Complete Guide to Building a Real Estate Team
How to build a real estate team with a step-to-step guide: real estate team structure guidelines, important roles & tips for building a successful...
The BEST real estate agent tools, apps & software you need to grow your business! Realtor lead generation, CRM, accounting, transaction coordination & more.
Managing a real estate office takes a lot of work. Without good systems in place, simply managing your current clients, appointments, and paperwork can hold you back from growing your business.
As you surely already know, there are thousands of options for apps, tools, and software for real estate agents in every stage of their career. You’ll find solutions for more effective lead generation and nurturing and automated scheduling, transaction management and coordination, offer management, and systems that improve productivity and communication. Where do you start?
At Transactly, we make it our business to make you look good with tech-supported transaction coordinators and transaction coordinator software you can even use yourself. Of course, we don’t try to do it all, and neither should you! Here are essential tools for real estate agents to make your life easier and free up time for what’s important.
Lead generation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are separate but incredibly related aspects of your business. Depending on your preference and needs, you may want a single platform that does both or you may prefer dedicated real estate lead generation software and a separate platform for CRM management.
Choosing real estate CRM is a big decision. There are seemingly limitless options, and it’s a big commitment that may mean disrupting your entire lead generation system. Because Customer Relationship Management software is at the heart of your business, it pays to put the work into choosing the right platform.
Top real estate agents are twice as likely to use lead management and CRM software compared to less successful agents!
The best CRM software for real estate agents:
Next, consider your needs before choosing a CRM for real estate. The right CRM will depend on the size of your real estate business, whether you are managing a team, and what will best support your specific goals.
You may want a straightforward project management tool you can use as a CRM. Some real estate agents prefer an open system which integrates with other tools. Open systems let you pick and choose the right platforms for specific needs so they can work together. An all-in-one CRM system handles all aspects of lead generation.
Ready to get started? Here are some top picks for CRM software for Realtors to grow your business.
While perhaps not best for new agents, CINC is arguably the best real estate CRM software for real estate agents and teams with powerful lead generation tools. The platform offers:
CINC has four products starting at $600 to $1,200 per month for a single agent with add-on costs like leads starting at $500 per month.
The biggest drawback, aside from the cost, is CINC takes a long time to master. It’s robust, but the system is rather clunky and not very intuitive.
Cost: $299/month plus $350 to onboard 1-2 agents, additional cost for PPC management and seller lead generation
Real Geeks is powerful real estate sales software that combines marketing, lead generation, nurturing, tracking, and reporting, and more. Here’s why Real Geeks is a favorite among real estate agents:
Cost: $60/month to $105/month per user
Top Producer is a real estate CRM software designed specifically for agents. Campaigns, templates, and processes are all crafted for real estate for a more intuitive system and the features you really need without a lot of bloat.
Stand-out features include:
Cost: $45/month or $456/year
IXACT Contact is a unique CRM platform for real estate agents because it not only helps you manage relationships and nurture leads, it also helps you track revenue.
This CRM software for Realtors is designed to manage all your contacts and referrals as well as transactions, expenses, and revenue attached to each profile. It also has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to adopt.
Cost: $553/year
Copper is a CRM platform designed for agents who use Google Workspace and Gmail. You’ll find it very easy to manage contacts, market listings and open houses, and nurture leads through Google Calendar and Gmail.
Copper automatically tracks and inputs all communications including account details, leads, emails, and contacts. By integrating with ActivePipe, you can nurture leads with tailored email campaigns and funnel leads into personalized workflows.
Cost: Free
HubSpot is one of the most popular options if you’re looking for free real estate CRM software. It offers tools like lead generation, live chat, email integration, and contact management.
HubSpot excels as an inbound marketing tool for real estate agents. They also offer great free tools like templates, personalization and snippets so you can recall emails and responses you use frequently and tailor them to each recipient.
Cost: $15/month or $144/year
Already use Realtyzam accounting software? They also offer CRM software for real estate agents with an easy-to-use platform that’s designed to be as simple as possible. Track sales activity, manage leads, and get reminders to get in touch with clients.
