Real Estate Software Made to Work on Mac’s

Great news, there is now a real estate software solution that will work on Mac.

Real Estate Agents Become Easy Targets For Spam, Why?

I hear it on a fairly regular basis. “Why do I get So Much Spam!?”. Well, the long of the short is because real estate professionals put their email addresses everywhere. Agents want to be the one a potential buyer or seller contacts first, and these days an email address is as important as a phone number.

This very fact is in my studied opinion why real estate agents end up being hot targets for spam. Within this posting I will outline some useful tips to help cut spam and better manage your email account.

1) If you have an email account that gets tons of spam, convert it to a spam collecting account. You will never get spam to stop going to that account and it will always increase. It’s a lost cause. You should keep the account however and check it for emails that are important especially as you transition to a new account.

2) Get a new business email address, better yet get two. Use one account for customers and client correspondence and the other as a general business communications account. If you give your customers one account, not only can you better manage the emails, only they will have them. The limited people that have the address means it is less likely you will end up on  spam list.

3) Request your email remain private. Some customers become friends, and friends love to forward junk to everyone they know, effectively distributing your email address to countless people you don’t know.

4) DO NOT post your email address on your website! There are software robots that crawl the internet with one goal, mining email addresses to spam. A better solution is to have your webmaster create a contact me form that users can fill out that will generate an email to you. This hides the address from the outside world and you can still get emails from potential customers. Also, do not allow your local real estate board post your email address on their website. Rule of thumb – Email Addy on Website Bad.
5) Use your old account (the junk account from tip 1) when registering for anything online. DO NOT use your business or personal email address. As tempting as it is, the goal is to prevent spam. When you buy something online, register for a newsletter, request information or sign up for something, use your junk account. Then check it for the email your expecting and forward it to your Fort Knox account. It’s a pain in the rear, but you won’t have to deal with spam. I can assure you the minute you submit your email address somewhere it is stored to send you stuff in the future. If you happen to get something you don’t want, be sure unsubscribe to it.

6) Spam filters have pro’s and cons to them. Most will let emails through but places them in a spam folder that you later have to sift through. I prefer to just set up message rules (which can me done in most clients such as Outlook, Eudora, Apple Mail) for common spam words such as viagra……..you get the point.

If you can managed to do these 6 simple things, you will easily keep the spam at bay.

Why Buy a Real Estate Tool in a Bad Market

I get it, the real estate market stinks right now. Yet, I continue to ask my team of professionals to accomplish the seemingly impossible… Convince the powers that be in real estate offices to spend money. That’s all everyone seems to hear – SPEND.

In this article I want to ‘spend’ some time breaking down costs, quantify value and hopefully explain why cost driven decisions in a down market may be detrimental.

From a very young age we are taught to maximize our dollar! Spend as little as possible while getting the most out of every penny. I happen to like this way of thinking because 20 bucks at Burger King can feed the family but at Bonefish I would be hard pressed to even feed myself (lite menu items only). Obviously food is not the same as real estate but it drive home the point of how we are wired. If times are tough we eat at BK or at home when times are good we upscale to fancier places.

Now that I have you thinking about food lets talk saving money and time. We all love to eat and we all love to make money and we especially love to save it.

Your in Real Estate, the banks are hanging on to the purse like its the only air available to breath. Every Joe Schmo and Jane Doe got his and hers matching real estate licenses all while claiming to be ‘the’ experts in all things real estate. To top it all off, the well of buyers has dried up. Essentially the pie has been gobbled up and you’re left only with the crumbs. Getting hungry yet?

Then there are those firms and agents who may not be doing as well as they were say 2 years ago, nonetheless they are at the top of the heap. You sit back and scratch your head just like I did, I’m sure. With a little bit of investigating it became clear why. Tools! All the people in real estate that are still succeeding even excelling in this slumping real estate market are effectively using tools to squeeze out every last deal they can. There are many other factors that come into play, but the effective use of tools seems to be at the very heart of it next to sheer hard work.

So what tools am I talking about? Technology. If your not using it, especially now you are begging to fail. Sounds harsh I know but you are. Even if your goal is to be a solid contender in the market place with no desire of becoming number 1, it is virtually impossible to maintain. I’ll prove my point.

Imagine not having a cellphone?

Let’s talk cost. If you are an agent your cellphone bill is easily over $150.00 a month. So, you spend roughly a minimum of $1,800 annually for cellphone service. The cost however is irrelevant for two simple reasons, a) you have to have it and b) it contributes to your income generating potential. Very simple concept.

Let’s talk saving money and buying tools. Let’s take Markler for example. There are a whole host of other products and I encourage you to look at them all. For the sake of ease, richness, form and service however, Markler is without a doubt the one you should seriously consider (Plug, Plug). It also incorporates the 4 commonality of all winning real estate pro’s.

But why?

In a down market or any market for that matter, there are 4 key things that make a real estate company and agents successful and others failures.

1. 1st and foremost clear customer service priority
2. Advanced lead management, tracking & follow up.
3. Keeping customers with pending transactions in the loop
4. Accessibility to vital information 24/7 from anywhere

If you understand these 4 simple principles and you don’t have a system in place that aids in performing these functions, this market will have your lunch. I want to point out that most systems for real estate do not hone in on these critical areas.

Back to the cellphone. It is a communication tool. Communication is the number one most important thing in the human experience. This is why everyone understands the value of having a cellphone. If you don’t communicate you will not be heard (cliche’ I know). You need a tool that goes above an beyond a cellphone into the world of automation.
Now lets go back to tools, ie technology, then we can all go eat. When you buy a system, that system should help make you more money. In a bad market you need tools and tools cost money but if you make the right buying choice that sticks to the four things that are common to all successful real estate pro’s (which I highlighted in this article) than you will have a better chance of surviving this crazy market. If not – Good luck to ya.

– Terrance Luckett