But, is their material any good? Is the platform easy to use? Is this a school you should consider? In this Aceable Agent review, we’ll answer all these questions, plus give you a glimpse into a day-in-the-life of an Aceable Agent student with a detailed written review and a video walk-through.

Why You Can Trust This Aceable Agent Review

Hi, I’m Chris Linsell. Not only am I the Senior Real Estate Writer and Technology Analyst for The Close, but I also have a long history in the professional education space. I’ve taught both in the classroom and online as a Senior Instructor for companies like Kaplan Test Prep, and Sylvan.

I know what it takes to put together a successful online course, and I know what soon-to-be real estate agents need to be successful, thanks to my many years as a Realtor, a team leader, and a coach in the real estate industry.

At The Close, we maintain fierce editorial independence. Aceable Agent has no say in the content of this review or the opinions I offer, so you can count on this review to be fair, objective, and independent.

Aceable Agent: Pros, Cons & The Close Recommendation

I’m going to walk you through the Aceable Agent experience and share my reactions along the way, but if you’re just looking for a quick summary review plus a recommendation on whether you should consider Aceable, this section is for you.

Visit Aceable Agent

Most Frequently Asked Questions about Aceable Agent

Before we get into the Aceable Agent student experience, let’s answer some of the most frequently asked questions we get about all real estate education companies.

In which states does Aceable Agent offer real estate classes?

Aceable Agent offers the required prelicense classes in the following 14 states:

How long do Aceable Agent courses take to complete?

Since every state’s requirements are a little different, and every student’s pace will depend on the amount of free time they have available, this number will vary.

A good rule of thumb is that a full-time student will dedicate six hours a day (five days a week), while a part-time student will dedicate six hours a week.

With that in mind, review the required number of class hours for each state listed above. Find your state in the list and determine your pace (full -time, part-time, or somewhere in between), to help you estimate how long your real estate courses will take to complete.

What packages does Aceable Agent offer & how much do they cost?

Aceable Agent offers three course packages, though each package and its inclusions may vary due to the unique prelicense education requirements of each state. Generally, you’ll find three course packages in all 14 states:

• Basic (The Essentials)
• Deluxe (Ace the Exam)
• Premium (The Ultimate Interactive)

Pricing for Aceable Agent class packages is state-specific due to the varying number of course hours required by each state. Please choose your state from the drop-down below for detailed pricing information and to learn about the Aceable Agent packages available in your state.

Aceable Agent is offering Close readers 25% off the regular price of any package. Click below for your discount to be applied automatically.

Visit Aceable Agent

The Aceable Agent Student Experience + Video Walk-through

Aceable Agent: Logging In & Getting Started

Logging in to Aceable Agent is easy. Start by visiting their homepage and entering your email address and password. If you’re using the dedicated Aceable Agent mobile app, this process is even simpler. Simply download the Aceable Agent app (it’s available for free on Google Play and Apple’s App Store), then tap the app’s icon on your phone’s home screen and you’ll automatically be taken to your class dashboard if you’ve signed up for classes on your computer. You can also sign up for classes directly within the app.

Aceable Agent: Course Dashboard

The Aceable Agent course dashboard is pretty spartan. You’ve got an outline of classes on the left hand side, marking your progress through the required material. A “what’s next” prompt sits front and center, indicating your immediate next steps toward completing your prelicensing course, and a collection of typical navigation links across the top.

Other real estate education companies, like Real Estate Express or Kaplan Real Estate Education, offer dashboards with a little more information (such as upcoming training webinars, course statistics, and mastery opportunities), but we weren’t dissatisfied with the Aceable Agent experience.

For most students, their real estate prelicense education has one goal: to fulfill their state’s required class hours. Aceable Agent’s dashboard gives you the most important information you’ll need to accomplish that task.

Aceable Agent: Learning Experience

The Aceable Agent learning experience is more akin to an app you’d download to teach yourself a foreign language than it is to a real estate class. Slide-based, users advance themselves through the material, choosing to read, listen to the narration (or both), answer questions along the way, watch videos, and more.

It’s clear that whoever is developing the Aceable Agent course material is an expert in online content. The student’s learning experience doesn’t involve reading lengthy PDFs (likely just scanned or converted copies of textbook pages). Instead, it’s presented in bite-sized, digestible chunks with varied delivery methods that really do make the experience more enjoyable.

Also, even after spending 30 minutes taking an Aceable Agent class, I still couldn’t accurately predict what would be on the next slide (text with narration, video, quiz break, or more). This kept the experience fresh and engaging. I didn’t find myself slipping into a bored, disengaged pattern of click-read-repeat.

Aceable Agent: Save & Exit Process

As you are finishing your work on Aceable Agent for the day, the save-and-exit process is as simple as closing your browser window or the Aceable Agent app. Your progress through the course is automatically saved with every slide you complete, so there is no need to manually save anything, making this end of the process literally as easy as it could be.

Additional Aceable Agent Features You Should Know About

• Spot-check quizzes: Peppered throughout the Aceable Agent content are one- and two-question quizzes that you’ll take to test your understanding of the content you’ve just covered. A passing grade on these quizzes isn’t required for you to move forward, but for anyone taking their real estate education seriously, these are great indicators as to whether you’ve mastered the material or need a little more review. 

• Practice tests: Depending on the Aceable Agent plan you choose, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of real estate practice exam questions available, both individually and as part of practice tests to help prepare you for your final exam. 

• Accompanying study guide: Aceable Agent offers a comprehensive, chapter-by-chapter PDF study guide for students to use as they’re taking their class, including highlights of the most important takeaways and a place for students to take notes. 

• Real estate terms glossary: This real estate dictionary ensures that you’re never missing out on course value because you don’t understand a real estate word or phrase. 

• Course math guide: This compact resource takes all the math from the Aceable Agent course and distills it down to a few pages, giving you terms, formulas, and examples. 

• Quizlet tool: This handy third-party app (free for Aceable Agent users) is packed full of more free quiz questions, allowing users to design quizzes focused on specific topics, play flashcard-based games, and set a study plan for themselves to ensure they’re ready for exam day.

Where Aceable Agent Comes Up Short

Aceable Agent isn’t perfect. Their platform lacks features to help you take notes, bookmark and highlight certain sections of the material for review later, and generally create your own learning experience. If you’ve got a learning style that thrives on interaction with people and content, you have to go the extra mile on Aceable Agent to make that happen.

Also, your prelicense training is just a part of the real estate education you’ll need to launch and maintain a long and successful career. Aceable Agent doesn’t offer great options for continuing education or broker license training, so while a competitor like Real Estate Express can literally offer you everything under a single banner, you’re likely only going to take one course with Aceable Agent.

Aceable Agent Review: Our Final Thoughts

Aceable Agent is a dynamic real estate education platform that offers a flexible, mobile-friendly real estate education experience with features like full audio narration and a dedicated mobile app—features that most of their competitors in the industry simply don’t provide.

Their price point is competitive, and even though they are missing some interactive experiences, we’d definitely recommend Aceable Agent to anyone pursuing their license in one of the states listed above. Most students tell us that they prioritize high-quality content plus the ability to control when, where, and how long they take their real estate classes. Aceable Agent checks all of these boxes.

Try Aceable Agent

The post Aceable Agent Review + Video Walk-through appeared first on The Close.

Best Real Estate CRM Apps

1. Propertybase

Pricing: Custom pricing

Let’s face it: To get ahead in real estate in 2022, drip campaigns, text messaging, a mobile app, call logging, pipelines, a dialer, and so on are no longer optional in a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Luckily, Propertybase is up to the challenge, ticking pretty much every box that today’s real estate agents, teams, and brokerages need out of an app.

Combining a rock-solid, Salesforce-based CRM with MLS integration and killer IDX lead-generating websites that work together seamlessly, Propertybase is a true all-in-one platform that won’t let you down.

Throw in an available transaction management platform, and you may not need to buy any more software—ever.

Try Propertybase for Free

2. IXACT Contact

Pricing: $33 per month

If you asked the average agent what they wanted out of a CRM app in 2022, you’d probably get two answers: affordability and social media features. Well, IXACT Contact was listening to what agents wanted, and they responded.

IXACT’s CRM is affordable for almost any agent at $33 per month and includes advanced features for social media marketing along with all the usual contact management features agents demand from their CRMs today.

Try IXACT Contact for Free

3. CINC

Pricing: Custom pricing

CINC monitors your incoming leads and acts as your own personal concierge, getting them on the phone, qualifying them, and then connecting them straight to your phone without all the email or text messaging back and forth, saving you a ton of time and upping your conversion rate.

Visit CINC

Best Real Estate Apps for Marketing

4. Freshchat

Pricing: Free – $69 per month

Let’s face it: In 2022, your leads are a little spoiled. They expect (and very often get) nearly instant responses to their online inquiries. That’s why chatbots like Freshchat are so crucial for your website. You can give your leads an instant response and answer their questions with a programmed bot, or better yet, respond to their chat on your phone just like you would a text message.

Visit Freshchat

5. Buffer (Social Media Management Platform)

Pricing: Free – $5 per month

Even though the real estate software industry competition is fierce, it’s nothing compared to the competition in social media management platforms. Take the investment and user base for your average real estate software, and triple it. That means better deals for end users.

6. LabCoat Agents Marketing Center

Pricing: Individual agents $59 per month; teams (10 agents) $249 per month

The first marketing platform designed just for real estate agents, the LabCoat Agents (LCA) Marketing Center app lets agents quickly create gorgeous social media posts on the fly. It also allows them to one-stop shop create or edit tons of other marketing templates for business cards, flyers, door hangers, and more.

Feel inspired to create an Instagram story in line at Starbucks? You can do that with the LCA Marketing center app.

Visit LCA Marketing Center

7. Canva

Pricing: Free – $12.99 per month

When I worked in marketing, our Managing Director balked at spending more than $1,000 for Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. We needed them, but that didn’t make the cost any less easy to swallow. Today, sites like Canva offer basic Photoshop-like functionality for free.

