The Top 11 Real Estate Software Programs

Today’s software programs offer any and every functionality you can think of to improve business practices and productivity. Whether you’re looking to add widgets, plug-ins or apps to your website — or just looking for some general help in streamlining your workflow — there’s a real estate software program to meet your needs.

Here are the top 11 real estate software programs for agents.

Scheduling

Showing Suite helps you schedule your showings and request email, text or phone feedback from the agents and buyers who attend them. The program lets you gather and share with each of your sellers what agents and buyers liked and didn’t like so that your clients can consider making changes to increase the home’s appeal for a faster sale.

Accounting

When it’s time to graduate from an Excel spreadsheet and move on to a more sophisticated accounting system, try REALedger. You can track general ledger accounting tasks, structure agent commissions and expenses, manage employee records, process payroll and more.

Workflow efficiency

The Zillow Real Estate App isn’t just for buyers and sellers; it’s a great tool for real estate agents looking to facilitate their busiest tasks, including exchanging all types of information with buyers and sellers anytime and from anywhere. Get push notifications, send follow-up emails to new inquiries, customize auto-responders for after-hours replies, forward leads to your team and much more.

IDX feeds

An IDX solution is ideal for allowing home searches on your website. Diverse Solutions, which is owned by Zillow, offers basic, advanced and map-based IDX searches as well as a mobile IDX solution. For agents who use WordPress, Diverse Solution also offers a plug-in to add their MLS data to their real estate websites. Be sure your IDX solution will work with your specific MLS before investing in it.

Email marketing

MailChimp is an online email marketing service that lets you easily manage contacts, send emails and measure your results. It offers multiple integration options —for synching data, importing and managing content, and getting reports — with apps you’re probably already using to run your business, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel on many tasks.

Local expertise

One way to stand out in your market — and meet, or even exceed the expectations of buyers and sellers — is to be the local expert. CO Anywhere makes it easy to keep up-to-date on the social activity in an area: Simply draw on the map with your finger and the app instantly tells you what people are saying about that area through their posts and pictures.

Widgets and plug-ins

Want to make it easy for viewers to share, follow or recommend your website content? AddThis offers a way for you to feature floating social media buttons or sidebars that encourage sharing, engage viewers who aren’t (yet) on your site and drive traffic to your site.

Measuring the effectiveness of your social media posts requires more than glancing at the number of “likes” on a given post or noting how many people are following your Twitter feed. eClincher consolidates all your social media feeds and analytics into a single dashboard so that you can see what’s working, what isn't, and view trends and demographics. You can also use it to engage on your feeds and schedule posts.

How about adding a slick prompt for your website visitors to join your email list, subscribe to your newsletter or download your latest insider guide? The Smart Bar from SumoMe sits at the top of your page — you can adjust its scrolling behavior as well as its appearance and frequency — and works with several major email providers to increase your email lists.

Even if you don’t have a blog or newsfeed on your website, you can provide a place for visitors to leave their comments. Disqus makes it easy to add a comments section to engage visitors, get them to share what’s on their mind and build your community. Advanced functionality provides you with analytics to measure engagement and track trends.

If you’re not sure what functionality you want to add to your site, check out the gallery of plug-ins at Powr.io. Choose anything from a hit counter, RSS feed or contact form — even a custom download button for a how-to guide or your newsletter.

Today it’s easier than ever to find help running your business. Apps, widgets and plug-ins let you manage your tasks with the swipe of a finger; others can help you attract and engage leads and contacts. Real estate software programs are designed to help automate or simplify tedious tasks and processes so you can spend more time prospecting and closing sales.