How to Choose a Real Estate CRM

Crm,Business,Customer,Crm,Management,Analysis,Service,Concept,Business,TeamAs a real estate agent, you know that leads offer the promise of new business, and nurturing those leads is one of the most important parts of your job. But you’re also busy managing your business and trying to juggle everything at once. Sometimes, following up with a lead falls through the cracks, even with the best of intentions.

Thankfully, there’s software available that can help you streamline lead management and make sure that no potential client is left behind. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system helps you manage leads and interactions.

Using a CRM will help you:

  • Save time by automating repetitive tasks like follow-ups and reminders, allowing you to focus on building relationships with clients.
  • Stay organized by centralizing all of your lead and client information in one place, so you never lose track of important details.
  • Increase your lead conversion rates by ensuring consistent communication and follow-up with potential clients.
  • Access important data on the go with cloud-based solutions that allow you to manage your business from anywhere.
  • Make data-driven decisions through advanced reporting tools that track your performance, helping you improve your strategies over time.

By incorporating a CRM into your real estate business, you can streamline your daily operations, enhance client relationships, and boost overall efficiency.

Why a CRM is Essential for Realtors

If you’re like most people, your contact details are scattered across various notebooks, phone contacts, post-it notes, and scraps of paper. Relying on mental notes or planners might work when you have few clients, but you’ll need a better system as your business grows.

What would happen in your business if you forgot to follow up with an interested lead? A missed follow-up can lead to missed opportunities, resulting in potential clients opting for competitors who offer more timely communication.

That’s why many realtors turn to using a CRM in their businesses to help ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

How CRM Systems Improve Organization and Efficiency

CRM Circle Diagram | AgentAdvice.comUsing a CRM in real estate not only centralizes contact information and follow-up tasks but also brings a suite of automation tools to streamline your daily operations. CRMs can automate follow-up processes by scheduling reminders and sending personalized emails, ensuring no potential client slips through the cracks inadvertently. Additionally, these systems allow agents to track the progress of deals through customizable stages, offering clear visibility into every transaction.

By organizing contacts, enhancing follow-up efficiency, and providing deal-tracking mechanisms, real estate CRMs empower agents and brokerages to manage their workload more effectively, freeing up time to focus on nurturing client relationships and closing deals.

However, not all CRMs are equal, so choosing one tailored specifically to the real estate industry is important.

Key Features to Look For When Choosing a Real Estate CRM

Now that you know the basics of why a CRM is essential, let’s explore the key features to look for when choosing a real estate CRM.

Contact and Lead Management

A robust contact and lead management feature helps you stay organized, nurture relationships, and maximize conversions. Look for a CRM that allows you to easily capture and organize contact information, track communication history, assign leads to other agents or teams, and segment leads based on criteria such as location, property preferences, or lead source.

Your CRM should let you see, at a glance, who needs a follow-up this week, so nothing slips through the cracks.

Automation and Workflows

pexels-pixabay-39559CRM automation streamlines repetitive tasks and reduces human error, saving you time. The most common tasks you’ll want to automate are:

  • Follow-ups
  • Drip campaigns
  • Task reminders

Taking advantage of these workflows and automations help you ensure consistent communication with leads and clients, increases your efficiency, and enhances your customer satisfaction.

MLS Integration

Every realtor needs a CRM that comes with MLS (Multiple Listing Service) Integration. You gain access to real-time property data — such as property details, photos, pricing, and availability — directly within your CRM platform. No more switching between multiple systems to get the information that you need to the client who needs it.

Having MLS integrated into your real estate CRM helps you:

  • Simplify property searches by allowing you to easily filter properties
  • Streamline your workflows with real-time property data
  • Easily connect with clients by sending them up-to-date property listings that match their criteria
  • Saves you hours of manually updating listings across platforms

Email Marketing and Campaigns

Many real estate CRM systems provide built-in robust email marketing features, including the ability to create and send personalized emails, newsletters, or automated campaigns to your contacts and leads. We recommend using these features to nurture your leads, stay engaged with your clients, and help drive conversions by staying top of mind.

Look for a tool that lets you segment your email lists, track email open rates and click-through rates, and analyze your campaign performance so you can get a better understanding of which strategies work best for your audience.

Mobility Capabilities

When evaluating options for a real estate CRM, look for a cloud-based solution over a traditional software system. Not only does this allow you to access it from anywhere, ideal for real estate agents constantly on the go, but it also means your data is always secure and automatically backed up.

Having the data at your fingertips lets you stay connected with your leads and clients, manage tasks and appointments, and access important information anytime, anywhere.

Reporting and Analytics

You can’t make data-driven decisions without comprehensive reporting and analytics to give you insights into your business performance.

Common key metrics to track include:

  • Lead conversion rates
  • Sales pipeline
  • Revenue generation
  • Marketing return on investment

When you take advantage of these reporting features, you’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your strategies, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions for your business operations.

Integration with Third-Party Tools

Whether it’s integrating with your email provider to automate communication or connecting with social media channels to manage ad campaigns, having everything in one place leads to improved efficiency and data consistency, proving indispensable in your day-to-day activities.

Common third-party tools include:

Having these integrations allows for seamless communication and data sharing across platforms into your CRM, making your job as a real estate agent more streamlined.

