Are you spending days rushing around taking clients to homes they have no interest in? Are you rushing back to your office to fumble over paperwork, trying to, negotiate, edit and close deals via attachments? If you have an iPad and aren’t integrating it into your day-to-day real estate deals, you’re doing yourself a great disservice. We offer you tricks of the trade to close more property and real estate contracts using right from your iPad.
Not being a realtor myself — I just adore a mobile paperless way to work and sell in any field — I talked to the two most successful real estate agents I know and got the dirt on how they use iPads to sell and rent homes.
“The iPad is like gold dust to me in business. It allows me to give tours of potential properties that may be interesting to clients while out looking at others. It also allows me to have the whole portfolio of properties to hand wherever I am,” said Graham Hunt, British real estate agent extraordinaire of vacation properties and homes. He even offers seminars on how to make iPads your best sales tool.
“Some of the apps I use are Magic Plan for putting together floor plans of the properties. Dropbox for storing all of the photos and information about the properties, Evernote for keeping client details handy and the sunrise calendar for organizing visits and timetables. From a point of view of communications with clients the use of Facebook pages app increases views of properties and posts much more than just posting on Facebook for some reason,” Graham continued, offering his favorite app tricks.
“Finally, combined with the iPhone, I use the iPad for making videos about properties and lifestyle in Spain. iPad for the video and iPhone as the microphone. A nice little trick I picked up to better the sound quality.” He uses iTalk to record, then syncs it with videos in iMovie.
While Graham uses his iPad for more the marketing side of real estate sales, Pierre Alban-Waters uses it as more of a sales tool, whether this Brit-Frenchie is helping people find homes in Spain or moving to Sao Paulo. “I use the iPad to sign contracts with clients on the to, with PDF Expert, which means I can close deals with interested prospects on the go.”
But Pierre still shares Graham’s belief that if you let your clients picture themselves in your listing, you’ll more likely qualify your lead and close your sale. “I also use the iPad a lot in combination with a tailored Google Map we prepare every time for our clients, with Google Maps Engine, where we indicate the relevant neighborhoods, the hand-picked houses we will view, as well as sites of interest such as schools, office location and the center.”
There are plenty of free and not-so-free tools out there to help you save time (and time is money!) and get more real estate contracts signed. As always, if you can imagine a need in your job, there’s probably already an app for that.
8 Must-Have iPad Apps for Any Real Estate Agent
PlanPlus Online iPad Task Manager and CRM
Called the Software of Choice for real estate agents and brokers, PlanPlus Online is a customer relationship manager (CRM) that’s integrated with FranklinCovey planning, RealEstate.com, Zillow, Trullo, Proquest, and other real estate marketplaces. You can entice clients with templated drip email campaigns, as well as manage your real estate listing. All the tasks for a successful real estate agent in one mobile app. Price: 3 different plans, ranging from $69 to $599 per year, with free trial (no credit card necessary.)
Hightail File Sharing for iPad
Finally, you’ve got your clients agreed to a contract or lease, you don’t want to take too long getting them to sign that they change their minds. You need an electronic signature app like Hightail to allow you not only to update the contract right from your iPad but then let your clients sign with their fingers or a stylus. Then, when you make these changes, it updates everywhere so your entire team can see. Price: Starts with a Freemium model, and a professional plan starting at $15.99 a month.
BPM’Online CRM for Real Estate for iPad
Whether you have a commercial or residential property to sell, rent, lease or manage, BPM’Online is an industry-tailored solution that allows you to access and edit listings, schedule, create orders and stay in touch with your clients, all from your iPad, iPhone, Android or other device. Price: 290€ in the cloud or 390€ to host on site from your office, annually.
AppFolio iPad Property Management
Aren’t trying to sell a property, but instead trying to manage it? AppFolio automates the accounting and property management for you. Trying to find the right tenant or property, but you just can’t remember who is for what? AppFolio has a dynamic search engine for that. And then through AppFolio, you can set up your own listing page, as they offer you an integrated website! Your monthly subscription includes a complete accounting, your website, unlimited users and more. Price: $1 per Unit per Month, with a minimum of $200.
ShareFile File Syncing and Sharing for iPad
I can’t stress this enough, a real estate broker behind a desk cannot be a most successful one. You need to be out in the field at all times. You need to be able to access clients and contracts from anywhere. ShareFile tracks changes and lets you retrieve files as large as 10GB from anywhere. And, have no fear, if one of your estate agents loses her iPad, you have the ability to close off the account and wipe the device remotely. Price: $29.95 a month.
MagicPlan for iPad
The most tedious part of a creating a real estate listing is often the floor plan. By simply taking photos of the corners of each room, it will automatically generate and internal floor plan. Then, you are able to add any objects, notes and annotations, and other information on the map. You will be able to share this file with other users, to download it or publish it as an interactive web-based map. Price: Free.
Happy Inspector Property Inspector App for iPad
This isn’t necessarily for most real estate brokers, but a fantastic app that makes sure your property inspectors are consistent and detailed. This iPad app allows you to create inspection reports and send them back to the office or the potential client right while you’re still on site. It’s clients say Happy Inspector saves the clients about 70 percent of their time in creating these reports. Designed specifically for the iPad and iPad Mini, integrating notes and photos right into your process. Price: Free.
Podio Team Collaboration App for iPad
Sometimes your listing, sale, and, especially, commission depends on other people. You need to make sure that all your iPad apps talk to each other and to your colleagues. Podio project manager is really a platform that allows you to build your own grouping of apps based on you and your team’s needs, choosing from hundreds of free apps. You can even use Podio as a free real estate CRM. Price: Free iPad, iPhone and Android apps, with the cost of $9 a month for up to five users.
The Don’ts of iPads in Real Estate
Don’t spend so much time staring at your device that you forget to make eye contact!
Don’t use it unless you’ve learned how!
Don’t forget to keep it charged! A dead iPad is like taking a PC around without a plug — useless weight.
How do YOU mobilize your Real Estate?
Please comment below about the various iPad apps and other sales tools you use to offer better service to your clients, market your properties and close those deals!
And don’t forget to check out our listing of other real estate management apps just waiting for you to download them to your iPad!