Real Estate CRM Features

“Seeing a For-Sale-By-Owner yard sign should evoke the same feelings you would get from seeing a blank check with your name on it. The potential with FSBOs is endless.”

—John Maloof, The Real Estate Agent’s Guide to FSBOs: Make Big Money Prospecting For-Sale-By-Owner Properties

This chapter will help you identify key features in your real estate CRM that can help you work more effectively. I will also describe other features you might find helpful in the future. Finally, I will identify features that are not useful or even dangerous to use. We would all like to press a button and have a robot do our job for us. But there are pitfalls to automating the personal aspect of your job, particularly in early sales incubation, where you are competing with other agents for the job.

Choose Your CRM

There are many real estate CRMs to choose from, and finding the perfect one can feel overwhelming. I recommend prioritizing your selection based on two factors: ease of use and technical support. Why?

Most real estate agents use only a fraction of the features available in their CRM¹. The reason is that you can’t use features you don’t know about or don’t know how to operate. The most significant factors in your successful use of a real estate CRM are the quality of training your CRM vendor provides and how straightforward your CRM is to use. While each real estate CRM vendor will have a slightly different set of features, most will share a common core set. For this reason, I recommend focusing on technical support and training. After all, you can only use the features you know how to use!

Trust But Verify Secret: CRM vendors sometimes advertise features that sound amazing. But sometimes things sound better than they are. The only way to trust a CRM feature is to use the free trial and personally test that feature. If you get stuck, call technical support. That’s when you’ll find out if those features were too good to be true and how good the technical support really is. The last thing you want to do is purchase a CRM and then later realize that the product is buggy, works imperfectly, or the salesperson exaggerated its capabilities.

Real estate CRM pricing can vary widely. While you might think a more expensive CRM is better, that isn’t necessarily true. In fact, the more costly real estate CRMs tend to be more narrowly focused, whereas the more affordable ones tend to appeal to a broader audience. I recommend starting with a more affordable real estate CRM. When you first start, you probably aren’t sure exactly what it can do for you, so it’s hard to justify selecting a CRM that costs 10x more than another one right away.

You can switch to a more expensive CRM later if your needs change and you can justify the cost. However, a higher price does not guarantee more features or better technical support. Keep an eye out for add-on costs or technical support charges. Also, review the refund policies. You should find a vendor who will give you a no-questions, pro-rated refund at any time. Some of the less reputable vendors require a one-year lock-in. I recommend sticking with vendors that allow cancellation at any time.

The real estate CRM business is highly competitive. Vendors constantly add features and make improvements. It’s easy to get distracted by trendy new features. Given the competition, you can expect new features to be continually added to any CRM you select. While new features might be valuable, it’s not unusual for features that were touted one year to turn out to be duds or dead ends the next. Chasing new features, while exciting, can have disadvantages. A few years ago, automated SMS texting was trendy. After several lawsuits, it became clear that certain restrictions on SMS texting were necessary to comply with federal regulations. For this reason, I recommend focusing on key features instead. Most agents are busy and really can’t afford to waste time on trendy or unproven features that don’t quite work right or create legal liability.

Don’t buy based on features you might need or features you have not personally used. Sometimes features seem better on paper, but when you try them, you find they make no sense.

Some automation can be useful, such as scheduling time-release emails. Those features help you stay consistent with your follow-up. However, if your initial strategy is poor, a CRM will amplify it and deliver poor results. More automation is not necessarily a good thing. Keep in mind, people are savvy to automated robotic emails. The best features of your CRM will be those that operate under your supervision. This ensures that everything is working correctly and enables you to provide individualized attention to your clients. Carefully test anything that your CRM is doing behind your back. Proofread the content that is sent with your name on it. Make sure that any time-release letters are carefully structured so that you don’t accidentally send them automatically at the wrong time.

You should take advantage of the complimentary training offered by your real estate CRM vendor. Start by learning basic features, such as syncing with your smartphone, sending bulk email, and using text message chat. Then build on that with more advanced features, such as deal tracking. It is better to know a few features well than many features poorly. This is because the real benefit of your CRM is in regular use. Just like reading your email, you should use your real estate CRM every day. Ultimately, the best CRM is the one you will use consistently. By prioritizing ease of use, quality training, and responsive technical support, you can get the most from any tool you select.

Core CRM Features

While each CRM looks and works differently, they all share core organizational features. These include creating contact records with detailed notes and setting up appointments and tasks to track your follow-up. Tasks can be organized into checklists, called task plans, which help you create a standard operating procedure for your prospects, listings, and buyers. All modern real estate CRMs are cloud-based, allowing you to access your information from anywhere on any device.

