitor’s listings through Zillow! A real estate CRM will consolidate this process and allow you to send property listings straight to your leads. They’ll be brought back to your website and will interact with only your content, allowing you to actualize the phrase “own your leads.”

This process is more effective for conversions, more convenient for you and more accurate overall. Often, with third party MLS saved searches, there’s no guarantee property listings are up to date. When sending saved searches from your real estate CRM, the listings you send will be updated every 15 minutes. Real estate CRMs are smart enough to pull and send listings that match up with the criteria a lead has been searching for to begin with, thereby saving you the time and effort required to send relevant listings to each lead. You will be able to provide better service to them while exerting less effort on the backend.

Speed to Lead:

The ability to send property listings that you own is one of the ways in which a truly easy-to-use real estate CRM will help you speed to more leads. An easy-to-use real estate CRM will include follow-up templates by lead source for you to customize. A good real estate CRM will allow you to integrate video messages in your follow-up emails. Video emails and templated emails are great for when you don’t have a phone number for a lead who has been browsing your site. You might not be able to get them on the phone right away, but you can start connecting with just the click of a button. You know how important speeding to leads can be when trying to close a sale. The right tool for you and your business will be one that enables you to act quickly and increase your real estate lead generation. The quicker you can build a relationship with your leads, the faster and more likely it is you’ll be able to close a deal and boost your home sales.

Do More With Less Effort:

Overall, an easy-to-use real estate CRM software will enable you to accomplish more tasks while expending less effort. Real estate is a numbers game: in order to boost your home sales, you need to be actively pursuing a larger ratio of leads. Managing and optimizing this growth is where the benefits of real estate CRM software comes into play. You’ll be able to effectively juggle more leads and better serve them. Your CRM will hold all your lead information and your previous follow up, and schedule out tasks for you to accomplish that will keep the ball rolling toward boosted home sales.

Technology shouldn’t be complex in order to be effective. An easy-to-use CRM will empower you to grow your business like never before.

3 Key Benefits of A Real Estate CRM System

Organizing lead information for real estate follow up can quickly become too difficult to manage across disparate software platforms. You’ll find yourself scrambling to remember:

Where is the record from that call last week? I remember she said something specific about wanting to meet when? Or was that the other lead who wanted a pool?

Relying on your memory for key information on each lead or deal you have in progress isn’t realistic — and storing this information in different locations will only grow your disorganization and hurt the quality of your follow up with your leads. A real estate CRM will benefit your business in three key ways: You’ll be able to better organize your lead information and sources, which will enable higher quality real estate follow up and better relationships with your leads. A real estate CRM is different from other software options because it is designed especially for the real estate agent. You’ll be able to get better use than you might from a generic CRM meant for umbrella sales.

1. Better Organization

Real estate CRMs allow you to better organize all the details and information you need in order to do your job. How are you organizing your weekly to-dos right now? You might keep a list in a separate software or even on a weekly agenda. But think, how often do things fall through the cracks? It can be difficult to accomplish all your tasks when a record of what you last talked about with a lead isn’t top of mind. You can do your best to remember these details or spread them out over different software platforms, but this disparate technology stack will eventually make your data even more scattered and difficult to handle.

One benefit of a real estate CRM system is that it integrates your information into one singular platform. You can organize information about who you need to follow up with, what you last discussed and any properties they have been looking at or are interested in.

2. Better Real Estate Lead Follow Up

Organization helps you stay on top of every in-flight lead and possible deal in your system. The more organized the information you have on your leads, the better equipped you’ll be for every interaction. You’ll be able to do more real estate lead follow up than ever before, and do it in a higher quality way that quickly develops deeper relationships with each of your leads — and closes more deals.

You know how important it is to capitalize on the service mindset in order to convert more leads. In order to better serve your clients, you need to truly understand what they want in a home and in a real estate agent. This understanding requires you to listen and remember your past interactions with your leads. Did they say they want a big backyard? Older growth trees? A lot of windows? Even if they haven’t explicitly stated these things, if you get the sense they might prefer one property over another, you can make a note of that in your lead history. The next time you follow up with them, you’ll see your notes and be able to offer higher quality service.