Visit Canva

8. Primer

Pricing: Free

If you want to be a rock star at your next showing or open house, download the free Primer app. It’s an AR (augmented reality) app that lets you preview what a room might look like with new tile, wallpaper, or paint. Perfect for showing off the potential of under-construction or dated homes.

Visit Primer

9. Animoto

Pricing: Free – $55 per month

Animoto is a free, all-in-one video maker that makes creating and editing videos on the fly much easier. You can shoot a video, add titles, transitions, images, and music, and share your creation on social media.

Visit Animoto

10. MagicPlan

Pricing: $9.99 – $89.99 per month

In a perfect world, we would all get detailed floor plans, well-shot images, and a neat and orderly list of renovations on any listing. Of course, none of us lives in a perfect world, so we all have to make do when buyers ask about simple things like floor plans or wonder how much a new floor might cost.

MagicPlan lets you give your buyers quick answers that will likely sate their curiosity until a pro can be brought in. You can get quick floor plans by scanning a room in a minute and then upload that floor plan to get cost estimates, 3D tours, and more.

Visit MagicPlan

Best Real Estate Apps for Lead Generation

11. Zillow Premier Agent

Pricing: Free

The free Zillow Premier Agent app is a must-have if you have listings on Zillow—or ever want listings on Zillow. It has task management, lead sorting, and even lead assignment and other features for teams.

Zillow Premier Agent also offers a surprisingly robust free CRM that lets you import leads from BoomTown or Realtor.com through Gmail. You can set up tasks, reminders, texts, and emails like any good CRM, but it also gives you a granular look at what your leads are searching for on Zillow in detail if you sign up for their My Agent program, which makes you the only buyer’s agent your leads see on Zillow.

Visit Zillow

Best Real Estate Apps for Open Houses

12. Curb Hero

Pricing: Free

Over the past few years, Curb Hero has become the go-to app for agents who regularly run open houses. It’s 100% free, customizable, and even offers a QR code sign-in feature. Curb Hero also offers custom branding for the biggest brokerages, text, and email follow-up, lead verification, single property websites, and more.

Visit Curb Hero

13. Spacio

Pricing: Starting at $25 per month

If you want more bells and whistles for teams in your open house sign-in app, Spacio is a solid choice. It offers team-wide reporting, agent management, permissioned access to leads, auto-populated listings, and default form questions for agents.

Visit Spacio

14. Open Home Pro

Pricing: Free – $20 per month

Recently acquired by Placester, Open Home Pro is another great option for bringing your open house into the 21st century. Like Curb Hero and Spacio, Open Home Pro can send out automated follow-up emails to open house guests and also features one-touch social sharing.

Visit Open Home Pro

Best Real Estate Apps for Productivity

15. Trello

Pricing: Free – $17.50 per month

Trello is yet another piece of software that would have cost an arm and a leg a few years ago. Today, it’s one of the most popular project management apps on the internet.

To track projects, Trello enables you to create “cards” that you can share with your partners or team and edit, move, and update them as you hit your goals. It’s great for blog publishing, social media, graphic design projects, or even deal tracking for smaller teams.

Full disclosure: We use Trello every day at The Close, and it’s one of the apps that we simply couldn’t function without.

Visit Trello

16. CamScanner

Pricing: Free – $4.99 per month

The smartphone era has brought us some amazing things. We not only have access to the entirety of human knowledge in our back pocket, but a still camera, video camera, and motion sensor as well. With CamScanner, you can scan documents on the go.

Visit CamScanner

17. Clozio

Pricing: Free – $32 per month

Clozio gives agents a lightweight, intuitive, and easy-to-use checklist to stay organized, from prelisting to close, as well as keep your clients on the same page. Best of all, the starter app is free.

Visit Clozio

18. RPR Mobile

Pricing: Free

A wholly owned subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), RPR Mobile (Real Property Resource Mobile) has helped Realtors parse and access property data for showings, comparative market analyses (CMAs), research, and more.

RPR Mobile remains one of the best ways to keep your clients informed on the go. Out to lunch with a buyer and want to pull up a list of three bedrooms in a new ZIP code? RPR lets you access that data in a snap and even lets you draw custom polygon search areas to target even the smallest micro-neighborhood.

Visit RPR Mobile

19. Dotloop

Pricing: $29 per month

Over the past few years, transaction management platform Dotloop has slowly started to become the dominant player in the industry. Since competition in the enterprise space is fierce, Dotloop has smartly released a free version for individual agents.

Visit Dotloop

20. Dropbox

Pricing: Free

Dropbox is a super-simple app that lets you store files on the go. It’s so common among agents these days that most have it on their phones.

Visit Dropbox

Best General Purpose Real Estate Apps

21. Bubble Level App (aka Spirit Level)

Pricing: Free

Here’s one for agents who can’t help but show prewar listings that always need a little TLC. Is that door frame level, or is it the floor that’s wonky? Instead of guessing or raiding the contractor’s toolbox, you can just pull out your phone and get a quick reading.

If you’re on Android, the Bubble Level App works well. If you’re on iOS, you have a bubble level built-in. The only problem is that it’s kind of hidden. Here’s a quick rundown of how to find it.

Visit Bubble Level App

22. Smith

Pricing: Free

Smith is another app for agents who can’t help but show the places with “good bones” that might need some work. Smith can get you quick and dirty estimates for all kinds of jobs in your city, as well as help your buyers find a good contractor to get them done.

Visit Smith

23. BrokerAssist

Pricing: Free

BrokerAssist is a one-stop shop for referrals and other quick real estate gigs that you need a real estate professional for. Need to run keys to a listing? Open up a listing for a contractor? List a referral? BrokerAssist is a great way to hire or get hired for real estate gigs within your brokerage or other brokerages in your association.

Visit BrokerAssist

Real Estate Safety Apps

24. Forewarn

Pricing: $20 per month (enterprise pricing also available)

Forewarn is an easy-to-use background check app that helps agents quickly investigate a new lead before a showing. It’s particularly useful for last-minute showings when a more thorough screening is not possible. 

With just a phone number, Forewarn will pull up criminal background, verify their current vehicle and property ownership status, identify financial risks like bankruptcy, and even provide a complete residential history.

Visit Forewarn

25. AgentSafeWalk

Pricing: $2.00 per agent, per month; must be provided by company or association (no individual sign-ups)

AgentSafeWalk allows agents to connect with a “Safety Partner” via live video and introduce them to their prospective client. AgentSafeWalk also has a mass broadcast feature, so that Brokers can quickly and easily inform agents of an emergency or dangerous situation.

Visit AgentSafeWalk

Daily Carry: Real Estate Apps Top Agents Use Every Day

Of course, you shouldn’t just take our word for which apps are the best. While we constantly test new apps and write in-depth buyer’s guides for our readers, they say real estate apps are like CRMs. The best apps are the ones you actually use. That’s why we decided to reach out to some top-producing agents and brokers to take a peek into their phones and see which apps they use the most to stay at the top of their game.

Karen Kostiw Agent, Warburg Realty Manhattan

The Compass App

“The Compass app is used often. Buyers, sellers, and agents always want to know what direction they face, whether looking out the window or the direction a bed faces. Typically a southern view provides a lot of light and warmth. The direction of a home and a room is important to many cultures. The feng shui (translation: wind and weather) experts look at the direction of the home to identify the chi, the vital invisible natural forces of the space.

I also use Houzz and Pinterest frequently for design ideas for clients, and I use a LoanCal app to provide a monthly amortization schedule to buyers.”

Andrea Warshaw-Wernick, Agent, Warburg Realty, Manhattan

Sean Moudry, Founder 16 Strategies Real Estate Coaching, Broker, Close Contributor, Colorado

	Showami Showami is like Uber for showing agents. It coordinates showing agents to show buyers for you when you are too busy.
	ShowingTime ShowingTime manages showings and feedback. But my favorite feature is the direct messaging feature because agents tend to respond quicker to it than text or email.
	Facebook At 47 years old, a large percentage of my past clients and target audience is on Facebook. It allows me to market to them for free.
	Todoist A simple checklist app that allows you to coordinate and assign tasks to other team members.
	Audible Allows me to fill my mind with empowering books or education when I am in between appointments.

Latham Jenkins, Broker/Owner of LiveWater Jackson Hole in Wyoming

	OnX Hunt I am constantly opening this app to show clients the property boundaries of the parcel and who the neighbors are on either side. Don’t let the name fool you if you are not a hunter; OnX has married the GIS data into the aerial imagery, making for an exceptional interface to utilize while walking a property.
	Zillow Premier Agent App Outside of the obvious, the two features I like in the Premier Agent app are the ability to record a walk-through video and the 3D home tours. Super-simple to use their app to record both, and in doing so, Zillow will list your home higher in search results as it gives a better user experience for their users.
	Google Earth My buyers are often interested in the access to recreation from properties we are viewing. I love the 3D feature to show them where they can immediately hike or ski. The integration with street view is helpful as well to showcase the immediate surroundings.
	SnapSeed My favorite photo editing app, I use it daily as the iPhone is the most underrated camera on the market. Learn how to use it to edit your property shots to control the white balance and perspective of your interiors to open up shadows for more detail. It's a game-changer and avoids having to overpay for professional photography.
	DocuSign A vital tool in my quiver of apps. The push notifications on my Apple Watch keep me instantly informed of contract executions. I can open documents on my phone, populate them with the fields for dates, initials, and signatures on the fly, and keep deals flowing without having to open my laptop.

Dan Gerlock, Broker, Coldwell Banker Realty, Denver

	Gmail Obviously, email is critical in this business! Nice to have a supercomputer in your pocket to work from anywhere.
	MTM (Mass Text Message) This app is amazing for creating groups and sending mass texts individually. This really helps for organizing our large events while still feeling personal!
	Facebook / Instagram / Messenger Social media is critical for connecting with our clients on a daily basis.
	REcolorado REcolorado is a great app to have our local MLS information and integrated Showing Time in the palm of the hand.
	Referral Maker Referral Maker is an app/CRM from Brian Buffini that is amazing for lead generation and client retention.
	Monday.com Monday.com is a great app for tracking team members, contractors, and showing time worked, activities, and mileage.