Task plans are ideal for managing checklists of tasks to be completed. For follow-up, a single repeating task is a straightforward way to maintain regular contact. This type of repeating task is so important that it has a special name, the touch cycle. Your CRM can create a list of everyone you need to contact today, often called a daily call list. While the most common form of contact is a phone call, any contact—such as a text message, an email, a printed letter, a postcard, or even a drive-by visit—counts as a touch.

Beyond these core functions, there is significant variability in the available features. This often depends on how long the vendor has been in business and their specific focus. A few CRMs offer a comprehensive set of features. However, less established real estate CRMs tend to offer fewer options. You should not choose a real estate CRM solely because it has more features. Instead, I recommend identifying which features are most important to you and prioritizing those features. Each agent will use different features based on their prospecting methods and personal workflow. No agent will use all, or even most, of the available features. You won’t miss features you don’t plan to use!

The Text to Top Secret: Consider adding new notes to the top of the notes field, rather than the end. That way, you don’t have to scroll to the end of the notes to see the latest note. Your CRM may have a preference setting which makes this automatic.

Your CRM will support mail merge, which personalizes content such as letters, emails, or labels. This is done by replacing mail merge variables in a template with information from your contact or deal record. This allows you to generate personalized documents from templates in your content library. Instead of “Dear Sir,” you can write “Dear Jack & Sandy.”

Your existing email program is great for sending hand-crafted individual emails immediately. However, it is not suitable for sending a sequence of time-release emails spaced out over time. This feature, called drip email, is useful for nurturing new leads. Your CRM can help you assign a drip sequence to someone and automatically send those emails in the order and frequency you specify, such as once a week.

A similar feature is the ability to send a bulk email—the same message to several people at once—with each email personalized using mail merge variables. When bulk emails are sent, they are not BCC or CC emails; instead, they are individual mail-merged emails sent to one person at a time, which is not the same as what you can do with your existing email program.

Both bulk and drip emails from your CRM include all the features required to comply with federal regulations, such as an opt-out link and a physical return mailing address.

Another tremendously powerful feature is the use of SMS text message chat in your CRM. This is just like the SMS texting feature on your smartphone, but since it is part of your CRM, the message thread is linked to your deal and contact records for easy review.

Again, there are legal requirements for honoring STOP requests and providing the legally required disclaimers. Your CRM makes sure you fully comply with these legal requirements.

Click-to-dial functionality is very popular because it lets you click a link on your computer to call someone from your mobile phone. It is a real time-saver for agents who spend significant time making phone calls.

The ability to print letters, labels, and envelopes is also essential. This is particularly true for agents looking to prospect FSBOs, expired listings, or probate leads, as you are unlikely to have an email address for those kinds of leads, and, in the case of probate leads, email might be considered tacky. You might find that some newer CRMs do not offer print functionality. I recommend avoiding selecting a CRM that lacks printing support. Your ability to print mailing labels is particularly valuable for mailing your annual Christmas cards. This is critical for ensuring your mailing addresses are accurate in your database and for maintaining contact with your sphere of influence.

Your ability to use multiple forms of communication is essential. In some cases, a friend or prospect may not respond to a single method because their phone number or email address is no longer in use. By maintaining multiple independent communication channels, you can stay in touch even when one method becomes invalid. Also, some people prefer specific forms of communication over others. For example, younger people may not answer their phone when you call, and are more likely to reply to a text message. Similarly, many people hate unsolicited email because they consider it spam and will never respond to it.

A common need is the ability to import data from a variety of sources, such as other CRMs, FSBOs, expired listings, probate leads, leads from other agents, or from your broker.

Agents spend a great deal of time out of the office and need a CRM they can use in the field. The most basic mobile functionality is synchronization with the native contacts and calendar applications on your smartphone, whether it is an Android or an iPhone. Synchronization fidelity varies by vendor. Some vendors provide only a basic “push” of data to the agent’s smartphone, so changes made on the agent’s phone are not reflected in the CRM. Most others offer full, two-way synchronization, where changes made in one location are updated in the other. However, there are nuances to what is synchronized and how it is done. Contact records can include notes, categories, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, and closing anniversaries. They can also track the names of family members and pets, along with their birthdays. Additionally, advanced functionality can include custom fields, which are handy for specialized prospecting. Each CRM is different, so I recommend inquiring about what is synchronized, what is not, and any limitations.