If leads enter your system and look at properties on your website, the only way you can gain visibility into their behavior is through a CRM that connects to your website. Once someone enters an email into a form to look at properties, you’ll be able to see when they log in and what types of properties they’re interested in. Using a real estate CRM system, you’ll also be able to send these leads video emails introducing yourself, and offer saved searches that match their home-buying criteria.

3. Real-Estate Specific

What’s the difference between using a real estate CRM software and all the others? It’s right there in the name. A real estate CRM is different from other software or CRM options because it is designed specifically with your needs in mind. Real estate CRM software has more robust capabilities, specifically helpful for real estate agent sales activities. The specificity means the technology will be easier for you to learn and master, because it was designed especially for you — with only the bells and whistles that apply to your job as a real estate agent.

The Best Real Estate CRMs for Agents

Real estate agents have a bunch of choices when it comes to picking a CRM for their business. The tool has become part of the standard operating process for the most successful teams, mainly due to the fact that consumers are more independent than ever before, and need to be nurtured over time instead of sold to in a one-off process. Someone looking for a home isn’t going to contact a real estate agent right off the bat. They’re going to take to the internet to research homes in their price range with the kitchen of their dreams. Agents, therefore, need to meet those consumers where they are, and convince them they’ve found the right agent.

OK, so — what is the best real estate CRM software for agents out there? We have the answer… and here it is:

The best real estate CRM for agents is the one you actually use.

Were you expecting that answer? It’s true! Whatever CRM you actually use will be the one that is best for you. That’s because, when it comes to CRMs, you get out what you put in. The more calls you make, notes you take, excellent emails you automate, the more data and leads you will generate — and the more properties you will sell over time.

So, if the best CRM is the one you actually use, then any CRM you choose needs to be….well, easy to use. That’s just one of the reasons we think Firepoint is the best.

User Friendly

If a CRM is bulky, or you have a difficult time logging information or navigating through information, agents won’t use it. Their job is fast paced enough as it is, and it requires them to pick up the call at any second and speed to a lead. If it takes too long for them to do that within their CRM, then the information won’t be logged and you won’t gain the insights the CRM could offer.

Firepoint’s dashboard was built with the user in mind. We often say it was built for agents BY agents — and that’s definitely one of its best traits. We know what you need in a CRM, and which features will be the ones you use, because we’ve had to use them.

Lead Ponds: Speed to lead faster than ever before. As soon as a qualified lead comes in, it is routed to the shark tank and alerts agents to check in and follow up — ASAP!

Organize your dashboard to your preference: Set filters to search for leads as they relate to lead source, last visit to the site and even number of homes favorited. You’ll be able to see who is thinking about real estate and when they’re active online to connect more easily.

Streamline communication: Never let communication fall through the cracks again. Within Firepoint, communicate with your fellow agents and team leads and access note records for leads. You deal with a lot of people in a day. This way you can keep track of all communication to better act on it.

Support team: You’ll get a dedicated Firepoint account manager to help you set up your CRM during the onboarding process and to advise you as an extension of your team whenever you need.

Integrations: Firepoint integrates seamlessly with other amazing software to make your sales activity as productive and efficient as possible. Here are some of our extensions:

• Zillow
• Zendesk chat
• MonyCall.com
• Agent Legend
• Mojo
• Vyral marketing
• trulia
• happygrasshopper
• rokrbox
• realtor.com
• BombBomb
• ylopo
• ReadyChat
• Agentology

Real Estate Lead Generation

Ad campaigns that work: You’re the one with the pulse on your market. Set your target area, property type and price points to zero in on the hottest leads for you.

Ad reporting: We are Google Premier Partner certified, so you know your ads are in the right hands. You’ll be able to analyze reports on how well your campaigns are working to influence further advertisements with laser focus.

IDX Website

Plug-and-play templates and custom pages: We provide you with built-in email and website templates to get you started. Use them out of the box or alter them to your personal preference — they’ll impress your leads every time.

Saved searches: Personalize your research and home suggestions for your leads. Use the qualifications based on their search history to provide the most relevant and useful home listings in saved searches.

MLS Refresh: Never use outdated information. Our MLS connection pulls updated information every 15 minutes, so you’re always giving your clients the most relevant listings.