One of the greatest challenges in growing a real estate business and managing an office is the amount of work that goes into generating, nurturing, and converting leads. You may have team members devoted to cold calling, marketing, answering calls, and scheduling appointments, but there’s probably an easier way with these top lead generation tools for real estate agents.
Cost: $39/month per agent or $500/month for brokerages
This simple but powerful Realtor lead generation tool scours the MLS for listings matching your clients’ criteria. New listings are automatically emailed to your clients with branded emails that look like they came from you directly. You can sort properties by over 400 criteria to send clients the best matches for what they’re looking for.
The RealScout platform also includes a branded home search portal that displays accurate MLS data, team functionality, and other tools to generate leads.
Cost: Starting at $299/month for 100 contacts
Structurely helps you spend less time qualifying leads and more time closing. Their real estate software solution works like another member of your team to:
Not ready for a real estate virtual assistant? Try an AI assistant to help manage leads! Using pre-built, optimized real estate scripts (or your own scripts) for new and old leads, sellers, and buyers, Structurely sends all lead conversations to your CRM in real time and mirrors your CRM lead routing rules. Best of all, you can jump in and take over the conversation at any time!
Cost: $139/month (for 2,000 contacts)
Revaluate is a simple solution to significantly boost the conversion rate of your cold calling campaign. It helps you generate leads by using predictive analytics to identify homeowners in your area likely to move within 3-6 months based on social media, demographic, and consumer data.
Cost: $60/month
Redx is real estate prospecting software with a unique purpose: it gives you access to expired listings and aging FSBO listings to help you identify potential prospects. As you create prospect lists, the included Storm Dialer can automatically dial numbers while displaying relevant information.
This is one of the best alternatives to cold calling and a great investment!
Cost: $18/month or $180/year
FreshDesk lets leads and clients contact you from their preferred channel, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and iMessage, with a single inbox. Automation assigns the communications to the right person in the office and the system supports team collaboration.
Fast response times and allowing leads to contact you how they prefer means a higher chance of converting them into a client!
Cost: $99/month for Cloud Agent bundle
One of the most popular real estate lead generation tools, Cloud Attract lets you create attractive landing pages that target either buyers or sellers. Choose from more than one dozen professionally designed templates, select the information you want to collect, and your landing page will be automatically generated. You can then customize it with your own imagery, copy, fonts, Google Analytics ID, and more. Generated leads appear in a tab with email notifications.
While you’re busy meeting clients, showing homes, generating leads, and overseeing transactions, it can be challenging to stay on top of bookkeeping and expense tracking. Still, this less glamorous side of running a real estate business is important.
Here’s the best accounting software for real estate agents and expense tracking tools.
Cost: $15 to $180 per month (free trials and discounts often offered)
QuickBooks Online is a leading choice for accounting software for Realtors with tools that make it easy to grow your real estate business. Here are some reasons QuickBooks is the go-to option for real estate agents:
Most agents only need the Simple Start plan which is about $25 per month.
Cost: $12/month or $120/year
Realtyzam is unique because it was designed specifically for real estate agents. This cloud-based real estate accounting software offers basic accounting as an affordable alternative to QuickBooks for Realtors.
Realtyzam is a great choice if you want a simple system for tracking expenses and generating reports for taxes.
Cost: Free trial, $6/month or $60/year
MileIQ is a more robust app for Realtors that tracks mileage. It uses automatic drive detection so you don’t need to worry about turning tracking on and off, and you can automatically classify common routes to track business and personal miles. It even offers mileage tracking for real estate teams!
MileIQ reports an average deduction of $7,022 for MileIQ users.
Cost: Free
The average Realtor spends $1,200 per year on their vehicle, according to NAR! You spend so much time in your car and traveling as an agent, it’s crucial to track your mileage and travel expenses. For most agents, the mileage deduction is one of the biggest tax deductions they claim!
Stride is a free mileage tracking app that’s easy to use. Just turn on the mileage logger when you start driving and turn it off when you’re done. You can log other travel expenses as you go. At tax time, Stride creates an IRS-ready tax form.