A mobile CRM becomes much more accessible when it can also be used from the web browser on your phone. You should check whether the CRM is optimized for small-screen devices, including iPads. It is also essential to test if it is fast enough to use when in the field with cellular data. There used to be CRMs that offered downloadable apps from the Google or Apple App Stores. This is no longer common due to App Store policies and technical challenges. Nearly all vendors have standardized on a web interface, though a few do not. Your CRM might also include an open house form that you can use on an iPad to collect contact information.

New agents are likely to work alone, so multi-user capability probably isn’t a top priority at first. However, as you gain experience, you might want to share your database with a partner or assistant. If you’re interested in exploring the benefits of using your real estate CRM with others, I recommend reading the second companion volume, Real Estate CRM Mastery. This second book explains how to bring on new team members and manage that process using the systems built into your real estate CRM. These systems include delegating tasks, restricting access to certain features for specific team members, and establishing accountability and safety measures in case a team member makes a mistake. The end result of multi-user functionality is that you can scale your business while maintaining control.

Features like the ability to undelete a record, revert to a previous version, and review change logs are useful for a single agent. Everyone makes mistakes, after all. However, these features are absolutely essential as your team grows and you bring on an inexperienced assistant who might accidentally delete a record without realizing it. By maintaining a change log and being able to undelete a record, you can monitor the situation and recover from any accidents.

Using Real Estate Specific CRMs

While all CRMs include core features such as contacts, tasks, and a calendar, a real estate-specific CRM offers additional features tailored to the unique needs of a real estate agent. For this reason, I do not recommend using a generic CRM if you are a real estate agent. Instead, I advise choosing a CRM built for real estate. Below is a summary of key specialized features that set a real estate CRM apart from a generic one. You may not use all of these features immediately, but they can make your life as a real estate agent considerably more efficient.

Most real estate transactions are personal, between two individuals, often two families. Special attention needs to be paid to each family member’s needs. Emails and letters are usually addressed to the family unit and might start with “Dear Jack & Sally.” Real estate agents need to track birthdays, home closing anniversary dates, and other personal details for each family member.

Generic CRMs instead focus on companies and individuals, and have no provision for families. A real estate specific CRM is going to allow you to track birthdays, as well as closing anniversaries, which is the date your client purchased their home. This is a valuable touchpoint for maintaining long-term relationships with past clients.

The Divorce Divide Secret: Use one contact record per family to keep communications unified but split them into two records during a divorce to manage the relationship professionally.

A generic CRM typically includes a postal mailing address in each contact record. A real estate CRM will track both a mailing address and a property address. This is a key feature when marketing to absentee owners, or when working with a buyer inquiring about a specific property.

A real estate CRM includes a library of real estate-specific content you can use and customize. This consists of a library of time-release drip letters for both print and email. These letters can be customized and used with mail merge to create professional-looking letters. While time-release drip letters are common, individual one-off letters are also helpful. Additionally, the ability to send eCards for closing anniversaries and holidays is quite valuable. eCards provide an easy way to stay in touch with people in your sphere of influence each year. This lets you stay in touch and is a great way to detect when an email address goes bad. A flyer template library allows you to quickly create a property flyer by filling in the blanks with text and photos. By using these templates, you can create a consistently professional flyer in just a few minutes.

Another key feature is called email feed, also known as email parsing. This feature parses the contact information embedded in new-lead notification emails from hundreds of real estate-specific websites, such as Trulia and Zillow, and converts them into prospect records. This saves hours of manual data entry and allows for immediate outreach. As soon as the record is created, you receive both an email and an SMS text notification so you can respond within minutes. A generic CRM cannot parse real estate-specific lead sources, such as Zillow. This is a crucial feature and a major shortcoming of a generic CRM. Using a generic CRM will slow you down when speed matters most, making it unsuitable for real estate-specific use.

Real estate lead sources that deliver leads via email feed typically allow you to send a copy of their notification email to a dedicated email feed address assigned by your real estate CRM vendor. Emails sent to that address are automatically parsed and converted into prospect records. The advantage of this approach is its speed and automation. You are also immediately notified of the new lead via both email and text message. This allows you to centralize all of your leads within your CRM. Leads from Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, your own website, advertising such as Google and Facebook ads, and many more can be fed into your CRM using this automated mechanism.

The Speed-to-Lead Secret: Respond to all online inquiries as quickly as possible, ideally within 5 minutes. Open the lead in your CRM, then make your call. Use your CRM’s features, such as email feed, call capture, click-to-dial, and smartphone synchronization, to be the first agent your prospect talks with over the phone. Statistically, most buyers hire the first agent they speak with, so be that agent². There is no prize for second place.