Over to You

What real estate apps do you use every day to stay a killer real estate agent? Let us know in the comments!

The post The 25 Best Apps for Realtors in 2022 (That Agents & Teams Love) appeared first on The Close.

That’s why we decided to update our picks for the best real estate software of 2022. We organized the tools by category and linked to our deep-dive review articles—making it easier for you to find that one tool that you soon won’t be able to live without.

Lead Generation Software

1. BoldLeads

Pricing: Starting at $649 per month

In-depth review: BoldLeads Review: How Does It Work & Is It Worth It?

If you’ve been busy selling houses, you may have missed the exciting new technology that BoldLeads offers today’s agents. Instead of just sending you a list of leads, they offer A/B-tested seller lead generation landing pages, an integrated customer relationship manager (CRM), and automated email and text messaging to connect with leads when they expect it—instantly.

You can even leave stealth voicemails, create follow-up funnels, and integrate with your favorite CRMs like Contactually, Top Producer, Wise Agent, and more.

Even better, BoldLeads will convert leads for you using their Concierge. They also offer free onboarding and on-demand training classes.

Visit BoldLeads

2. Zillow Premier Agent

Pricing: Varies by ZIP code

In-depth review: Is Zillow Premier Agent Worth the Cost?

Over the past few years, Zillow Premier Agent has grown up. Instead of just blasting out cold leads like they used to, Premier Agent now offers agents many ways to become the primary point of contact for a lead and nurture and close them.

Using their app, you can see which homes your leads are looking at and saving to make sure you reach out with the right message at the right time. They also offer a streamlined CRM with task reminders, notes, and mobile notifications. The customer experience report lets you know exactly what your leads think of you without having to ask.

Visit Zillow

Real Estate CRM & IDX Website Software

3. LionDesk

Pricing: $21 – $83 per month

In-depth review: LionDesk Review: The New King of the Real Estate CRM Jungle?

If you want a full featured CRM that you can upgrade as your business grows, LionDesk is a great option. Starting at just $21 a month, with LionDesk you can send video emails, bulk texts, drip campaigns, and more. As your business grows, you can add more features without breaking the bank.

Visit LionDesk

4. Top Producer

Pricing: $60 – $105 per month

Related article: The Best Real Estate CRM for 2022: In-depth Reviews & Pricing

One of the best CRMs on the market, Top Producer recently upgraded their user experience (UX) back to the drawing board and revamped its flagship CRM to compete with the new kids on the block. The new Top Producer looks and works great. Even better, Top Producer is leading the pack with access to MLS data, market snapshot reports, and native integrations.

Visit Top Producer

5. Propertybase

Pricing: $349+ per month

In-depth review: Propertybase GO Review: The Next Generation of Real Estate CRM?

When it comes to real estate software, you might have noticed that every tech company wants to be a one-stop shop. Propertybase actually is one.

First and foremost, Propertybase has a Salesforce-based CRM. Salesforce is the global CRM leader for a reason: Leads can be sent into Propertybase from pretty much anywhere and segmented, put on drip campaigns, and endlessly sliced and diced to match people with properties.

Beyond the CRM, Propertybase has a powerful website builder to drive your marketing, lead generation, and lead capture. Once your leads are coming in, use its customizable dashboard to divide and conquer farm areas and nurture leads. You can try Propertybase for yourself with a free demo.

Visit Propertybase

6. kvCORE Platform

Pricing: $499+ per month

In-depth review: kvCORE Review: What Does It Offer Teams & Brokerages in 2022?

One of the early movers in the all-in-one real estate lead generation and CRM platforms, Inside Real Estate’s kvCORE platform is finally ready for its close-up. Its team-focused platform boasts lead generation, a robust CRM with artificial intelligence (AI) features like a behavioral lead response, text messaging, and even an auto-dialer.

kvCORE also offers back-office solutions for agent billing and accounting, a comparative market analysis (CMA) and presentation tool, and listing marketing tools.

7. Real Geeks

Pricing: $249+ per month

In-depth review: Real Geeks Review: An In-depth Look at Pricing & Features

Founded 2010 by real estate agent Jeff Manson, Real Geeks core mission has never changed: To build IDX websites and a CRM that generates tons of leads for real estate agents. While other IDX sites might be flashier, Real Geeks’ focus on lead generation means that you will spend more time on the phone with real people who want to buy homes and less time fiddling with graphic design and code.

Visit Real Geeks

8. Placester

Pricing: $64 – $240 per month

Related article: The 6 Best Real Estate Website Builders of 2022

In 2022, agents have a million options to build a pretty website. But if your website isn’t generating leads, it isn’t doing its job. That’s why Placester almost always makes it to the top of our list of the best website builders. Their sites are designed for one purpose: lead capture.

Don’t get me wrong—Placester’s websites are beautiful. But they are also A/B-tested to ensure lead capture. They even offer helpful features like prewritten content libraries, a CRM, and a brand-new services marketplace to help you find design and tech talent quickly. If you’re a National Association of REALTORS (NAR) member, you qualify for a Placester website complete with an IDX feed and basic lead capture options for just $64 per month.

Visit Placester

Social Media & Marketing Software

9. Artur’In

Pricing: $199 – $399 per month

Since social media algorithms reward engagement above all else in 2022, creating and posting local content every day is a must. Artur’In makes this easy. They create and automatically post engaging local content to your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts. They will also write your blog for you, advertise for you, and much more.

Visit Artur’In

10. Canva for Real Estate

Pricing: Free – $6.49 per month

While we normally recommend real estate-specific design tools, Canva is a widely used platform for collaborative design that now offers a host of design templates specifically for real estate agents. Canva is available at an affordable price and designs can be accessed across the internet by multiple team members. One feature we especially like is the ability to create graphics and schedule them to post on social media directly from Canva.

Visit Canva

11. LabCoat Agents Marketing Center

Pricing: $59 – $499 per month

When it comes to marketing and design software, today’s Realtors are spoiled for choice. Canva is free or cheap, and there are dozens of other platforms promising agents beautiful marketing materials even if you don’t have design skills.

The problem is that many of these platforms aren’t designed exclusively for real estate agents. The templates are generic and not designed with conversion in mind. LabCoat Agents Marketing Center changes that. They offer agents an easy-to-use platform that lets them create custom-branded flyers, postcards, business cards, social media posts, and more.

Visit LabCoat Agents Marketing Center

Lead Qualifying & Nurturing Software

12. Freshdesk Messaging

Pricing: Free – $39 per month

Related article: The Pivot: Are Real Estate Chatbots Still Worth It in 2022?

When it comes to your website, you owe it to yourself (and your bank account) to invest in the latest technology to turn site visitors into leads; in 2022, that means connecting with leads instantly. Freshdesk Messaging, advanced chat software that you can easily plug into your website, lets you do just that. It gives your site visitors exactly what they want: instant gratification!

You can have it ping your phone whenever someone has a question, or better yet, easily program a chatbot to engage them until they’re ready to talk to you. Best of all, Freshdesk Messaging is free for basic chat features and costs only $15 to $39 per month for advanced AI chatbots, multi-language support, file attachments, and more.

Visit Freshdesk Messaging

13. RealScout

Pricing: $39 per month

Let’s face it—buyers only really want one thing from you: new homes for sale that they might want to buy. The problem is that scouring your MLS for new listings is time-consuming, especially for leads that might be years away from making a move.

RealScout solves this problem by sorting listings in your MLS by 400 criteria and emailing contenders to your leads. Their real estate software even uses machine learning to compare new listings for your leads side-by-side. When they’re ready to tour a listing, you get instantly notified on the platform.

14. Structurely

Pricing: $179 per month (for up to 50 leads)

Taking the concept of automated lead nurturing to the next level, Structurely uses artificial intelligence (AI) to respond to your leads to qualify them instantly. After that, their AI assistant will even follow up with them … for an entire year.

Of course, robotic lead nurturing isn’t perfect, so Structurely is designed to notify you the minute your leads are ready to talk so you can land that appointment.

Real Estate Prospecting Platforms

15. REDX + Power Dialer

Pricing: $99+ per month 

In-depth review: REDX Review: Why Smart Realtors Use REDX and Power Dialer

If you’re cold calling without using an auto-dialer like Power Dialer, you’re leaving money on the table. Period. Ask any agent who cold calls. There’s just no way you’re going to keep up with the volume of numbers you need to dial, not to mention dealing with voicemails, hang-ups, and wrong numbers.

So if you want to start cold calling FSBOs, expireds, or just want to circle prospects around a listing effectively, then you owe it to yourself to upgrade to REDX + Power Dialer. Even better, REDX is offering The Close readers $149 off the setup price, automatically deducted when you click over to their site from this article.

Visit REDX + Power Dialer

Predictive Analytics & AI Software

16. Revaluate

Pricing: $139 per month for 2,000 contacts

While terms like predictive analytics and AI have been floating around the industry for a few years now, only a handful of companies live up to the hype. Revaluate is one of them.

Revaluate leverages artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and big data to analyze past and current events to predict future events. In simpler terms, they use super-smart software that sifts through millions of pages of data to figure out when someone will move. As if this wasn’t enough to pique your interest, they also use that same real estate software to reinvigorate all the old, cold, dead leads in your CRM.

17. Offrs

Pricing: $200 – $500 per territory, per month

In-depth review: Offrs Review: Are AI & Predictive Analytics the Future of Real Estate?

Offrs is another major player in the predictive analytics space. Offrs uses the same big data sources that Revaluate uses to help agents target potential sellers and buyers before they reach out to an agent.

They also offer FSBO and expired leads and a Smart Farming app that gives agents contact information for homeowners and leads. They also provide agents Plug-and-Play ad templates to help them reach the right lead, with the right message, at the right time.

Visit Offrs

18. First.io

Pricing: Call for pricing

First.io is another real estate software platform that uses predictive analytics to help agents find listing opportunities. First.io scans your network using 700 personal and property-related data points as well as AI to help you target people who are more likely to move.

First.io focuses on conversations, not campaigns. Their mobile app makes it easy to start conversations with people before they’re ready to move. It uses a simple star rating system and prompts to remind you exactly when to reach out.

