Posts tagged ‘Markler’
Real Estate Software Made to Work on Mac’s
Great news, there is now a real estate software solution that will work on Mac.
Continue Reading September 29, 2008 at 8:53 pm Leave a comment
Markler in the Press
Obviously when you get some press it is very exciting! I have included below a copy of a recent article published by the Knoxville Business Journal.
Software creator brings order to real estate office
Terrance Luckett lost two jobs as a result of mergers and downsizing in the economic downturn following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“If it weren’t for Sept. 11, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said. “It got me out of a stagnant life and gave me control over my future.”
He also is at the controls of Markler, a rapidly expanding software company serving the real estate industry with software that endorsed by several Sevier County Realtors, who are using the software and investing in the company.
“It is just what I was looking for,” said Justin Broadway, principal broker of Century 21 Four Seasons in Gatlinburg, which was the first office to use the software.
For Broadway, the software solved one of the major frustrations of his business: dealing with several separate and incompatible software systems.
“I was looking for a document management system that stores documents online. I also wanted a transaction manager that could manage transactions, and also a listing manager. I couldn’t find anything that did all of that. The programs were all separate and none of these programs will talk to each other,” he said.
He and other Century 21 Four Seasons representatives were in on the ground floor of the development and are among investors. Sevier Realtor Marty Loveday also was instrumental in pushing for investors to fund expansion of the program, Luckett said.
The system is now in 22 offices, most in Sevier County, but also in California and in Arizona. The first Markler program came out in early 2005. Version 3 is currently being released.
The Markler software program is marketed as a fully integrated systems for real estate transactions.
Luckett said, “It’s an office management system that manages contacts, leads, listings, closings, and it’s a file server that allows contact materials to be sent by e-mail instead of having to be faxed, and it’s also a document storage system.”
The software is capable on running on MacIntosh, Windows and Linux systems.
Luckett says the system has gained attention from local Apple Computer representatives because it may help provide an inroad for Apple’s Macintosh operating system into the real estate industry, which has previously been almost exclusively the realm of Microsoft’s Windows, the operating system used by the majority of Multiple Listing Service providers.
The system serves as a central interface for brokers, agents, buyers, sellers, lenders and title companies where use of a password can enable each component to access the information specific to their needs.
Brokers can keep up with all facets of their office administration, while agents can keep up with contacts, leads and transactions. Buyers and sellers can see the progress of their transactions and have access to the documents involved. Title companies can see when sales are assigned to them and get all the documents needed. Lenders can get information needed on transactions in which they are involved.
Broadway said the system has been particularly helpful to his company in leads management.
“The agents were doing it all with pen and paper and weren’t doing a particularly good job of follow-up,” he said. “It takes longer and longer for people to buy now, and you have to stay in touch. It (Markler) reminds you to follow up.
“We’ve stayed No. 1 in our marketplace in residential sales, even in a declining market. Follow-up helps a great deal. Agents don’t lose customers.”
Markler is also considered user-friendly.
“It’s very easy to use,” said Janet Valentine, a Realtor with Marty Loveday and Associates, which has offices in Sevierville and Seymour. “Agents are able to retrieve information easily and send things easily. All of the information is right in front of you.”
Luckett was able to use input from several area real estate professionals in developing the program, thus using the terms and jargon familiar to the industry, and heeding instructions to keep it simple, Broadway said.
The 30-year-old Luckett had segued into freelance Web page designing after jobs in digital imaging, as part of a Webmaster team, as a Web administrator and in online development in Atlanta. After losing the last job in a post 9/11 downsizing, he moved to Gatlinburg, where he had a Chalet Village Web-design job. From there, conversations with Broadway and others over their frustrations with available software programs led to the Markler software development.
The German-born son of a career Army man and a German mother, he named the company Markler, a derivative of a German term for a person who brokers.
Markler maintains the network and provides support. Luckett said he is committed to keeping support functions in the United States.
Lois Reagan Thomas is a freelance writer in Seymour.
ASP Is Ideal For Real Estate
I think it would be safe to assume that a vast majority for professionals in the real estate world are confused if not overwhelmed by all the tech acronyms. We hear them all the time. Any company that provides services or products related to technology will list a whole host of ABC’s, IDUNO’s and HUH’s and we are all supposed to know what they stand for. Once we know what they stand for we find what they mean requires a tech geeks cipher just to decode the vagueness.
With that said, what in the world is ASP and what does it have to do with real estate. ASP stands for (With regard to this article) Application Service Provider. It is a company that provides computer based services over a network. Translation: Web Base Software; software you use on demand from any place you have (1) a web browser and (2) an internet connection.
Immediately the benefits of this kind of system or model should become obvious to you. You can be in London England sipping a hot cup of coffee at a posh little cafe with free WI-FI and a snazzy new Macbook Pro. [And] your office is in Napa California. The information available to you at the office is available to you in London. Not only is the information available, it’s real time, on demand and looks and functions exactly the same as if you were sitting at your desk.
Real Estate Professionals are on-the-go all the time. The nature of the business mandates mobility and ASP is the only software model that can fit the technology requirements of a high performance agent and real estate office.
My views on ASP’s is obviously biased towards Markler, but there are plenty of system out there that do many different things and fit different bills for different scenarios. Markler, for example, is a high performance real estate business management system with rich content control. This type of system may or may not be right for everyone in real estate (I personally happen to believe it does, but thats beside the point) but it does address many issues niche products don’t provide.
Yahoo Mail, and Gmail are good examples of niche products using an ASP model. It does one thing, manage email. The alternative would be using a mail client you install on your computer such as Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc. These both do the same thing, however the ASP (Yahoo Mail, Gmail) version is accessible from anywhere, with any computer that has an internet connection and web browser. While installed software will only work on your computer. There are email servers that enable better portability but for the sake of this conversation you will more than likely only be able to check your email from your computer where your mail client is installed.
In closing, I highly recommend anyone in the real estate industry take a serious look at using ASP type products. Buying installed software is old school. Don’t get me wrong there are many systems out there perfect for traditional software installation and there will always be a need for it. The real estate industry as a whole is ideal ASP type software.