Reporting

Track ROI: It can be difficult, as an agent, to pull all levers to accurately measure your ROI across all lead sources and efforts. Firepoint tracks all that information and provides comprehensive reports.

Compare data by lead source: Break down your ROI by lead source and be able to double down on that source in the future. These reports will enable you to get the most out of your money.

Minimize data entry: Firepoint will break you free from wrestling with spreadsheets and wasting valuable sales activity times on reporting. Make the most of your valuable time!

3 Ways Real Estate CRM Solutions Help a Team Grow

As your business grows, you’ll be able to grow your team along with it. The opportunity to expand the bounds of what your team is capable of comes with the liberty of time and efficiency — a liberty given to your team by technology. A real estate CRM solution is the key tool to enable you to manage your team more efficiently and help you grow, both in scope and in team size.

1. Personal Liberation from the Phone

As a team lead, there comes a point when you are juggling working on everything within your business. You are calling leads, showing homes, having one-on-ones and still trying to find time to hire the right people to join your team. Eventually you will hit the wall. You’ll need to make a serious leap to get out of bottleneck territory and allow your business to grow.

Making the jump from working within your business to working on your business can be seamless with a real estate CRM solution. As a team lead you’ll be able to manage your team like never before and focus on providing them with the leads they need to close more deals and grow the business. You’ll be able to route leads to the right agent with the touch of a button. You can also ensure your agents are speeding to lead more quickly than ever before with Lead Ponds, which send leads that come in straight to a “shark tank” where agents can scoop up the lead and speed straight to it on the phone.

2. Visibility into Sales Activities

You’ll also be able to see more clearly the sales activities for each of your agents, so you can offer more relevant and curated guidance to them in your one-on-ones. If an agent is having difficulty getting leads on the phone, you’ll be able to look through their recent follow-up activities to see where the trouble might be stemming from. Additionally, you’ll be able to share this information with the greater team in weekly huddles. Your team members will grow to become better agents with your tailored guidance and the ability to juggle more leads within their CRM. Because they’re working more efficiently, they can also offer more tailored service to their leads, resulting in more homes sold.

3. Accurate Reporting

A real estate CRM solution will allow you to grow your team securely by pulling the information you need to make sound fiscal decisions. It was difficult, before, to calculate true ROI by lead source and sales cycle. Not anymore. You’ll be able to see when and if you can hire more team members, based on those ROI reports. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll be able to get the most out of your money knowing that the lead sources you’ve invested in were the right choice.

Simply compare the reports from your CRM to see which leads are providing your agents with return on investment and, further, which agents are better at serving which types of leads from your various sources. Unpacking the reasons behind these realities will help you educate the rest of your team on how to equally succeed.

In order to get the most accurate reporting and understand your lead sources, focus on choosing a CRM with IDX.

Why Choose a Real Estate IDX CRM Solution?

If you’re in the market for a real estate CRM, then you know there are a lot of options out there. As you narrow your choices, make it a priority to find an IDX CRM solution. IDX (Internet data exchange) will give your team the competitive edge it needs to outsell competitors and to make a name for yourself within your market.

How Does Using IDX Change the Way Agents Sell Real Estate?

The way real estate consumers are shopping and buying is completely different than it was even just 10 years ago. Buyers are more independent now than ever before, and a consumer will take to the internet at the first thought of interest in buying or selling their home, rather than calling in a real estate agent for suggestions.

An agent without IDX needs to rely on listings from sites like Zillow or Trulia. There, they are in competition with other agents’ faces and listings. Relying on these listings significantly reduces the probability a new lead will choose you. You want your listings on these sites to link back to a personal website. That way, your lead is interacting with your listings without competition, and when they see something they like on your site, they’ll be able to follow up with you directly — no middleman in site.

Visibility

The visibility IDX provides into your leads’ behaviors is invaluable in a market that relies on your ability to speed to lead first. With an IDX CRM solution, you are able to filter through your database to see which contacts have been on your site within the last five days, which contacts have favorited houses, and even what time of day they interacted with your site.

This visibility will enable you to reach out to the lead at a time you know they’ll be online — and to reach out with the most relevant listings or suggestions based on how they’ve previously interacted with the content on your website.