Home Valuation Software

19. HouseCanary Property Explorer

Pricing: $29.99 per report

When it comes to using AI and predictive analytics to improve home valuations, HouseCanary’s Property Explorer is the real deal. It’s a game-changer for agents.

HouseCanary’s home valuations are based on dozens of data points, both public and private. Instead of going back a year or two, they consider trends from the past few decades when coming up with their valuations. Think of it as Zestimates with a brain transplant.

Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) Software

20. Cloud CMA

Pricing: $45+ per month

When it comes to cranking out CMAs, most agents would rather get a root canal. Cloud CMA, the industry-leading CMA generation software in the Cloud Agent Suite, transformed putting together CMAs from a tedious chore into something you can fire off to a lead while you’re waiting in line at Starbucks.

Recently, the entire Cloud Agent Suite was purchased by Lone Wolf Technologies along with LionDesk. Does this mean Cloud CMA will only be offered at the brokerage level? We think so. We also believe that this provides a golden opportunity for competitors to make direct-to-agent products to compete. Watch this space!

Open House Software

21. Curb Hero

Pricing: Free

Related Article: 9 Open House Apps Tech-savvy Agents Are Using to Get More Leads

Formerly Block Party, Curb Hero offers agents open house sign-in software for free. It might not have all the bells and whistles of competitors like Open Home Pro and Spacio, but it has touchless QR code sign-in, single property websites, background info collection, and integrates with over 200 CRMs, all for free.

Visit Curb Hero

22. Open Home Pro

Pricing: Free – $20 per month

Used by over 90,000 agents, Open Home Pro is a must for agents who run many open houses. It’s a simple solution to a problem that every agent who has run an open house has faced—smudged, illegible sign-in sheets.

Open Home Pro also offers basic CRM functionality like lead management, automated lead follow-up emails, and even automated seller’s reports to show off how successful your open houses are.

23. ShowingTime

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Even though it’s getting a little long in the tooth, ShowingTime is still a vital tool for real estate agents. 950,000 real estate agents can’t be wrong. Well, they could, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? ShowingTime ain’t broke.

It does the job it’s supposed to do without the drama. Hard to complain about that.

24. Calendly

Pricing: Free – $16 per month

Of course, that doesn’t mean that ShowingTime doesn’t have competition. When it comes to scheduling appointments online, Calendly has them beat. How many times have you gone back and forth with a lead trying to schedule a showing? Calendly makes it easy. All your lead needs to do is pick a date from a calendar, and Calendly will only show them the times you’re available.

Community Engagement Software

25. Parkbench

Pricing: $3,500 – $6,500 per year

Related article: How Parkbench Helps Agents Drive Community Connections (Even During a Pandemic)

Every agent knows that the best referrals come from locals. The only problem is that taking the time to meet local business owners is hard. Showings, prospecting, social media, and a million other tasks get in the way.

Parkbench simplifies the process by giving you tools and an excuse to network with local small business owners to build up your referral network organically. They also offer agents extensive training to make sure they’re not just wasting time talking about the weather.

Visit Parkbench

Transaction Management Software

26. Dotloop

Pricing: $29 per month

Although the competition was fierce, it looks like Dotloop has come out on top for the best real estate transaction management software for another year.

If your office doesn’t offer real estate software like Dotloop along with your other perks, then it might make sense to jump in and track your deals with Dotloop.

Did we mention the industry-leading transaction management platform is now FREE for individual agents?

27. Amitree Folio

Pricing: Free – $18 per month

Amitree Folio has always been the well-kept secret weapon of many newbie agents. After all, it’s free, sits right on top of Gmail, and offers some pretty fantastic transaction management and organization tasks for busy Realtors.

Even better, Sand Hill Road has taken notice. Amitree closed a $7 million round of funding to build out more functionality into an already reasonably robust platform. Try out their free version with a 14-day trial.

Outreach Automation Software

28. Contact Junkie

Pricing: $199 – $599 per month

There are two types of agents when it comes to outreach automation software: those who will get a ton more leads using it and everyone else. Cold callers use dialing software like REDX’s Power Dialer or Mojo, or they’re getting left in the dust. Advanced CRMs like Propertybase are making manual texting and email obsolete, and apps like Slydial are automating even the (very) old-fashioned voicemail.

Contact Junkie takes all of that potential automation and wraps it up into one neat package for agents and teams. The app will automatically reach out to your leads with voicemail, text, and email, and will stop once contact is made. Even better, Contact Junkie integrates with BombBomb, Real Geeks, Pipedrive, and even Slack.

29. Avochato

Pricing: Free – $35 per month

If you want your team to double-down on text messages this year (and why wouldn’t you?), you need to check out the latest text messaging software, like Avochato. Avochato gives agents, inside sales agents (ISAs), and other team members a fully featured desktop dashboard to text with many leads and clients at once.

You can access easy-to-use message templates, send texts one-to-many, and of course, click-to-dial for hot leads or clients who need extra help. It also gives you 10 unique phone numbers so you can easily segment leads from online sources, signage, open houses, and so on.

Expense Tracking Software

30. Expensify

Pricing: Free – $9 per month

Instead of a shoe box, I had a manila folder stuffed with receipts for yellow cabs, lunches, printing, and printouts of my (terrifyingly expensive) Uber bills. Come tax time, I was ankle-deep in paper and miserable.

Smarter agents use expense tracking software like Expensify. Expensify automatically scans and tags your receipts, so you don’t have to. If you start using it today, come April, you’ll have everything organized and ready for your accountant to scrutinize.

Writing Software

31. Grammarly

Pricing: Free – $12.50 per month

Let’s face it. If there is one group of professionals who need work on their writing and grammar, it’s real estate agents. Maybe it’s the low barrier to entry, or maybe agents are just always busy, but we all know that agents need help with writing.

Yuo cna porbalby raed tihs desptie teh msispeillgns rhigt? Your leads probably can too, but are they going to call you back when you send them yet another email riddled with typos? Why risk it? Grammarly checks your grammar, spelling, and even sentence structure and style with both a free & paid version. It operates inside your email server and through your browser so it can correct your blogs posts, Google documents, and outgoing email messages.

Over to You

Have a suggestion you’d like us to add to our list of the best real estate software? Let us know in the comments.

The post Best Real Estate Software 2022: Our 31 Top Picks for Agents (+ Pricing) appeared first on The Close.

Ten years later, leads expect their questions to be answered instantly. If you can’t do that, they can and will abandon your website for another realtor’s website that can. That means that in 2022, real estate chatbots might be an essential tool to keep leads on your website. And we’re here to help you find out which chatbots offer the best combination of price and features for 2022. Here’s what we’ll cover.

What Are Real Estate Chatbots?

How Much Do Real Estate Chatbots Cost?

'Smart' AI Chatbots vs Logic Tree Chatbots

The Best Real Estate Chatbots of 2022

While there are a ton of options for real estate chatbots these days, there are three that stand head and shoulders above the competition. Freshdesk Messaging, Structurely, and RealtyChatbot. Here’s how they stack up for agents and teams:

Freshdesk Messaging (formerly Freshchat)

Pricing: Free – $69 per month

Freshdesk Messaging’s Best Features for Agents:

Freshdesk Messaging lets you build a custom real estate chatbot to interact with your leads using Freddy, their artificial intelligence bot. They also still let you or an assistant jump in whenever you want to.

Even better, you can set your chatbot to start chatting with leads based on what they do on your website. For example, clicking over to a listing page might trigger a chatbot to set up a showing. They also offer chat campaigns, and even let you engage with your leads on WhatsApp. Visit Freshchat below to learn more about adding the human element to your website’s chatbot.

Freshdesk Messaging’s Drawbacks:

While Freshdesk Messaging is by far the most affordable of our favorite chatbots, it does lack some of the more sophisticated features that Structurely offers. The biggest drawback is that Freshdesk Messaging does not directly integrate with popular real estate customer relationship managers (CRMs) like CINC or LionDesk the way Structurely does.

Visit Freshdesk Messaging

Structurely

Pricing: $179 to $499 per month (based on number of leads per month)

Structurely’s Best Features for Agents:

Structurely offers agents an AI chatbot called Holmes that works more like an inside sales agent (ISA) to qualify and even nurture leads via text messaging for you. They also have one feature that made them stand out from the competition: an AI email assistant that qualifies and nurtures leads via email.

Structurely even seamlessly integrates with popular CRMs like CINC, LionDesk, Follow Up Boss, and Real Geeks so you can monitor and log conversations with your leads right from your CRM.

Structurely’s Drawbacks:

Although Structurely offers agents some pretty high tech features for chat, they are priced accordingly. Many agents spend less than what Structurely charges per month for their chat features for their entire IDX website.

Visit Structurely

RealtyChatbot

Pricing: $119 to $149 per month

RealtyChatbot’s Best Features for Agents:

RealtyChatbot also offers agents an AI chatbot that can modify its responses based on how your lead answers questions. In addition, they offer agents the ability to sync their real estate chatbot on their Facebook page with their website chatbot. This feature makes RealtyChatbot a great option for agents who interact with leads from their Facebook page through Facebook Messenger.

RealtyChatbot’s Drawbacks:

Like Structurely, RealtyChatbot is priced a bit out of reach for many newer agents. Setup fees start at an eye-watering $795 if you sign up for their yearly payment option, and $995 per month if you choose to pay monthly.

Visit RealtyChatbot

6 Ways Agents, Teams, & Brokerages Use Real Estate Chatbots

Here are a few ways agents, teams, and brokerages use real estate chatbots in 2022:

1. To Increase Engagement Rates on Their Website

The psychology of why people decide to reach out to you from your website is dead simple. They want to know if you might be a good fit for their transaction in the future. However, there is an entire industry called CRO (click-through rate optimization) that studies and tests ways to increase the likelihood of a site visitor reaching out to you.

The most important criteria by far is how easy you make it for them. They may not want to call you yet for several reasons, but mostly because it’s more work for them. They’re thinking they might get trapped in a 20-minute call and be forced to listen to your hard sell because they’re polite. Email is the same. But chatting is a low-effort and instantly rewarding way for them to reach out to you.