FSBO and expired leads also lend themselves well to the automation that a real estate CRM offers. For example, if you regularly load FSBO leads from a service, your CRM can keep track of which letters and postcards have been sent and print letters and labels for the next batch to go out. Each prospect would be in a different place in the sequence, and your CRM manages who gets what for you.

While internet leads are typically fed live via email, leads generated through data mining, such as FSBOs, expired listings, and probate leads, are typically loaded using the import feature, which allows you to map data from lead sources to the fields in your CRM. The best real estate CRMs offer a valet import feature. This is a service in which the CRM vendor creates a custom importer tailored to the specific lead service you use. A dedicated menu item is created for your import. All you need to do is select that menu item and click import. This significantly automates the import process, making it nearly foolproof. Generic CRMs might allow custom field mapping, but require you to assign it yourself each time you import. This can turn a process that might take 10 seconds into one that could easily take 10 minutes and be more error-prone. Using the valet import makes the process seamless and straightforward.

It is helpful to distinguish between these two methods for adding leads to your CRM. You will find use for both methods. The first method, email feed, is designed for live, individual web leads. This feature automatically reads the notification email for a single lead from sources such as Realtor.com and Zillow, and instantly creates a new individual prospect record. The second method, valet import, is for batch uploading of multiple prospects. This process uploads an entire file of leads at once, such as a list of FSBOs or expired listings that you have identified through a lead service, information provided by a loan officer, tax records, or even MLS records.

Another core function of real estate CRMs is integration with third-party services and products. This might include integration with your lockbox software, paid lead sources, your website, and MLS. A generic CRM lacks these industry-specific integrations. In particular, a real estate-specific CRM provides a wide range of options for integrating real estate-specific lead sources.

Real estate CRMs will include built-in real estate calculators. You can use the maximum loan and mortgage payment calculators to help a new buyer estimate the home price they can afford before they have had a chance to get pre-qualified by a loan officer. Similarly, the buyer’s net calculator gives everyone a good idea of how much cash the buyer will need to close a deal, including the down payment. You can use the seller’s net calculator to give your client a good idea of how much money they will be able to walk away with from the sale of their current home. The rent-vs-own calculator can determine whether it makes financial sense to own or rent. Market conditions change, and it is well worth doing proper due diligence so your client is confident they are making a sound financial move.

The commissions tracking features in a real estate CRM can give you a clear understanding of your quarterly and annual net income. You can also calculate potential commissions for deals in your pipeline to help predict your cash flow. Your real estate CRM should also include an expense-tracking feature that lets you monitor expenses, including projected recurring costs such as MLS and licensing fees. You can export both income and expenses when it is time to file your quarterly estimated and annual taxes. These features help you stay compliant with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and track projected cash flow. Real estate is typically seasonal, so you will want to compare last year’s results with this year’s to understand trends and make sure you are on track.

The Monthly Mastery Secret: Focus on learning one CRM skill each month to avoid being overwhelmed by the features. For example, you might try experimenting with eCards the first month, printing labels the next month, real estate calculators the third month, commission tracking after that, and so on.

For your buyers, you can track each buyer’s needs using a buyers database. This database helps you record the house features and property locations that interest your homebuyers. You can also track showings and record your buyers’ feedback for each property you see with them. This is particularly helpful because after a few houses, they all start blurring together for your client (and you!). You might have shown them the perfect home first, but after ten more homes, they have forgotten about it. When it’s time to make an offer, you can track offers, deadlines, and counteroffers, and even create a closing record once the sales contract is ratified (the date all parties have signed and the contract becomes official).

A real estate CRM also includes transaction management features that help you track your listings, closings, promotions, and the parties involved in each deal. You can also monitor contingencies (such as inspection and financing conditions), conveyances, and escrow (the buyer’s deposit), or earnest money. Using transaction management along with task plans helps you close deals more quickly and reduces legal risks. Because the failure rate in real estate closings can be as high as 20%, focusing on this part of the deal is just as vital as the other stages.

While most real estate agents in the U.S. and Canada have access to an MLS, some agents, particularly in other countries, do not. For those agents, a database of homes or properties can be valuable. This database contains properties in the market area. They might be for sale or rent, and having a database of these properties allows an agent to collect statistical information and match them against a buyer’s wants and needs. While this feature is less useful for agents with MLS access, it is a must-have for those without an MLS. The properties database is also useful for commercial properties, which are often not on the MLS, and for situations where the agent is working with off-market properties.

An additional, underrated capability of your real estate CRM is the ability to track your conversion statistics and which referral sources are working and which are not. This helps you better understand how to improve your marketing and prospecting. It can also help you make long-term goals for how you intend to increase income year-over-year.