Customization and Scalability

The system you choose needs to fit your unique business needs. Having a customizable real estate CRM allows you to tailor fields, forms, and workflows to align with your existing processes. This customization makes it easier to adapt the tool as your business needs evolve.

Scalability is equally important — you want a CRM that grows with your business, accommodating an expanding client base and evolving real estate market conditions.

Look for a real estate CRM that offers flexible plans and additional features that can be added as required to support your operations effectively, especially as your business experiences growth and change over time.

How to Evaluate Real Estate CRM Options

pexels-yankrukov-7691740Every realtor is different, and deciding which real estate CRM to use goes beyond asking for recommendations from colleagues and looking at Best Real Estate CRM articles online. What works great for one realtor might not be the best fit for another. 

When evaluating CRM options for your real estate business, we recommend:

Defining Your Goals and Challenges

Consider your primary goals and challenges so you can align with them the CRM features that directly address those needs.

  • If improving lead conversion rates is a priority, look for CRM features that offer advanced lead scoring and tracking capabilities. This ensures you can identify and prioritize high-potential leads effectively.
  • If enhancing client communication is a challenge, consider CRMs with robust communication tools, like automated follow-ups and personalized email campaigns, to maintain consistent engagement with your clients.
  • If managing multiple listings is time-consuming, MLS integration and automation capabilities can save you hours of manual work.

By clearly defining your objectives — whether it’s streamlining team collaboration, automating repetitive tasks, or managing a growing client database — you can pinpoint CRM features that will directly address these needs.

When choosing a real estate CRM, make sure its features match your business goals. This alignment not only boosts its effectiveness but also helps you face challenges directly, promoting growth and success in your real estate ventures.

Evaluating Pricing Structures

pexels-breakingpic-3305Costs for a real estate CRM vary depending on whether you’re a solo agent or part of a larger team. Understanding how different CRMs structure their pricing will help you make an informed decision that aligns with your business needs.

Solo agents might opt for a more budget-friendly plan with essential features, while larger teams may require more advanced functionalities, like collaboration tools and enhanced scalability. Many CRMs offer tiered pricing, allowing you to choose a plan based on the number of users, contacts, or specific features needed.

When reviewing pricing options, it’s important to assess both the initial investment and any ongoing costs, such as subscription fees or paid add-ons. Some CRMs also allow for plan customization, which means you can negotiate for specific features or pricing that suits your business needs.

Testing Usability

When choosing your real estate CRM, opt for solutions with intuitive interfaces and comprehensive onboarding support to ensure that you and your team can quickly adapt to the system, maximizing its potential to streamline your operations.

A CRM tool that is difficult to learn, navigate, or fit within your existing workflows is likely to be underutilized or even abandoned all together, defeating the purpose of using a CRM.

Ensuring Reliable Support

Like any new tool, there’s always a learning curve, and having reliable customer service or a strong community support network will help you adapt to using your new real estate CRM. Whether you need assistance with troubleshooting a specific use case or want to share best practices with fellow users, having access to knowledgeable support can make your experience seamless and productive.

Common CRM Mistakes to Avoid

Once you’ve chosen your real estate CRM and implemented it into your business operations, make sure to steer clear of common mistakes that could hinder its effectiveness:

  • Failing to Personalize Interactions: Many agents collect demographic data in their CRM but don’t use it effectively to personalize client interactions. Tailoring communication and property suggestions based on client preferences and needs can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates.
  • Not utilizing automation: One of the most significant advantages of using a CRM is automating repetitive tasks, freeing up more time for you to focus on higher-value activities.
  • Failing to keep data updated: A CRM is only as useful as the data it holds. Make sure to regularly update contact information, property details, and other relevant information to ensure accurate insights.
  • Ignoring analytics: Use the reporting and analytics features provided by your CRM to track progress, measure success, and identify areas for improvement. This valuable data can inform future decisions and help you optimize your real estate business.

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Final Tips for Choosing the Right Real Estate CRM

Choosing the right real estate CRM is a personal choice that fits your unique business needs.

Here are some final tips to guide you in making an informed decision:

  • Ensure that the CRM you select aligns seamlessly with your business goals. A system that supports your unique vision and objectives can become a powerful ally in enhancing your workflow and client interactions.
  • Take advantage of trial periods offered by CRM providers. Testing a few systems allows you to experience firsthand how each one fits into your daily operations. This trial phase is crucial for understanding which CRM feels intuitive and efficient for you and your team.
  • Consider the long-term support and scalability of the CRM. As your business grows, your CRM should be able to grow with you, offering features that adapt to your expanding needs. Look for providers who offer robust support options to ensure that your system continues to serve you well into the future.

Remember, the best CRM is the one you and your team will actually use. It should simplify your processes, not complicate them.

Now that you know what to look for in a CRM, are you ready to start your search for the best CRM for your business? Be sure to check out our article, which gives an overview of the best CRM tools for real estate agents.

Authored by Chris Heller

About the Author

Chris Heller brings 27 years of experience in real estate. Chris serves on the Agent Advice Editorial Board and is the Chief Real Estate Officer at OJO Labs. Chris brings deep expertise having held influential industry positions including CEO of mellohome and former CEO of Keller Williams Realty International.

Last Updated: 10/13/2024