2. To Get More & Better Contact & Personal Info From Top-of-the-Funnel Leads

People love using throwaway email accounts to reach out to real estate agents. If you’ve ever shopped for a new car, you know exactly why they do it. Good salespeople in any industry are proactive and persistent.

For bottom-of-the-funnel leads who are very close to a transaction, they might actually welcome eager salespeople so they can pull the band-aid off and get the ball rolling. Top-of-the-funnel and mid-funnel leads aren’t quite there yet. They just want casual information while they slowly educate themselves about the market.

This is why top-of-the-funnel leads can be shy about leaving contact info.

However, if you use a smart real estate chatbot, you will get more and better contact information for top-of-funnel and mid-funnel leads.

3. To Screen & Segment Leads Into Their CRM

Smart chatbots will allow you to ask all kinds of screening questions and then parse the answers into your customer relationship management (CRM) software. That might sound pretty basic, but it is usually far more information about your lead than you might get from a form, email, or open house sign-in sheet.

Chatbots can be programmed to get simple information like what they’re looking for, when they need to move, or other information that will be useful to nurture them properly.

4. To Schedule Showings or Calls

You can also use smart chatbots to schedule showings or calls and get a little more information along the way. Sure, you can do this with other plugins for your site, but chatbots feel a little friendlier and will likely increase the odds of someone setting an appointment.

5. To Help Site Visitors Find What They’re Looking for Faster

Let’s face it, many of us will ask a sales clerk where we can find an item in the supermarket rather than looking at the signs above each aisle. Why? It’s faster, and more importantly, that’s what the clerks are there for.

But there’s another reason stores have employees to help people find what they need. It offers them a chance to steer that shopper to something else they want to sell them. On your website, if someone engages with a real estate chatbot about what they’re looking for, you can then recommend properties that fit that criteria, but you can also upsell to other properties you want to move.

6. To Send Drip Sequences via Facebook Messenger

Another way to use chatbots is to send your leads drip sequences via Facebook Messenger. You can send them listing updates, educational material, or anything else you want.

Over to You

What do you think about using real estate chatbots in 2022? Love them? Hate them? Let us know in the comments or in our Facebook Mastermind group here.

The post The Best Real Estate Chatbots for 2022 (Pricing & More) appeared first on The Close.

Is Chime right for you and your real estate business? In this review, we’ll dive into what Chime is, what it does well, and how much it costs, and also make a recommendation for precisely who would (and wouldn’t) benefit from Chime.

The Close Recommendation

If you’re looking to increase your productivity while decreasing the number of tools you use each day, you should consider Chime. Chime provides a comprehensive way to gather leads, convert them into clients, manage them through a transaction, and activate them as referral sources (and repeat clients). Yes, this system has a premium price tag, but in our opinion, the return on an investment from the Chime platform can be substantial.

And since Chime is designed to scale with your business, it’s a solution that will likely serve you throughout your career—whether you’re a single agent, running a team, or operating a brokerage.

Visit Chime

While our overall review of Chime is positive, it’s not a tool for everyone. Here’s a breakdown of who Chime is (and isn’t) a good fit for:

Chime Works Well For:

• Agents with a growing business that they’re willing to invest in. If you’ve got a budget and a business plan that incorporates paid lead generation, referral nurturing, farming, and more, the Chime option is a good one for you.
• Teams who are looking to take their lead generation, distribution, management, and nurturing to the next level. Teams who use Chime have access to advanced analytics, reporting, transaction management, and forecasting tools—all essential for building your real estate empire.
• Brokerages that are looking for a top-down solution to managing all agent operations from a single dashboard. Brokers using Chime also have access to Inside Sales Agents (ISAs), a brokerage website, and websites to offer your agents. You’ll also get 50 hours of dedicated technical support every month.

Chime May Not Be Ideal For:

• Agents who have a tight budget or part-time real estate professionals who don’t have the time to commit to learning the Chime system and using the tools provided.
• Teams who are still sorting out their structure and lead distribution strategies, and don’t have hours set aside each week to review reporting and analytics. Chime provides a lot of data on the performance of your marketing, your individual agents, and your team as a whole. If you don’t have the bandwidth to use this data, this likely isn’t the platform for your team.
• Brokerages that aren’t interested in offering any sort of leads to their agents. A large part of Chime’s value to large teams and brokerages is their ability to integrate their lead generation with their customer relationship manager (CRM). If you don’t plan on offering leads to your brokerage, the value of Chime for your business likely won’t match the price.

How Much Does Chime Cost & What Do You Get?

Chime offers multiple packages, add-ons, and discounts based on the combination of services you choose. The base price of Chime starts with the package you select. Those options are:

Chime Base Package Pricing

(Updated September 2021)

How Do These Packages Differ?

Each Chime package comes with their CRM, a customer-facing website, and access to their lead generation tools. But not all Chime packages are created equal. Here’s what users can expect in terms of features from each of Chime’s three packages:

Foundation Platform Features

Business Platform Features

Enterprise Platform Features

Chime Optional Add-on Pricing

After choosing a Chime base package, you can begin adding on optional services. Here’s a breakdown of your many options (prices updated in September 2021).

Facebook Ad Management

Google Pay-per-Click (PPC) Ad Management

Text Message Marketing

Phone Dialer

Premium Professional Services

Breaking Down Chime’s Most Important Features

Chime’s services can be divided into three basic categories: CRM, website, and marketing. Let’s look at a couple of the most important features in each of these categories to better understand how they could help improve your real estate business.

CRM

Chime’s CRM is all about finding the most efficient ways of achieving your goals. The tools available to Realtors here include automatic lead scoring and analysis. Plus, you’ll get “smart suggestions” from Chime on the most effective way to communicate with your leads based on how they’ve responded in the past. Some other powerful Chime CRM features include:

• Lots of automated marketing options, including email and SMS texting
• A built-in power dialer (up to three lines available)
• An available artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to automatically respond to inquiries from your website
• Built-in transaction management
• Dynamic lead distribution based on team member performance
• A native mobile app
• Hundreds of available integrations with companies like Zillow, Gmail, BombBomb, and more

Website

Chime’s websites are easy to use, all IDX-enabled, and if we can be so bold, damn pretty to look at. But, the Chime website’s most powerful feature is its direct integration with the Chime CRM. When visitors come to your Chime website and complete a lead form, they’re automatically added to your CRM.

After that, nearly every move they make on your site, including the number of properties viewed, searches made, even the number of visits made daily, are logged and factored into the Chime lead scoring system—allowing you to better prioritize who you reach out to first, based on their website activity.

Some other Chime website features of note include:

• In-depth neighborhood data, including demographics, turnover and absorption rates, and more
• Advanced school district search capability
• Excellent landing page options, including Home Valuation, Mortgage Calculators, Showing Requests, and more
• An easy-to-use site editor that makes keeping your website updated easy, even without coding knowledge and experience

Marketing

Their online lead generation strategy powers the Chime marketing engine. Relying heavily on the “ad agency approach” used by other lead gen companies like BoldLeads and Real Geeks, Chime steps it up a notch by doing two things differently:

1. They’ve integrated Facebook’s Lead Forms into their campaigns, allowing leads to convert without ever leaving the social media platform.
2. They use a retargeting strategy to create ads for properties an unconverted prospect viewed on your website to encourage them to give their lead information.

These power-ups, paired with direct integration with the Chime CRM, make this a highly effective lead generation and conversion strategy. Apart from this, some other marketing tools available from Chime include:

• Branding advertisements you can deliver to your ZIP code or your sphere of influence based on custom lists generated by the Chime CRM
• Direct mail options that will automate your circle prospecting and real estate farming

A Day in the Life of a Chime User: Video Walk-through

Where Chime Could Improve

Chime has many things going for it, but like most things, it isn’t perfect.

For starters, Chime is expensive. While we believe that Chime’s return on investment potential is very high, there are going to be some real estate professionals who won’t even get in the door because they simply can’t afford the base price. It would be nice to have some sort of express version of Chime for realtors operating on a leaner budget.

Secondly, Chime is so incredibly feature-rich, sometimes it’s difficult to know exactly where to start your day in terms of how you’re using the system. We found ourselves experiencing option-overload when exploring our demo account. Though a regular Chime user would likely develop a daily rhythm on how they use the platform, there isn’t a clear, prioritized, “do-this-first” sort of direction.

Interested in some alternatives to Chime? Check out our review of Propertybase (the CRM competitor most similar to Chime) or LionDesk (an affordable, all-around workhorse CRM).

Bottom Line

Chime has successfully developed a platform that consolidates your CRM, website, and lead generation efforts into a single interface. They offer a ton of shortcuts toward a productive, profitable business and provide the data and analytics to measure your success and set better goals.

Chime is definitely an investment, one whose efficacy has to be measured over the long run. Still, if you have the budget and the attention bandwidth to invest in Chime, this is a system that will benefit your business.

Visit Chime

The post Is Chime the All-in-One Solution the Real Estate Business Has Been Waiting For? appeared first on The Close.

The Best Virtual Staging Software & Apps for 2022

roOomy: Great Image Quality & a Useful DIY App

While there are a ton of virtual staging services and software packages available today, there was one specific reason we chose roOomy as the best virtual staging software for 2022. While their image quality might not be quite as photorealistic as Hasten, roOomy offers one killer feature that leaves the others in the dust. Their free DIY app is perfect for helping buyers visualize living in your listing.

Instead of cheesy-looking models of knockoff Eames chairs, roOomy lets you stage your listing with photorealistic models of furniture your customers can actually buy. Even better, if you get to know your buyers well enough, you just might be able to stage an empty room with furniture they already own. So if you know they have a specific couch from say, Pottery Barn, you can show them a staged photo with their couch in it.

Hasten: The Gucci of Virtual Staging?

Here in Manhattan, we have a saying: “If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.” With their high-end and photorealistic staging photos, this definitely applies to Hasten. They also seem to have a great eye for design, which is not always the case with virtual stagers.

So if you’re trying to stage a new development or a high-end listing, then springing for a stager like Hasten might make sense for you. Of course, they might still be affordable for a one-off, but they don’t list their prices, so we can’t say for sure.