The technology that enables this comprehensive tracking is a relational database. This means the database can associate or create relationships between multiple records without duplication. That way, you can efficiently work with a client on the sale of their existing property as well as the purchase of a new property. As you start doing deals involving the same person across multiple transactions, the importance of a relational database becomes clearer. For example, if you work with an investor who owns a portfolio of properties, they might want you to handle multiple transactions, even simultaneously. The relational nature of a real estate CRM allows you to handle this without confusion. It also makes it possible to maintain archive records of past deals with clients and to connect various parties with whom you might work on more than one deal. You might work with a loan officer or a closing company on multiple unrelated transactions, and the relational database allows you to view the list of these transactions. A generic CRM lacks these essential transaction management features, which is another reason it is unsuitable for real estate agents.

You can also use the lockbox database in your real estate CRM to track which lockboxes are installed for which properties, the shackle code for each, and the unlock code. You can add special instructions, such as the lockbox location, whether anyone is in the house during the daytime, and any pets to be aware of.

Repeatable CRM Systems

The most obvious benefit of using a real estate CRM is the ability to organize consistent follow-up for your prospects and past clients. For new prospects, most agents are great at the initial phone call but give up too soon and do not follow up enough. Your real estate CRM lets you build a consistent follow-up plan that could include a series of time-release emails, multiple follow-up calls, follow-up text messages, printed letters and postcards, and even a scheduled drive-by.

Your ability to contact a prospect across multiple communication channels increases your chances of reaching them. This is particularly critical when you have not yet received a response. For example, let’s say you rely only on email, but your emails are being dumped into the recipient’s spam folder and are never seen. Or perhaps the phone number you have is an old landline, and this prospect is no longer at that location and hasn’t heard your voicemails. This is why it is so useful to use multiple communication modes, particularly when you have not yet received a response. Your real estate CRM can be used to schedule these communications and to add notes about what happened. For some forms of communication, like time-release emails, your CRM can even automatically send them.

For past clients and friends, you need to maintain your friendship, take an interest in their lives, and ask about how things are going. The best way to do that is by scheduling regular communications using tasks in your real estate CRM. For physical Christmas cards, your real estate CRM can print mailing labels. It can also remind you to contact your friend on their birthday and for the anniversary of the closing of their home. You might even drop by in the spring with a packet of seeds to check on the fantastic progress they have made in fixing up their backyard.

The Friends First Secret: Avoid directly promoting your real estate business to friends, family, or past clients. Instead, focus on building authentic connections by showing an interest in their lives. This could mean celebrating milestones, chatting about sports, or discussing local news. They already know what you do; your best approach is to be the real estate professional they know will be on their side as their friend and trusted advisor.

Another benefit of using your real estate CRM is the ability to reuse content. Agents need to send letters, create flyers, and communicate with clients and prospects. In many cases, these communications are nearly identical from one prospect or deal to the next. Using the library of content built into your real estate CRM saves you time by giving you high-quality material available for immediate use. You can—and should—customize these letters to meet your individual needs, and then reuse them. You can also use flyer templates and reuse some of your ad copy from prior listings. The longer you use your real estate CRM, the more you will be able to reuse your past work. This saves you time over the long run.

One more key advantage of your CRM is the ability to create standard operating procedures and checklists, also known as task lists. This boosts productivity while maintaining a consistent level of quality. Less-experienced agents will learn best practices by following the standard checklists built into their real estate CRM. Experienced agents can refine and personalize these checklists and letters to reflect their unique approach to the real estate sales process.

The most obvious checklist is for a new listing. You will have a standard list of promotional activities to complete, along with a checklist of other tasks such as taking pictures, installing the lockbox and yard sign, getting the listing agreement signed, updating Zillow, and adding the listing to the MLS. This is the same approach even the most experienced pilots use before flying to make sure they don’t forget anything and don’t run into trouble mid-flight³. Use your checklist to ensure you complete each task without missing anything.

These same checklists can also be used after closing to ensure you don’t leave anything behind and to provide follow-up a few days after closing and regularly thereafter to maintain a relationship with your past clients. This last step is where most agents fail, and it is why many do not maximize their referral income potential. Consistent follow-up turns satisfied clients into repeat business and a valuable referral source. All you need to do is maintain your friendship with past clients after closing, and you have an excellent chance of getting repeat business and perhaps even referrals.

When you handle one or two closings a year, you may not appreciate the benefits of a checklist. However, as your business grows, a checklist lets you focus on generating new business because the mechanical steps of selling a home are systematized. Tracking everything in your real estate CRM eliminates guesswork from the listing process.

