The real estate industry has been propelled into its next iteration significantly because of the events of 2020.

Few industries have adapted so quickly and so remarkably to the remote world in which we now live. Consider these seven remote tech tools needed by real estate professionals.

Keep Track of Everything

Notebooks, business cards, flyers, and passcodes, were just some of the papers that were often floating around a real estate pro’s car. All that is needed for a tremendously successful realtor or agent in 2020, however, is a smart device and some key software. Imagine a clutter-free car!

There are a variety of software programs designed specifically for the real estate professional. Moxtra and Propertybase include calendar, contact, document, and lead management tools along with email marketing, listing, and property management tools.

These platforms allow you to connect all your tech in one place. For extra fees you can take advantage of their website builder options to create a totally unique website for your business. Your website is a potential client’s portal to your information and your creativity, and that can turn leads into lifelong clients.

Sign on the Dotted Line

There are a broad range of documents that must be signed throughout a real estate transaction. From the listing contract, preapproval letter, loan estimate, purchase agreement, appraisal and inspection report to the title search and closing documents, many signatures are required. Docusign is comprised of a group of apps to simplify the signatory process.

You can upload and send documents and signing can be done anywhere, anytime on almost any device. Docusign allows you to make ACH bank transfers, generate agreements, provides electronic notaries, and keeps an electronic version of a paper trail. With products developed for the real estate industry like Rooms for Real Estate and Rooms for Mortgage you will not have to worry about misplaced legal documents.

Leads Turn into Dollars

One of the easiest to use sales software programs is Yesware, available in the Chrome web store. A lost email could be a lost sale, so stay on top of all electronic communications with an app designed just for that purpose.

Track, manage and stay current with your connections. Find templates for emails, multi touch campaigns, and schedule emails to be sent and book appointments or meetings in one place. Yesware can also be synced to LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Salesforce programs.

Where Is It?

If all cities and towns were built on straight north-south and east-west grids with no variation for topographic issues, like mountains and lakes, it would be easy to find any place.

That is not reality though. Real estate professionals need to know where properties are located and must be able to guide clients to those properties. Smart devices generally are equipped with one or two navigational apps.

Find the one you most easily understand and that offers you the services you need. Some, like Waze, offer real-time traffic routing to avoid hot spots. Waze is considered a community-based app while Google Maps is data-based and includes walking driving and public transportation directions. Know how to use whichever app you choose and how to sync it to your car to prevent “looking at the map” accidents.

Virtual Staging

These apps, more than any others, can save you time, money, and backaches. Listing a home is the easy part; making your client think they cannot live anywhere else takes some creativity. You can spend the money to hire a staging company and make arrangements for them to access the home or you can invest in an app that allows you to make any room look as if it came from a page of a high-end shelter magazine.

Virtual staging and tours help potential buyers visualize how a room could look and makes a home seem more appealing.

According to Bill Gassett, a veteran of the real estate industry, staged homes sell 73% faster than those that are not staged. Virtual staging lets you customize the décor of the property to fit your target market’s tastes.

Upload two photos of the same room — one empty and one that has been staged virtually. This gives clients the perspective of the room’s dimensions and ideas of how a room could be designed. And hey, don’t forget to look at Redfin reviews of realtors and places just so you know you’re seeing a credible and verified place.

How Big is the…

When clients look at potential homes, they begin to imagine what living there will be like. Often someone has specific requirements for the size of a room, like a dining room that will be large enough for the enormous dining table they inherited. As the real estate professional, you may have room dimensions available from the seller, or you could go to the property and take measurements yourself.

There is a third option available at Matterport. Clients rely on photos and virtual tours to feel the space of a home, but most depend on floor plans for a room’s critical numbers. Matterport can produce schematic floor plans that you can add to a home’s portfolio of information.

“Yes, We Want That One”

You have spent hours constructing an online portfolio for each listing and now you have a client in love with a property. A mortgage calculator is what you use to figure out how much the home will cost the buyer. The mortgage calculator will provide you with all the calculating power you need along with graphs and charts so you can explain the data clearly. And, there are many other mortgage calculator apps available from Google and Apple.

Any aspect of the business you used to do on paper is now easily processed, managed, and preserved with tech tools designed for the real estate professional. Take advantage of these tools to make your real estate business a success.