Like any other business, real estate has also adopted the latest technologies to reduce cost and improve productivity. Instead of cold-calling clients, going door-to-door, and working diligently to have face-to-face interactions. Companies can streamline the lead process – from acquisition to closing – thanks to dedicated software. No matter if you are a broker or an agent, the secret to your success lies in choosing the right software for property management
With the increasing demand for technology in property, businesses can harness expanding opportunities by using the right software. Due to the advancement of technology and accessibility, around 41% of buyers and 54% of sellers have bought or rent a property without visiting the physical place. Moreover, 56-58% of them prefer to close a deal virtually when there’s a great distance involved. The revenue of the global real estate market is expected to grow by 4,263.7 trillion dollars by 2025.
But, how to choose the custom software, and what features should businesses search for? Here you will find everything you need to know about Real Estate Software.
Table of Contents
What is Real Estate Software?
Real Estate Software is a tool designed to help professionals manage leads, customer contacts, client inquiries, marketing campaigns, hunting and listing new properties, and after-sales services. It provides an entirely streamlined process for sales activities, opportunity hunting, and inventory management. From acquisition to selling a property, all of the activities involved are managed through a single and centralized platform.
Now, let’s discuss the types of Real Estate Software:
Types of Real Estate Software
There are four general types of Real Estate Software:
Real Estate CRM Software
This type of software helps to manage communication with clients. With an online CRM tool, brokers can collect clients' information such as their contact details, requirements for the property, budget, etc.
This centralized platform will let you:
- Manage Data
- You can add new information about the client and delete the unnecessary one. You can update the information anytime regarding their changing needs.
- Lead Nurturing Automation
- With a real estate CRM solution, you can tag clients with categories. The system will send them automatic emails and notifications whenever there is an opportunity they might be interested in. The tool also manages auto-responding to incoming texts.
- Contract Management System
- Helps to manage all your contracts with buyers and sellers. It also provides an option to set deadlines to set reminders for future transactions.
Without CRM software, keeping track of clients' needs and the transaction is slow. A CRM package should arguably be the first thing you get to be as responsive as possible to clients.
Real Estate ERP Software
An ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning System. This type of tool is mainly designed to manage day-to-day business activities. It allows professionals to keep track of accounting activities, manage projects and risks. Brokerage houses need it to help them analyze their business's overall progress, commission ROI, and insights into how each office performs.
The Real Estate ERP software handles the most crucial tasks for brokers and agents. It lets people visualize how well their brokerage is doing and get valuable insights to help the business stay one step ahead of its competition.
Real Estate Management Software
All businesses need management software to stop the waste of time and enhance productivity. Real estate management software is designed to help manage properties.
- Accounting
- Wouldn't you want to keep a record of the company's money is at all times? Yes, you would, and it can be done more actively with management software.
- Rent Properties Management
- If you are handling the property on behalf of owners to manage rent, you need management software to keep every penny in the pocket. Rent can be deposited by any means such as cash, check, or even credit card.
- Manage Tenants Agreements
- With management software, you can create a database for all tenants. You can store all information such as agreements, correspondence, decisions, renewals, and rent information in the database. This functionality is vital to ensure legal compliance with all local ordinances.
Virtual Tour Tools
Why spend money and waste time going back and forth to show the property to a potential client when you can do it virtually. The virtual real estate tool helps you speed up the selling process by assisting customers in narrowing down their choices without you driving them all over the town.
The tool is handy to show properties to out-of-town buyers.
Top 5 Benefits of Real Estate Software
But how will a custom real estate solution maximize the value of your commercial property business? Reducing the cost of transactions, providing deep analysis, keeping information at one centralized point are some of the benefits we have already discussed. Here are some other advantages of using Real Estate Software.
Integration throughout the Process
Most property businesses operate in many formats, and all of them are integrated effectively into the software. There are various fields to be worked on, including websites, direct contacts, social media, internet publicity, farming, etc. Creating and managing separate accounts for each of them is inefficient and time-consuming in the long run, as the data ultimately needed should be in compiled form.
Consolidated data from these various sources is a great advantage. It is achievable even when the company is running on limited resources. However, when the number of clients and their requirements grows, it becomes impossible to address them manually.
Managing the company's web page, navigating on various platforms and any improvements that can be made with a single command becomes easy only with the help of Real Estate software.
Managing Clients’ Contacts
Another advantage of using Real Estate Software is that it allows you to keep track of your clients' contact details. For direct entry, groups can be formed. There are areas and designs available for building a comprehensive customer knowledge portfolio.
Real Estate Software helps you set up systematic instructions for sending out birthday, anniversary, or other special day greetings, dated and included with the client's records. As a result, there is never a chance to overlook an important event. Along with generating new customers, it also helps you remain in touch with former clients, helping you retain long-term relationships, which is beneficial for the company.
Managing Employees’ Records
Real Estate software offers multiple logins, as well as the ability to use a single account for multiple users. Organizational structure is essential, and a well-groomed hierarchy can be built with the aid of software. This helps in the successful monitoring and production of regular reports. Employees can also take advantage of it by preventing duplication of efforts, arranging sessions and inspections, and generating task alerts, among other items.
Reports and Analysis
Real Estate Software generates detailed reports on a regular, monthly, or annual basis. Every responsible company should actively analyze their performance and ROI to determine what has gone well and what should be done in the future.
These reports also show pending activities and map assets to every open investigation, which is helpful if you have goals to meet. They also offer insight into the methods used, indicating how successful the advertising or marketing channel was. This allows the company to be more careful about future campaigns, such as modifying an email topic, making it more action-oriented, and excluding the stuff that did not perform well.