Over time, you may find your income has increased enough to justify delegation. This is usually when you realize there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks you need to do. Your best approach is to focus on high-value tasks, such as prospecting and making listing presentations, and delegate the checklist work to someone else, such as an assistant or partner.

Your real estate CRM is the ideal tool for clarifying who does what and tracking which tasks have been completed and by whom. That way, you can oversee those tasks and focus on the higher-value activities needed to grow your business. When it is time to hire an assistant, your CRM provides a structured way to delegate tasks and hold your assistant accountable. Your CRM allows you to control and coordinate far more than would be possible with pen and paper. You should select a CRM that works for a solo agent but can grow with you as you bring in a partner or assistant.

Your real estate CRM can also provide continuity if you lose an assistant and need to train a replacement. This is one area many agents overlook when selecting their real estate CRM. Don’t underestimate the time it takes to train a replacement assistant. Find a CRM vendor that offers an easy-to-learn interface and complimentary training, not just for you but also for your assistant and other team members.

International CRM Use

There used to be two real estate CRMs headquartered in Canada: Top Producer and iXact Contact. However, both companies faced financial difficulties and were acquired by U.S.-based holding companies. At present, there are no Canadian real estate CRMs. For the most part, the real estate CRMs currently available are based in the United States. However, these products can be adapted for Canada, Australia, and other international markets with minor adjustments.

While your CRM content and letter library are likely geared toward use in the United States, accommodations may have been made for other languages and localities. The letters might also be available in Spanish, which is useful since one in seven U.S. residents speaks Spanish at home⁴.

The Canadian market is 1/5 the size of the U.S. market. For this reason, the built-in content library may also serve that market. For example, the eCard library could include content for holidays such as Canada Day and Labour Day. Some library letters will be specific to the United States, and that is by design. If a letter mentions special tax considerations that apply only in the United States, it would be excluded from drip sequences sent by a Canadian real estate agent. While Canadians, Americans, and Australians all speak English, there are variations in terminology and spelling that need to be accommodated. For example, “attorney” is a common term in the United States, while “lawyer” is a more general term used in both Canada and the United States. Your CRM should make it easy to clone, edit, and tag these materials so you can keep the correct version for the right audience and maintain brand consistency.

All modern CRMs use UTF-8 to store text content, allowing text in different languages to be mixed. Spanish can use accented characters, and you can include Korean, Japanese, or Hebrew text alongside English text.

There are numerous preference settings you can adjust to personalize your real estate CRM and align it with your locale. In the United States, dates are listed month, day, then year, while in many other locations the day and month are reversed. Your real estate CRM will include a preference setting that lets you adjust this to your local preference. The time display will be AM and PM by default, but you might prefer twenty-four-hour time; that is a preference setting as well. The unit of currency is also a consideration; you can select your preferred unit, including the euro, pound, United States dollar, Canadian dollar, or Australian dollar, among others. The unit of measurement for land in the United States is often acres, but you can switch to metric units if you prefer. The unit of area in the United States is square feet, but you can also use metric units. Make these changes first, before you import contacts or print anything, so every letter, flyer, and report reflects the choices you made.

Another consideration for international real estate professionals is the technical support hours offered by their CRM vendor. If the vendor is in the United States and you are in Australia, the time zone difference will make phone support difficult. International phone support is also unlikely, as most United States-based real estate CRM vendors offer phone support only to United States and Canadian customers. For this reason, outside the U.S. and Canada, email support will likely be your best option. Canadian customers can always ask technical support to call them, eliminating toll charges for cross-border calls. Make sure to test the vendor’s support to ensure it will work for you, given your time zone.

The real estate calculators also include preference settings that can be adjusted to match how your local market works. Commissions are calculated slightly differently in Canada, using a graduated sales commission. There are also nuances in how taxes are handled for commissions and in how value-added tax is applied to expenses. In Canada, mortgage interest is compounded semiannually rather than monthly, as in the United States, so there is a preference setting for that as well. The same goes for how you treat the tax deductibility of both property taxes and mortgage interest. These items are tax-deductible in the United States but are treated differently in Canada. Your commissions will also need to account for the slightly different tax reporting and withholding requirements in Canada.

There are slight differences in the regulatory requirements for sending email and SMS. In Canada and the United States, these rules are similar. Ask your CRM’s technical support team for specifics, as your market will likely have unique needs. Your real estate CRM vendor will be aware of the differences, so you can comply fully without running afoul of regulations.