Buyers can be Liars

This visibility into lead behavior will also help you deal with the reality that, well, buyers can be liars. Now, hear us out. How many times has a buyer gotten on the phone with you and explicitly outlined their requirements for a home, only for you to find out later they chose a home with completely different features? They start out needing a large backyard and a place no more than 40 miles from Boise, but they end up in a home 60 miles out of Boise and with a tiny backyard and patio. Don’t end up with wasted time and no sale due to the wrong information.

The visibility an IDX CRM solution gives you allows you to double check on the reality of the buyer’s request. Are they looking for homes that are outside of their initial specifications? You can use this information to feel if you have room to play with the outlined requirements your buyer provided you with. That way, you may be able to provide your buyers with the home they needed, but didn’t know they wanted.

How to Choose the Right Real Estate CRM

Congratulations! You’ve decided your team can no longer miss out on the major benefits of using a real estate CRM. You’re well on your way to achieving new heights of selling success. But you still have some work to do: namely, you still need to select the right CRM.

In order to make the right choice for your business, you need to consider what your priorities are and what is standing in the way of your team’s ability to accomplish those priorities. Are you closing the right number of deals? How is your lead follow up? No CRM will check off every single box or run your business for you, but the right one will be both the option your team wants to use, and the one you can customize to meet your goals, your business objectives and your working style the best.

Look for These Key Features

IDX

A CRM that enables IDX will give your team the competitive edge necessary for success in today’s real estate market. Real estate buyers are more independent than ever before. No longer do clients reach out to a real estate agent without any homes in mind. People do their own independent research online. And when your leads are searching online, they are interacting with different listings on Zillow or trulia from an array of real estate agents. But when you have a front-facing website connected to your CRM via IDX, you not only get key information on your leads, but you also get monopolized advertisement space.

Think about it: On Zillow or Trulia, you are competing with other agents for a lead’s attention. A listing that links back to your website provides a space for only your listings and only your information. With IDX, you can search for the leads who are searching for and interacting with your listings in real-time. You’ll then get a sense for the types of homes or qualifications within that lead’s range, allowing you to reach out with targeted information at a specific juncture in the lead’s buying journey, so you offer better engagement with your leads overall.

Onboarding support

Choose a CRM with an ample support system and onboarding plan. Your agents should feel comfortable jumping in and starting to use the tool you choose to its fullest potential. There is nothing worse than purchasing a tool for your business and having it get in the way of your sales activities. You will need to seriously consider your plan for rolling out the CRM you choose, because if your agents start out confused and are unable to get the support they need, then they won’t be able to properly use the tool, which will hinder the potential positive impact your CRM can have on your business.

Customization

While support in the onboarding process is important, it’s also important to choose a CRM which enables (or requires) you to add customized rules for your business. Of course, adding this level of unique configuration does require you to invest time once you choose a CRM with customization. Still, the benefits of choosing a customized option far outweigh the benefits of a plug-and-play solution. A plug-and-play CRM might seem more convenient, but that convenience ends after implementation. The workflow and tools won’t match up directly with what you need for the sales activities your agents execute daily.

You’ll be able to get so much more out of your CRM moving forward after implementation if you’ve taken the time to customize and organize your CRM to the exact needs of your business. You will also be able to better use and understand the reports you generate from your CRM.

Integration

A CRM that integrates with your necessary tools is key to streamlining your processes and creating a truly centralized workplace with records to back up each phone call and each lead’s information. Without this, your agents will be left with the expectation that they sign into all these different platforms and logins to simply make a call. In short, it just won’t work.

Prioritize Ease of Use

Now that you’ve learned how to choose the right CRM, the bottom line is: The right CRM for your business will be the one you and your agents actually use. So, while a CRM might have every feature on your list, if it isn’t easily adoptable by your team, it will be a wasted investment. Pick a CRM that prioritizes the user in dashboard construction.

Bottom Line?

Remember — the best real estate CRM for you and your team is the one you are going to use. Whichever software that ends up being, if you make the most of your CRM you will see the ROI come back to you within a few months. Think about it. What is the monthly cost of a CRM? Whatever it is — if it helps you sell even one more home, using an average commision value of $7,000, you’re already looking at the CRM paying for itself. So, what are you waiting for? Invest in your business.