Payment Management
The software allows the company to set, manage, and carry out payment plans. Any data relating to the properties can be stored and measured. The details about the contract extension, lease termination, and associated documents should be kept updated.
When you use Real Estate Software, you will never miss out on anything significant. There may also be software-based alerts that allow for prompt behaviour. Any charges that must be collected and any costs associated with the estate should be coordinated so that no fines are imposed. Furthermore, the software helps you send out prompt alerts to those who owe you money, resulting in a positive business relationship.
Key Features of Custom Real Estate Software
Key features are the ones that every Real Estate Software must have. If any solution lacks any given feature, it means the functionality of that software will be doubtful.
3D Walkthrough of the Property
Your potential buyers will virtually visit the property of their interest without ever leaving their home. Provide a 3D view of the property so your clients can choose the one that fulfils their requirements.
Advanced Location Search
The corresponding property is shown right on the map, making it easy for clients to search. The number of bedrooms, price, region and city can all be used to narrow down property hunting.
Property listing
Clients may display available properties in a list format, making the house hunting process much more effective. The app's user-friendly interface acts as a helpful tool.
Short-Term Rental Properties
This feature would appeal to visitors to the area for special occasions or businesses that need short-term accommodations.
E-Signature Feature
Both records related to purchasing, selling, or refinancing should be kept in one place. It expedites contract completion by obtaining electronic signatures and streamlines transactions from beginning to end.
Data-driven Insights
As a result, customers get an optimized view of the house. Real estate companies can shape the financial future. Client preferences are captured in a formal database. Buyers and sellers alike profit from the trustworthiness of the appraisals.
Artificial Intelligence
Clients can get details immediately, and agents can have a personal assistant working with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Valuation Models Automation
Allowing users to generate sales and cost information to assess a transaction quickly would maximize both reliability and objectivity.
Advertising & Marketing
Allows you to target the properties using a snapshot, Google, Facebook, and Instagram's geofencing adoptions.
GPS integration
Provides simple property hunting and serves as a boon for professional individuals. It offers location-based routing and navigational solutions.
Calculators for Interest Rates
Provides statistics on total future revenues, gross and net revenues, gross rent multipliers, capitalization levels, pre/post-tax cash flow, break-even ratios, and return on equity.
2021 Digital Transformation and Trends in Real Estate
Digital transformation in real estate didn’t happen as quickly as in other industries, because the industry is based on hospitality and construction. However, dedicated software solutions and technology integration into practices are already making their way into the sphere.
Here’re some of the most talked-about transformation and trends in the industry brought by software development.
The trend of BIG DATA and Implementation of CRM
Big data is prominent in the real estate industry. Data analytics is important for effective business growth and revenue generation since it involves real property artefacts, their attributes, owners, businesses, landlords, and agents.
CRM software can assist you in a variety of areas in this situation. On the one hand, it will show you prospective clients, their habits, and their desires. On the other, it may be used to forecast business trends, property purchase or investment prospects, and cost. You can no longer run a real estate company without customized software solutions and CRM tools for better personnel, resource, and client management, as well as better record management and control from anywhere at any time.
AI, Machine Learning and Analytics
Artificial Intelligence and predictive modelling are now the real estate market's valuable concepts. Those that do not engage in analytics by 2021 are unable to succeed.
Artificial Intelligence can expose future cash flow, assist agents in matching assets to buyers, and offer insightful insights into markets, property objects, and even ROI from the rent. AI and deep learning have taken the sphere's technologies to the next level, excelling at data processing through real estate analytics applications that are intuitive, simple to use, and consistent. Their pace and precision are predicted to increase significantly by 2020, which is why these are the developments worth investing in right now.
Shifting to Cloud Storage
Among the emerging digital real estate developments, cloud property management applications are becoming increasingly prominent. Such functionality provides fast and efficient access to property information and financial details at any time and from any place.
Property owners and renters will simply log into the system and do whatever searches they choose. It is no longer necessary to send emails or make phone calls. It also has the added advantage of reducing the volume of contact.
Blockchain Technology
It's useless to address new digital developments without discussing Blockchain, and real estate is no exception. We can foresee further properties being marketed using blockchain technologies in 2020. The transfers are then done without the need for any middlemen or bank authentication.
Even though the system was overhyped in 2019, it now has practical examples outside payments and digital currencies. Blockchain can be commonly used in real estate and asset management, giving it a new perspective on life. It can now be considered a live web-based real estate market with an active business that benefits from increased transparency. With this cutting-edge technology, financial fraud and cyber-attacks have a tiny chance. It's because there's no single authority in charge of keeping track of all transactions.
Smartphone Apps
In the rapidly evolving and challenging world, mobility is the secret to success and a major advantage. Most development processes for CRM and Real Estate Software products already include mobile applications, but the next few years will be more popular and practical.
Agents can access property information, the necessary documents, and tools, even on the go, at any time, and obtain any necessary information at the palm.
How to Choose the Right Real Estate Software Development Company?
If you have decided to go with a custom build real estate solution for your business, then selecting the right software development company will be the first step towards success.
There are a lot of factors that a business should consider during the process. Many companies prioritize the lowest cost instead of prioritizing the quality and sustainability of the software development company. Read our detailed article on “How to choose a Custom Software Development Company” before heading into the market for making your selection.
Conclusion
Real Estate Software empowers builders, brokers, and agents with an end-to-end sales automation and customer engagement process. The software can find the perfect match for user’s property needs, allowing users to customize the system and many features that will grow your business.
If you need a custom software development company to lead your way and guide you at every step while building a real estate solution, then contact us. At Selleo, we work to fulfil all your requirements and deliver out-of-the-box final products that improve your business productivity and provide long-live sustainability.