BoxBrownie: The Disruptor With a Great Price-to-Quality Ratio

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, chances are you have heard of, or even used, BoxBrownie in the last few years. They seem to be everywhere these days. If you’ve been to the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) or Inman Connect, you’ve likely met the friendly Aussies who run BoxBrownie. (Full disclosure: BoxBrownie bought us a very nice dinner at NAR in Manhattan a few years ago.)

There’s a good reason for this. BoxBrownie offers great quality services at an affordable price. Their virtual staging service is no exception. While the image quality might not be quite as striking as Hasten or other high-end services, it does the job and is affordable for most agents.

Spotless Agency: Highly Realistic Images at a Premium Price

Another relative newcomer to the virtual staging space, Spotless Agency offers drop-dead-gorgeous virtual staging, but at a slightly premium price. Coming in at a hefty $79 per image with only one round of edits, Spotless is more than double the price of BoxBrownie. So it’s up to you (and your listing marketing budget) to decide if their image quality is twice as good.

One thing we really like about Spotless is that they show you their models of high-end furniture that you can pick for your staged photos.

VisualStager: The DIY App for Agents on a Tight Budget

If you’re on a very tight budget, want to do the virtual staging yourself, and aren’t too concerned with image quality, then VisualStager will work in a pinch. VisualStager charges agents based on a somewhat outdated credit system. Ten credits will set you back $15, which is enough to stage one photo. Of course, you will also need to pay one credit to remove the VisualStager watermark from the images.

Virtually Staging Properties: Good Quality, OK Pricing & a Solid Reputation

One of the earliest players in the space, Virtually Staging Properties (VSP) has been the go-to for agents looking for virtual staging for years. Their pricing is competitive with BoxBrownie, but for that price, you have to select the furniture you want. This might be great for agents with a flair for interior design, but others will struggle to put together a room. For custom staging, the price jumps to $60 per photo. Not exorbitant, but still more than BoxBrownie or roOomy. That said, they have a long history in the industry, so if reputation matters to you, VSP might be the way to go.

12 Virtual Staging Tips From Top Listing Agents

At the end of the day, which software or service you choose is far less important than learning the best practices of virtual staging for 2022. That’s why we reached out to our friends at Douglas Elliman to get their take on how to get the best bang for your buck from virtual staging in 2022. Here’s what they told us:

1. Always Include Unstaged Listing Pictures After Virtually Staged Pictures

Laura Copersino, Douglas Elliman, New York City

In order to help buyers understand just how much the right furnishings can improve a home, New York City Associate Broker Laura Copersino recommends including a picture showing the room vacant right after the staged picture. This can also help manage the buyer’s expectations and avoid having to overcome the inevitable disappointment that comes with seeing beautifully staged pictures online and then walking into a vacant home. Want to help remind buyers how great your vacant listing can look with the right furnishings? Laura has a brilliant solution: Print out the virtually staged picture on a nice canvas and hang it in the empty room.

 

2. Keep the Furnishings Neutral

Nancy Strong, Douglas Elliman, Westchester

Nancy Strong, a listing agent with Douglas Elliman in Westchester, New York, recommends keeping the furnishings neutral in order to help prospective buyers get a better sense of perspective and room size.

Here are a few more tips from Nancy:

• You have to take the time to go through the options; don’t rush it or assign it to an assistant unless you trust their taste fully.
• Don’t assume that what you choose will be sized correctly or in the manner you were hoping for on the first try. Make sure they allow for changes (one or two rounds should work), even if you have to pay extra for them.

 

3. Always Stage for Your Buyer Profile & Property Lifestyle

Jared Bonasera, Douglas Elliman, Texas

Jared Bonasera, Managing Director for the Development Marketing arm of Douglas Elliman, Texas, said that agents should always keep their buyer profile and property lifestyle in mind when virtually staging a listing. Even if you think you have an eye for interior design, don’t make the mistake of staging for yourself rather than your potential buyers. For example, you might love mid-century industrial design, but if you’re trying to virtually stage a beachfront condo in a senior community in Key West, a large number of your potential buyers might hate it.

 

4. Use Earth Tones to Make the Space More Inviting

Lauren Spiegel, Douglas Elliman, Hamptons

Lauren Spiegel, an agent in The Hamptons in New York, reminded us that choosing the right color theme for your virtually staged listing is crucial. She recommends using earth tones or soft beach colors to make a listing feel more inviting. She also pointed out that plants can help warm up a space and make it feel more inviting.

 

5. Make Sure the Images You Choose to Stage Have Great Lighting

Marci Williams, Douglas Elliman, New York City

Marci Williams, an agent in New York City, offered great advice that many newer agents might not think of: Always make sure that the pictures you choose to virtually stage have great lighting.

 

6. Add a Pop of Color to Make the Room Feel Alive

Ron Saltarrelli, Douglas Elliman, New York City

Ron Saltarrelli, an Associate Broker in Brooklyn, definitely agrees that muted colors like earth tones offer a clean, neutral palette that will help buyers imagine themselves in the home. However, he advises agents to add a subtle pop of color to the staged images in order to make the room feel more alive. He mentioned art specifically, but you could easily add a pop of color with a small rug, vases, flowers, or even children’s toys.

 

7. Use Virtual Staging to Compensate for What the Home Is Missing

Rebecca Orbach, Douglas Elliman, New York City

While you should never fake views out windows or make a listing sunnier than it is in reality, you can and should stage strategically to compensate for problems the listing might have. Here’s New York City Associate Broker Jessica Orbach with a few clever strategies:

“If the apartment is small or lacks closet space, have the virtual stager add furniture that offers storage. Instead of an L-shaped couch and chairs that take up more depth, opt for a standard couch and put the television on top of a deeper console that offers storage. Instead of night side tables, add nightstand-height dressers; the top still functions as a table while offering storage.”

 

8. Stage Using Current Design Trends, but Always Keep Your Audience in Mind

Cynthia Jacinta Keskinkaya, Douglas Elliman, New York City

Since today’s buyers are more design-savvy than ever, New York City Broker Cynthia Jacinta Keskinkaya recommends incorporating current design trends in your staging. Even if they don’t love the styling, it helps show buyers and your seller that you’re aware of the latest trends.

However, she also warned that knowing your audience is crucial, so don’t go overboard with whatever’s cool on Pinterest this week if the majority of your potential buyers aren’t quite as hip as you are.

 

9. Collaborate With Your Virtual Stager

Carol Staab, Douglas Elliman, New York City

Carol Staab reminded us that collaboration is key to working with any marketing freelancer. Make sure to take the time to talk with your virtual stager to make sure they understand the look you’re going for, your audience, and any other tips that will help make your virtually staged pictures get your phone to ring.

 

10. If the Listing Is Already Furnished, Include Pictures With the Current Decor

Tina Newman, Douglas Elliman, New York City

Contrary to popular belief, virtual staging is not just for empty homes. Today, stagers can remove outdated or ugly furniture and replace it with anything you want.

However, don’t think you can get away with not including images of how the home is currently furnished. Like with an empty home, always include pictures of what the home actually looks like with the current furnishings. Full disclosure and honesty will always pay off in the long run.

 

11. Label Each Picture With the Name of the Room

Lorna Leibowitz, Douglas Elliman, New York City

Sometimes virtually staged listing pictures can look so good that your buyers may become confused as to which room they’re looking at online.

This problem becomes 10 times worse if you stage the same room multiple ways.

In order to keep your buyer’s confusion to a minimum, always clearly label each picture with the room it’s showing.

 

12. Make Sure You Know the Company’s Revision Policy Before Hiring Them

Samantha Curry, Douglas Elliman, Florida

Unless you have total confidence in your virtual staging company, you should always ask about their revision policy before hiring them.

After all, even if you take the time to brief them well about the listing and your audience, they may not quite understand what you want. Most companies will offer one or more free revisions, so make sure to ask before you hire someone.

 

6 Before & After Images of Amazing Virtual Staging Transformations

If you want to persuade your seller that virtual staging is no longer optional for selling empty listings, then you need to show them, not tell them. Here are six before and after images that show the dramatic difference virtual staging can make in how your listing is presented online.

1. 100 Barclay Street, 21B, New York, NY

Listing agent: Tara King Brown, Corcoran Group

Virtual staging isn’t just for empty rooms—it also works amazingly well to show off the potential of outdoor spaces. These dramatic before and after pictures of an outdoor private terrace at 100 Barclay Street in Manhattan help turn an otherwise empty concrete space into a luxurious outdoor urban oasis.

2. 340 Guard Hill Road, Bedford, NY

Listing agent: Nancy Strong, Douglas Elliman

Dealing with empty rooms with busy details like this bedroom in a listing in Bedford, New York, can be tricky. Avoiding bold patterns and sticking to warm, neutral tones can make a visually busy room a bit more welcoming.

3. 196 East 75th Street, 17B, New York, NY

Listing agent: Rachel Lustbader, Warburg Realty

Probably the most dramatic transformation we’ve seen, Andrea Wernick of Warburg Realty in Manhattan basically created a luxurious living room from whole cloth here, uber-trendy fiddle leaf fig tree included!

4. 235 East 87th Street, 11B, New York, NY

Listing agent: Rachel Lustbader, Warburg Realty

Another dramatic transformation that uses warm earth tones to help make what would otherwise be a cold white room into a welcoming bedroom. Love that lamp!

5. 242 East 19th Street, 2FG, New York, NY

Listing agent: Rachel Lustbader, Warburg Realty

What good are built-in shelves when they have nothing on them? Virtual staging isn’t just for furniture. You can add books, knick-knacks, tchotchkes, plants, toys, or pretty much anything else that makes it look more like a home.

6. 400 East 56th Street, 26K, New York, NY

Listing agent: Warburg Realty

Sometimes you won’t have an empty room to deal with, but instead furniture that doesn’t quite fit the space or feels out of date. Why not swap out ugly carpet and add a divider screen to help separate an open space?

Over to You

Have great virtual staging software you swear by or a tip for our readers? Let us know in the comments.