While the United States and Canada both use an MLS, there are markets outside the United States where an MLS is not available. In these situations, it helps to have a real estate CRM with a properties database. A properties database is a collection of properties for sale that provides functionality similar to your MLS, but at the local level. With the properties database, you can record statistics about each property for sale, such as square footage, room dimensions, and the home’s unique features. This database is particularly helpful in small markets, such as Caribbean islands, where the limited number of properties makes creating an MLS impractical. Some agents also find the properties database useful in unique markets, such as commercial real estate or the New York downtown market, where local knowledge and private inventory tracking matter as much as syndicated data feeds.

The real estate markets in the U.S. and Canada are similar enough that the same real estate-specific CRMs will work in both countries. Some areas, like Australia and the Caribbean, are also quite similar. You will need to conduct your own due diligence for areas outside these regions. Ask your CRM vendor about support availability and whether their CRM is suitable for your location.

What to Look for in a CRM

The goal of using a CRM is to make your life easier and help you get things done faster. For these reasons, I recommend you select a CRM that is easy to use.

While recommendations from other agents in the office are one source of information, keep in mind that each agent has their own work style and needs. What works for one agent with a full-time assistant may not be the right fit for a new agent. Look for a real estate CRM that offers a free trial. Hands-on experience is the best way to decide which CRM is right for you.

Phone support remains the gold standard for support. You will inevitably encounter a problem you can’t resolve with the video tutorials, and you don’t have time to wait for an email response. I recommend selecting a CRM with phone support.

As a new REALTOR, I recommend focusing on selecting an affordable real estate CRM. The monthly cost should be closer to a restaurant meal than a car payment. The functional differences between the two ends of that spectrum are often not as vast as you might think, especially for an agent just starting out.

Choose a vendor that provides onboarding, also known as a concierge setup. Onboarding helps you import your data, synchronize your contacts and calendar with your smartphone, create and install your letterhead and signature, and receive initial training on how to use the CRM. The sooner you start using your CRM effectively, the more likely you are to keep using it. Therefore, selecting a CRM without the support you need to get started is not helpful. If you’re expected to do all these tasks on your own, you might spend weeks or get stuck before gaining any value from your CRM.

You are likely to receive leads from various sources, including your website, your broker’s website, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and others. Your real estate-specific CRM can automatically parse notification emails from these sources and convert them into prospect records. This feature, known as email feed,lead forwarding, lead capture, or email parsing, saves you time by eliminating the need to manually enter contact information for incoming leads.

Zap Trap Secret: A good real estate CRM should include an email feed. Be cautious of vendors claiming similar features through Zapier. Zapier is a paid third-party service that connects various internet tools. Zapier adds costs and requires extensive setup for each lead source. In contrast, the email feed that comes with real estate-specific CRMs is pre-configured to parse hundreds of common lead sources like Zillow, IDX websites, Trulia, and Realtor.com, without extra charges.

A key feature for any real estate CRM is mobile access. Ensure that your CRM’s contacts and calendar sync with your smartphone’s native contacts and calendar. Also, verify that you can sign in and use your CRM through a web browser on your smartphone and on a tablet, such as an iPad.

Things to Avoid in a CRM

There is no perfect CRM. While price and features are easy to compare, usability and customer support are not. When shopping for a real estate CRM, the best thing you can do is take advantage of the free trial. A CRM that doesn’t offer a free trial is a red flag. If a company isn’t confident enough in its product to let you try it before paying, that should tell you something. If the vendor requires a credit card to sign up for the free trial, be aware that they will convert your free trial to a paid membership unless you proactively cancel before it ends. The best vendors will not resort to such underhanded practices.

Your brokerage or MLS might provide you with a “free” CRM. Free CRMs typically offer limited functionality. Missing features might include smartphone synchronization, phone support, printing, click-to-call, call capture, real estate calculators, commission and income tracking, and a content library. Using a CRM you control means that if you leave that office and go to another brokerage, your disruption is minimized. Your contacts database is preserved, and you do not have to learn a new system.

Also, review the privacy policy of any free or broker-supplied CRM. These vendors need to make a profit. Often, their privacy policies allow them to harvest your CRM data for marketing. For example, the CRM vendor might partner with a preferred mortgage broker, title company, and home warranty provider, and use your database of listings and closings to steer your clients toward these preferred services. It is best to work with a CRM vendor that has strong privacy policies.

While you might initially think a free CRM is worth sacrificing your privacy, consider this from your clients’ perspective. If your clients are steered toward a higher-interest-rate mortgage, you risk undermining the trust you have built with them. You are a trusted advisor, and your ability to provide impartial advice that benefits your clients is the entire premise upon which you have been hired. By violating the privacy of your data, you have shattered this trust.

