What is a real estate CRM?

Relationships are critical for success in the real estate industry. Agents can spend weeks, months, and even years building a strong relationship with their renter and homebuyer clients. This involves everything from finding new leads, establishing trust with your clients, and keeping tabs on where your clients are in their renting or buying journeys. 

As you garner more relationships, keeping in touch with everyone and personalizing your communications with them, can quickly become overwhelming. To help you stay on top of your relationships, consider enlisting the help of a real estate CRM. 

What is a real estate CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a marketing and sales tool that helps individuals keep track of every current and potential new client. For agents, a real estate CRM can help you manage customer outreach, streamline your transactions, and organize details about each of your clients. CRM software consolidates the various tools you’d need to nurture your leads and, because this data is stored in the cloud, enables you to conduct your business on the go. 

According to the latest National Association of REALTORS® study, 46% of REALTORS listed CRM software as one of their most impactful technology tools. As for how valuable a great CRM tool is? Nearly one-third (32%) of REALTORS said their CRM software provided them with the highest number of quality leads in the last 12 months. 

Why you need a real estate CRM

A healthy real estate business depends heavily on an agent’s ability to consistently attract new leads and maintain a healthy relationship with past clients. Given the demands of an agent’s workday, they need a solution that helps them both stay organized and can keep up with their on the go lifestyle. 

A real estate CRM solution offers agents and Realtors a centralized, digital platform where they can easily manage and find information about their clients and prospects. With this level of detail accessible from anywhere, agents are better equipped to personalize their client communications and show they really understand what their clients' needs are. 

A CRM solution also takes away the manual labor required to input and track prospects and customers via spreadsheet. By eliminating the need for repetitive data entry by hand, CRM tools can increase an agent’s efficiency and productivity, helping agents quickly build rapport with their clients before the competition can lure them away. Lastly, having a real estate CRM solution ensures agents can track their marketing efforts and learn from what campaigns worked, what underperformed, and identify ways to refine their strategies for future outreach. 

Benefits of a real estate CRM

A CRM tool offers numerous benefits to agents and Realtors and gives agents the power to:

1. Identify sales opportunities

Fostering loyal connections with renters is essential in transitioning them over to homebuyers. Easily keep track of where your clients are on their homebuying journey and document what they’re looking for in a future home in your CRM software. With a CRM tool, you can identify which of your clients is ready to start talking about home ownership and who might be renting for the foreseeable future. 

2. Consolidate your client data

CRMs allow real estate professionals to ethically collect and store data on their buying and renting clients, as these tools only collect necessary information related to transactions and client behaviors. By using a CRM, agents can stay organized, personalize their communications with clients, and keep an eye out for properties that align with their client’s specific needs. And you can track the status of multiple leads at once, ensuring you’re always reaching out and following up at the appropriate times with the right content. 

3. Manage property details

Having property details ready at any moment can help an agent more effectively close a deal for a prospective buyer. In addition to keeping contact details organized, CRMs can help agents catalog the properties they manage and make them easy to find and send to interested clients. Plus, you can keep an eye on local listings in your area when you integrate your CRM with other real estate websites and MLSs. 

4. Automate follow-ups

One of the biggest mistakes an agent can make is not following up with prospective clients in a timely and personalized manner. With a CRM, you can automate your follow-up emails so you never miss a point of communication and always stay top of mind with your clients. Given the speed of real estate transactions, and how quickly properties can fly off the market, CRM automation ensures you’re never overlooking a relationship or passing up on a prospective deal. 

How to choose the right CRM tool for you

With the right real estate CRM tool, you can quickly grow your business while strengthening the relationships between you and your clients. When evaluating the different types of CRM solutions on the market, consider factors like:

• Ease of use. Perhaps the most important consideration when picking new software is how easy it is to set up and use. Look for a CRM tool that is straightforward and offers a quick, intuitive set up so you’re not wasting time getting started.
  
  
• Compatibility with existing tech stack. Another factor to evaluate is how seamlessly your CRM tool will integrate with the other tools you use to perform your job. Whatever CRM tool you end up choosing, make sure it has an open API that works with your other tools and doesn’t require additional workarounds.
  
  
• Mobile applications. Real estate agents are constantly on the go, and it’s important that your CRM tool is also able to travel with you wherever you are. A cloud-based CRM software can be accessed from both your mobile and desktop device, making it the ideal tool for any agent. Just remember to check a CRM tool’s security features to ensure your data is always protected.
  
  
• Robust reporting. A great CRM tool does more than organize contact details and send follow-up communications. It should also tell you how effective your outreach and marketing campaigns are in driving and converting leads. Look for a CRM tool that offers easy-to-read reports and an intuitive dashboard so you can analyze your outreach activities. 

Real estate CRM tools give agents the ability to deliver unparalleled customer experiences, nurture client relationships, and support their real estate business goals. As one of the most effective tools any real estate professional can have in their arsenal, the right CRM tool can help an agent find success in a competitive industry and position themselves as a leader in real estate.