The post The Best Virtual Staging Software & Tips for 2022 appeared first on The Close.

There are lots of lead generators out there; Real Geeks is more than that. It’s a self-contained strategy. In this article, we’re going to walk you through exactly what Real Geeks is, how it works, how much it costs, and ultimately reveal whether or not you should consider it for your real estate business.

Let’s get started!

What Does Real Geeks Actually Provide for Real Estate Agents?

While nobody has rolled out a true end-to-end solution for real estate professionals when it comes to managing your entire business, Real Geeks is getting close. Their suite of offerings includes high-converting, IDX-powered websites, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that integrates with their website to track lead activity, time-saving marketing tools, and lead generation strategies that will fill the top of your funnel.

Though there are a ton of different things that Real Geeks does for real estate agents, here are the five that, for our money, will have the biggest impact on your bottom line:

Check out the Real Geeks website to see their in-depth explainer videos about how the system all works together, or schedule a free demo.

Visit Real Geeks

Real Geeks Pricing

The price for Real Geeks starts at $299 per month for one or two users, plus $25 per month for each additional user. For this price, you get access to an IDX-enabled website, the Real Geeks CRM, and their vast library of how-to’s and strategy guides for effectively using their tools.

One of our favorite parts of the Real Geeks pricing model is the al a carte availability of extra services that you can add on as your business grows, allowing you to start small and add features as your real estate empire expands. Here’s a breakdown of those features and their costs:

Real Geeks Extended Pricing

Feature	Cost	Great For
Home Valuation Landing Pages	FREE w/ your base package purchase	Powering up your lead funnel and increasing your seller lead volume
Real Leads PPC & Facebook Marketing	$300 / month + ad spend	Real estate agents who want to integrate Google & Facebook Ads into their marketing strategy but don’t have the time to do it themselves

Curious about where Real Geeks stacks up against similar platforms? Check out the comparison table below:

Real Geeks’ Competitor Pricing Comparison

Platform	Users	Monthly Cost	Additional Cost per User	Setup	Commitment	Advertising
Real Geeks	1-2	$299 (some features are additional)	$25	$250	12 months	Additional
kvCORE	1-100	$499-$1,800	N/A	$900-$1,800	12 months	Additional
Chime	1-100	$299-$899	$15	Waived if prepaid	12 months	Additional
BoomTown	1-25	$1,000-$1,500	N/A	$750-$1,700	12 months	Additional

Going Deeper: A Closer Look at the Most Important Real Geeks Features

Now that you know the basics of what Real Geeks can do for you and how much it costs, let’s dig into the major features a little bit deeper. Here’s exactly what you need to know about our five favorite features of the Real Geeks platform and how they might help you close more deals.

Real Geeks IDX Websites: The Hub of Your Marketing Wheel

Your real estate website is the hub of your marketing wheel. This is where you direct traffic using other Real Geeks tools like Real Leads and the Facebook Marketing Platform, and ultimately, this is where that traffic turns into leads.

Real Geeks websites have all the features you’d expect, including a blogging tool, limited customization options, and lots of calls to action to convert your traffic into leads. Where Real Geeks stands out is their dynamic mapping functionality, the ability clients and prospects have to seamlessly transition from the desktop experience to a customized mobile app, and, of course, the direct link between the website and the CRM, transferring your leads’ activities straight into their contact profile, making meaningful conversations with them later easier.

For those of you who geek out (see what we did there?) over the details like we do, Real Geeks also offers really solid search engine optimization (SEO), A/B testing options for landing pages, an easy-to-use back-end interface, and a fully integrated IDX, not i-framed in. Not sure what all this means? Don’t stress. There’s a ton of resources on the Real Geeks website to get you in the loop on all your options.

The short version of the story is that the websites are set up for success from a client-facing perspective as well as behind the scenes.

Real Geeks CRM: Your Lead Nurturing Control Center

Your Real Geeks website is where your prospects, leads, and clients interact with the Real Geeks ecosystem, but the CRM is where you, as the agent, spend most of your time. Though the dashboard and interface aren’t anything fancy, the clean design and well-organized profiles are a breath of fresh air. We’ve test-driven a lot of CRMs; it’s easy to overwhelm a user with too much information in too little space. Thankfully, that’s not the case with Real Geeks.

You get standard CRM functionality here like custom email drip sequences, comprehensive lead profiles, and mass communication options. It also has a built-in SMS texting interface that allows you to communicate via text right from your desktop and schedule messages to go out whenever you want or as a part of drip sequences. The open and read rates for text messages can be as high as 98%, making this a powerful strategy, especially for the first contact with new leads from your website.

Speaking of websites, it bears repeating how powerful the linkage is between your Real Geeks website and the CRM. Not only do you have your leads’ website activity right in their CRM profile, but you can also use this information to schedule automated communication flows based on how often website visitors are viewing particular properties, saving searches, or favoriting homes for sale.

Real Geeks Property Valuation Lead Magnet: The Ultimate Conversation Starter

There’s a basic formula in real estate lead generation that just about every strategy uses: Entice leads with something of value, and before actually delivering it to them, require their contact information. When it comes to potential homesellers, there isn’t much they want more than an estimate of the value of their home. This is why, despite being relatively maligned by real estate agents everywhere, the Zestimate remains such a popular feature.

Real Geeks delivers on this desire with their customizable, unlimited home valuation landing pages, offering would-be homesellers an estimate on their home’s value and giving you the lead information you need to start a conversation.

You might be asking yourself, “Why would I need more than one home valuation landing page?”

Well, if you’ve read our article on real estate farming, you know that the more targeted your media and marketing is, the more effective it is. With unlimited options for landing pages, Real Geeks users can create a home valuation landing page for every major area of their market, allowing the ads they create using a Real Geeks service or their own strategy to be more targeted and therefore get higher click-through rates.

Real Geeks Real Leads: Harnessing the Power of Google for Lead Generation

What’s the most powerful website on the internet? No, it’s not Zillow, and no, it’s not your professional website (at least not yet). The most powerful website on the internet is Google; most people use this platform multiple times a day to search for what they need most. Real Geeks’ Real Leads platform lets you harness the power of this search engine and ad platform to show up in relevant search results every time one of your prospects is looking for real estate information.

A lot of real estate agents complain that they don’t have the time to learn Google Ads, and even those who do report the platform confusing and difficult to use, which is why for $574 a month plus your ad budget, the marketing experts at Real Geeks will manage your Google PPC campaigns for you. All you need to do is provide them with the information on who you want to target with the ads, where you want to send them (one of the home valuation landing pages or your website is usually a great start!), then you sit back and rake in the both buyer and seller leads.

We get it—$574 a month seems like a lot to spend on anything other than maybe a mortgage or a car loan, especially if you have to supply the ad budget on top of the monthly fee, but hear us out. A single listing that comes your way as a result of your PPC ads that sells for $200,000 (assuming a 3% commission) will get you a gross commission income (GCI) bump of $6,000. Just about any real estate agent in the country would happily agree to exchange $1,000 for $6,000, so, all you need is a single conversion per month to make this strategy wildly worthwhile.

PPC marketing shouldn’t be your only lead source; Real Leads should fit into your overall strategy for filling your lead funnel. For real estate agents who are looking to up their lead volume and diversify their lead sources, this is a great place to start.

Real Geeks Facebook Marketing Solutions: Turning Real Estate Agents Into Master Social Marketers

Successful social media marketing has two sides: organic and paid.

Examples of organic marketing include creating posts for your business page, going live at open houses and for property walk-throughs, and creating Facebook Groups for neighborhoods and communities.

Paid Facebook marketing is all about creating ads that will extend your reach beyond those who follow you organically and introduce your message to potential new clients. Facebook’s ad platform offers a lot of options for creating custom audiences, ad types, and delivery options. So many options, in fact, that many real estate agents find it overwhelming and difficult to use.

This is why the Real Geeks Facebook Marketing Tools are so helpful. Their self-serve platform streamlines and simplifies the ad creation learning curve, saving you up to 75% of the time you would be spending otherwise. If you want to get all the benefits of Facebook Ads but do none of the work, Real Geeks offers a concierge service similar to the sort of attention you get through their Real Leads platform that will do all the heavy lifting for you.

When leads come in from your Facebook Ads, they’re automatically populated into your CRM, allowing you to create communication drips so that contact is immediate and they’re directed down the lead funnel without you having to make a single click. Again, just like Google PPC ads, these should be a component of your lead generation strategy, not the whole kit and caboodle, but for agents looking to level up their game and become top producers in their market, diversifying their lead funnel with Facebook Ads is a must.

Where Does Real Geeks Come Up Short?

Real Geeks has a lot to offer, and we’ll be honest, we’re fans of their tools and all the ways they work together to create an overall strategy for real estate agents, but Real Geeks isn’t perfect. Here are some of the things we found left us wanting a little more.

Website Customization

Though there are some customization options, the Real Geeks websites are highly templated and there isn’t a lot you can do to create a customized experience for your visitors. For most agents, this isn’t a problem as long as the website is converting visitors into leads. But for real estate agents who have a very strong brand image and are looking for a specific aesthetic, layout, and design, you may run into some problems.

It’s worth mentioning here that most real estate websites struggle with this problem; this isn’t a unique issue for Real Geeks, so don’t discount this platform just because of this. If you feel like you need more customization options, make sure to check out our article on the six best real estate website builders of 2022.

Content Marketing Opportunities

Real Geeks’ websites have built-in blog sections, but the content management system, blogging resources, and strategies for content marketing are limited at best. For many agents, this isn’t a problem, but if you plan on leveling up your Google (and community) authority with an active blog to demonstrate your expertise in the real estate business, you’re not going to get many bells and whistles here.

For ardent content marketers, you’re probably going to be better off going completely custom; a WordPress site or even a site like Squarespace can provide you with the tools you need to get your content front and center.

Limited Agent Options on the Mobile App

Real Geeks offers a customized mobile app for agents to give to their customers and leads. Once logged into the app, the customer’s or lead’s experience is synced with their desktop website activity, importing their saved searches and favorited homes, now on a native mobile experience. This app is helpful, especially for clients who live in metropolitan areas where they may be frequently walking by real estate they want information on immediately.