Freedom has a Price Secret: Beware of the “free” CRMs which your broker or MLS provides. These products often follow a “freemium” model, where the free version offers basic functionality with an expectation that users will eventually pay to upgrade. Since you did not select this product of your own free will, it may not be competitive. Many such systems are rarely updated and offer minimal technical support.

Not all CRMs are created equal. Some CRMs are buggy, offer poor support, or have predatory contract terms. The best way to separate the good from the bad (and the ugly) is to look at Google and Better Business Bureau (BBB) reviews. These review sites are reasonably neutral and can provide a good, unbiased view. Be wary of sites like Top5, G2, and Capterra, which routinely pay for reviews and allow vendors to suppress negative reviews.

You should avoid using a generic CRM. Real estate is a unique business, and a generic CRM lacks many key features you will need. A generic CRM is typically designed for corporate sales. In contrast, your relationship with your clients is much more personal. That is reflected in the information stored in the CRM, how letters and envelopes are addressed, and even the reminders you receive, such as birthdays and closing anniversaries.

Avoid onboarding charges by choosing a vendor that doesn’t charge for that essential service. These fees can add up quickly and are charged before you get any value from your real estate CRM.

Some features seem like a good idea on paper but make no sense in practice. These include advanced multi-dialers, power dialers, and SMS text-message blast features. Lawsuits have made these advanced features a legal minefield. Instead, I recommend sticking to the legal and straightforward features of click-to-dial and SMS text-message chat.

An integrated website is another feature that might seem like a good idea but is almost always a bad one. What happens if the website that is included with your CRM is ineffective? What happens if the CRM that comes with your website is not a good fit for you? In either case, you must discard both to switch either, which can be tremendously disruptive. Building a website takes years of effort and a lot of money to gain a ranking in Google. Switching sites is not to be taken lightly. Similarly, after investing a lot of time learning how to use your CRM, you are not going to want to discard it just because the website is inadequate. Instead, I recommend selecting one vendor for your website and a second for your CRM. You can connect these two products using an email feed, providing the flexibility needed to make changes over time.

Another area I advise you to avoid is a generic monthly newsletter. Sending a pre-written, one-size-fits-all newsletter to everyone in your database might seem like a great idea—until you read the content and realize even your own mother is likely to opt out after the first issue! The problem with a pre-made newsletter is that the content often feels dull. Why? Because it’s designed not to offend anyone. It can’t suggest that now is the best time to sell, since that could scare off potential buyers. Plus, relying on ready-made content means it’s, by definition, generic and doesn’t account for local market conditions. Just like the weather, real estate is local. It’s not useful to hear about the weather in New York City if you live in Kansas. The same goes for real estate. I have seen some agent databases with opt-out rates over 50% thanks to the generic monthly newsletter their CRM provides. By enabling this one feature, they just cut their potential referral income in half!

There is one type of newsletter that benefits everyone: a local real estate market update sent once or twice a year. You are the expert on real estate conditions in the neighborhoods you focus on. Why not share that expertise with residents and those who might want to move in? They can’t get that information anywhere else, at any price. The key to making this work is writing the content yourself. Talk about properties sold and for sale, along with local projects like a new school or mall. Send this newsletter once or twice a year to residents and potential buyers in the neighborhoods you serve. Just like hot sauce, a newsletter is best in moderation.

Over-automating your processes is another common pitfall. Clients pay a significant commission for your personal service. Features that automatically respond to or nurture leads without your direct oversight often fail. They send irrelevant information, sound robotic, or continue communicating after a prospect has asked to stop. All of these will ultimately damage your reputation with your clients and prospects. The best automation supports your workflow while keeping you in control.

CRM Quick Pick List

Realty Juggler Real Estate CRM Real Estate CRM: The most affordable real estate CRM with a comprehensive feature set, including transaction management, an extensive content library, calculators, and expense and income tracking. They offer a lengthy free trial, phone support, and a cancel-at-any-time pro-rated refund.

iXact Contact: A relatively affordable real estate CRM with a solid feature set. They offer agent websites and a monthly newsletter. They were acquired by Elm Street Technologies in 2021.

Referral Maker: Emphasizes referrals as the primary lead source, built on the Buffini “Work by Referral” system. It offers excellent activity and goal tracking. Slightly more expensive than the other recommendations, but it offers multiple pricing tiers, including some with coaching. The feature set focuses on the early stages of the sales funnel.

WiseAgent: A relatively affordable real estate CRM with a solid set of features, including lead generation, landing pages, transaction management, and a web app. Offers a free trial and phone support.

Endnotes

← Previous Chapter: Building Trust as a Real Estate Agent | Next Chapter: Engineering Your Habits Using Systems →