While free, this tool isn’t designed for agents and it’s very basic.
Cost: Included with QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-Employed
Already using QuickBooks for real estate agents? QuickBooks also offers a mileage tracker app that automatically detects when you’re driving. Swipe left on trips to mark them as business miles. Tracked miles will be automatically transferred to your real estate bookkeeping software.
Because it’s linked with your other real estate business expenses, QuickBooks will determine how much you can deduct for you. The downside is it has an added cost that’s higher than competitors like MileIQ.
From paperless open houses to streamlined and automated scheduling, these top real estate agent tools can simplify many areas of your business.
Cost: Free for basics and $8 to $16/month per person
Calendly is one of the best real estate apps for agents to stay on top of scheduling and appointments. Here’s why real estate agents love using Calendly:
Cost: $25/month for agents, $100/month for 5-agent teams, and $145/month for brokerages and offices
Ditch the clipboards and sign-in sheets with Spacio, an automated paperless open house app. This simple app helps you capture leads from virtual and in-person events, communicate with buyers and sellers, and even market listings.
Cost: Free
RPR and the RPR Mobile app are essential tools for real estate agents who need on-the-go research and fast answers. A subsidiary of NAR, RPR gives you access to the data you need during showings and meetings while allowing you to create comparative market analysis reports on the go.
This app for Realtors is perfect for getting quick answers to client questions with a tool to search neighborhoods and zip codes and share property photos with your clients.
Cost: $348/year
Wise Agent is simple, yet it’s one of the most effective real estate agent marketing tools for email automation. This real estate CRM software lets you set up campaigns that run themselves. Choose the number of emails (events) and days between events or fixed dates then use pre-made templates or create your own.
The Wise Agent platform is rather outdated, but it’s easy to learn and helps you break up the lead nurturing process into several steps without getting overwhelmed.
Cost: Free for 10 transactions and unlimited eSignatures, $29/month for Premium
Dotloop is leading real estate closing software that helps you stay on top of transactions. Dotloop helps agents and brokers collaborate, provides reporting, and manages transactions from opening to closing.
One of the best uses of Dotloop is making sure offers and closing documents are signed. After opening a “loop,” you can add property information and upload documents with notes indicating where they need to be signed. Each field can be assigned to the appropriate party. Recipients can easily add eSignatures with real-time notifications.
Cost: Free for basic, $39/month for Pro with custom templates and seller dashboards
This web platform and app is one of the top agent tools for streamlining disclosures. The free tool for Realtors lets you share information, disclosures, pre-sale inspections, natural hazard reports, and more with interested parties and track activity.
You can create packages for sellers or buyers with the property information, photos, a video tour, and uploaded documents. You can even integrate DocuSign!
Cost: $25/month per user or $240/year for Realtors
DocuSign is one of the best tools for Realtors to reduce paperwork and streamline transactions. DocuSign eSignatures are a trusted solution to keep clients happy and save time with a secure cloud platform. NAR members get exclusive reduced pricing!
One of the most time-consuming aspects of running a real estate office is staying on top of the paperwork and all the details that go into seeing a transaction to closing. It’s easy to get overwhelmed managing appointments and deadlines, checking signatures, and coordinating communications.
Are you tired of paying the high cost for real estate management software while trying to manage your business with dozens of tools? As great as these Realtor tools are, you can free up more time from administrative tasks and benefit from a robust platform that keeps you in control.
Transactly is real estate transaction management software that gives you a central hub to manage everything and a real estate TC who takes care of the details.
The Transactly platform can be used on your own or with a transaction coordinator.
Use customizable templates, automated reminders, document management, reporting, and the Transactly Hub which integrates with Dotloop, DocuSign, Gmail, Google Calendar, and more. You can even streamline the offer process by providing a unique listing link that allows parties to submit offers which can be reviewed and managed in real time!
For just $95 per year, you can combine our tech-enabled platform with a dedicated transaction coordinator and live support. For a flat fee per transaction, your US-based TC handles everything from reviewing paperwork and ensuring compliance to scheduling, monitoring key dates, coordinating signatures, and monitoring closing.
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