However, the agent-facing mobile app—the one used to manage your CRM—is a little frustrating in its (lack of) capabilities, most notably the inability to respond to SMS messages in-app. Sure, you can switch over to the texting functionality of your phone for this, but not being able to respond in-app with a customer profile up in front of you is challenging.

Our Managing Editor, Emile L’Eplattenier, put together a list of the 29 Best Real Estate Apps for 2022. If you’re on the hunt for ways to improve your mobile real estate game, that’s a great place to start.

So… Is Real Geeks Worth It?

In short, yes. Real Geeks provides a comprehensive lead generation, website, and CRM strategy for real estate agents looking to break into the business, level up their game, or cement themselves as a top producer. There’s a decent monthly investment required in order to get the most out of Real Geeks, but agents who buy in will be rewarded with consistent positive return on investment (ROI).

That being said, Real Geeks isn’t a magic bullet. In order to get your money’s worth (and then some), you have to follow up relentlessly with your leads, stay top of mind with your current sphere of influence, and be proactive about expanding your reach beyond your organic following. Many agents who wind up frustrated with Real Geeks are so because their follow-up and lead nurturing game isn’t strong enough.

What Are Some Real Geeks Alternatives?

Real Geeks is far from the only provider of lead generation, website, and real estate CRM services. We suggest checking out our buyer’s guide for the Top 6 Real Estate Lead Generation Companies of 2022 as the best place to get started.

Where Can I Get Other Lead Generation Ideas to Use With Real Geeks?

Start by visiting our article, 37 Underrated Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas for 2022. Here, you’re going to get a fantastic overview of a ton of different ideas for real estate lead generation, including some great strategies to use on Real Geeks. After that, visit the popular How to Create a Real Estate Lead Generation Plan (+ Template) from real estate veteran Sean Moudry.

Your Turn

Have you used real estate lead generation platforms like Real Geeks before? Tell us about your experiences in the comments below, and if you’re sold on the platform, visit Real Geeks today to dig in.

Visit Real Geeks

The post Real Geeks Review: An In-depth Look at Pricing & Features appeared first on The Close.

Combining the state-of-industry IDX websites from Boston Logic, a rock solid and highly customizable Salesforce-based CRM, marketing tools, lead gen tools, and transaction management we think Propertybase is the new elephant in the room for real estate tech companies.

If you’re looking for a new CRM or an entire lead-to-close platform for an entire brokerage, then read our Propertybase review to hear what happened when we decided to kick the tires a bit.

Propertybase Pricing

Propertybase Salesforce Edition is ideal for larger teams and brokerages starting at $79/user per month with a minimum of 10 users. The additional IDX integrated website is an additional $299/month. You can also inquire about Propertybase GO—ideal for teams and brokerages of all sizes.

For the CRM this might be a little on the high end, but considering the features and quality of the platform we think it’s well worth the money.

For the entire platform CRM+IDX website, this is around the same price that competitors charge, that may or may not match Propertybase feature for feature.

The New Heart of Your Real Estate Business? A Closer Look at Propertybase’s CRM.

While it seems like everyone and their cousin is making a CRM these days, not all CRMs are created equal. Sure, you can get a CRM like Hubspot or Insightly that won’t cost you a dime, but at the end of the day you and your agents will find yourselves doing things the old fashioned way most of the time.

For example, will that free CRM talk to your MLS? Will it work with Zillow or BoldLeads without a liberal application of digital duct tape like Zapier? Can you build out pipelines and custom reporting? Will that effort have an ROI? Will it scale with your business as it grows?

If you’re going to take the time and effort to integrate technology into your business, you need a solid platform that can grow with you. Built on the industry standard Salesforce platform, Propertybase can do that and more.

Propertybase CRM Basic Features

One of the problems with choosing a great real estate CRM is that you sometimes don’t know what features you want until you start using them. That said, there are baseline features that every sales professional in real estate wants a CRM to do.

As you might imagine, Propertybase knocks the basic CRM features out of the park. Leads can be sent into Propertybase from pretty much anywhere, and can be segmented, set up on drip campaigns, and endlessly sliced and diced to match people with properties quickly and easily.

You can also create custom pipelines to track each stage of your deal from inquiry to nurture to close, and pull sophisticated reports to track your progress.

MLS Integration

Considering that Realtors’ primary role is to match people to properties, it boggles my mind that so few real estate CRMs manage to integrate MLS into their products. Instead, they expect their users to bounce back and forth between open tabs and copy/paste until their fingers get numb.

Sure, this isn’t really that big of a deal, but think of just how much time you spend juggling between your CRM and your MLS today. Most of you probably immediately tallied up a half hour or so, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case. Now, think about team leaders and broker owners. They need to multiply that haf hour by five, ten, or fifty. Suddenly, the money “saved” with a bargain basement CRM starts to evaporate. Quickly.

Propertybase allows you to manage MLS listings, search for and curate listings to add to drip campaigns, and more. Your agents might even start to abandon the MLS altogether.

Marketing Automation

While pretty much every CRM has marketing tools that can be automated, the vast majority of them seem to miss the mark. After all, a big part of matching people to properties is marketing those properties along with your brand. Here again MLS integration saves the day.

Bulk Email & Drip Campaigns

Want to automatically pull together a listing alert to send out to one lead or groups of leads? Well, instead of flipping back and forth between tabs, with Propertybase you can set these up automatically using any criteria your MLS allows. That means your leads will get basically custom listing updates without you lifting a finger.

Texting & Print Marketing

Since Realtors spend so much time texting back and forth with leads these days, having texting features in your CRM is a no brainer. While it doesn’t come as a standard feature for the CRM, Propertybase does offer texting that can be seamlessly integrated into your workflow for listing alerts, drip campaigns, etc.

You can even quickly design and send out flyers, letters, or other print materials right from the CRM. Once again, since you have MLS integration, you can automatically pull in listings instead of wearing out the control C and control V keys on your keyboard.

Reporting & Scalability for Teams & Brokerages

If you or anyone on your team is a numbers wonk, then you’ll find a lot to love in Propertybase. They seem to offer a widget, graph, or dial to display and compare pretty much any metric you or your team leader might want to see.

You can compare leads by source, total sales, response rates, conversion rates, and agent productivity at a glance. Even better, since Propertybase is on the Salesforce platform, you can set up your reporting and analytics dashboards to report on whatever it is you find important.

As far as scalability goes, Propertybase’s CRM is one you can use for the long haul. It comes standard with team features like listing management, lead assignment, and more. Combined with the IDX website and maybe a transaction management platform like their own Backagent or Dotloop, you can happily run a team or any size brokerage.

Ease of Use & UX Design

Like most CRMs on the market today, Propertybase is pretty easy to use once you get some guidance or spend some time poking around. Of course, since they offer so much to customize and an almost endless number of integrations from Salesforce, it’s also easy to fall down a rabbit hole. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, you’re going to need onboarding.

As far as UX design goes, Propertybase is a nice place to spend time and a joy to use. The layout is clean, friendly, and intuitive, and response rates are as snappy as you’d expect from enterprise quality software.

By the way, if aesthetics aren’t near the top of your CRM wishlist you might want to reconsider. First, think of the hours and hours per day you and your agents are going to spend staring at your CRM. Do you want to spend hours in an ugly, unprofessional looking workspace?

Lead Generation

With their recent acquisition of BoldLeads, Propertybase can now offer powerful purpose-built lead generation software to their already strong toolkit. They can generate buyer leads and seller leads with the added benefit of exclusivity. They’ve also seamlessly integrated BoldLeads into their system so no need to worry if your CRM has a BoldLeads integration.

Propertybase’s IDX Websites: Pretty, SEO Friendly, and Optimized for Lead Capture

Next, let’s take a look at the place where most all-in-one platforms let Realtors down. The IDX websites. Yes, they all technically have MLS listings and a place to hang your digital shingle, but like CRMs, not all websites are created equally.

Aesthetics

The biggest problem with most all-in-one platform IDX websites is that most of them look like what they are. An off the shelf solution they “customized”. Propertybase’s websites on the other hand look bespoke.

They offer excellent layout and typography, as well as the bells and whistles customers expect from high-end brands like parallax scrolling, video hero images, and professional looking lead capture.

SEO Friendliness

Yet another area where these packages fall short is SEO. Many Realtors think they’re going to rank on Google just for having a website. These days this couldn’t be further from the truth. It can take years of hard work to rank on Google at all, and if you don’t have the right strategy the chances of capturing leads from Google is pretty much zero.

Propertybase solves this by having great widgets and pages that can be customized with content and auto populated listing to laser target micro neighborhoods, types of homes, or even just sought after blocks or subdivisions. It can also generate custom market reports for the site or to send out to leads on a drip.

While ranking on Google will still take a lot of planning, time, and effort, the tools Propertybase offers give agents, teams, and brokerages a nice head start.

Lead Capture: Contact Forms, Pop-Ups, Landing Pages, & More

The days of using your website as a static brochure for your business are long gone. These days, if your website isn’t set up to capture leads you may as well not even bother. Propertybase websites offer lots of ways to capture leads.

You can set up landing pages for social media ads, home valuation, or pretty much anything you want. There are also lead capture forms that can be dropped into any page and feature any agent on your team.

Finally, you can set pop-ups to trigger when your visitors search for a certain length of time, or whenever you think they’ll be most likely to enter their contact info.

Live Example Websites

Want to see what a few good Propertybase websites look like in the wild? Check out these examples below.

• https://www.oceansir.com/
• https://www.flavinrealty.com/
• https://www.pinkrealty.com/
• https://www.coloradogrouprealty.com/
• https://www.nantucketrealtyadvisors.com/

Propertybase: The 30,000 Foot View

As a relatively new all-in-one platform Propertybase will tick pretty much every box that today’s Realtors, teams, and brokerages have. It combines a rock solid Salesforce-based CRM with MLS integration, and killer IDX websites that work together seamlessly. Throw in an available transaction management platform and you may not need to buy any more software ever.

The post Propertybase Review: The (Old) New Kids on The Block Get Serious appeared first on The Close.