Realtors are often faced with modern business and technological demands that take time, energy and focus from their fulfillment of service obligations and cultivating one-on-one relationships with potential and existing clients. Although a realtor can hire professionals from different disciplines to manage areas that go beyond their primary knowledge and skills, several free and inexpensive realtor tools can help them stay competitive. This guide quickly provides a snapshot of some of the most popular realtor tools available today:

1. Website Design and Hosting – Wix

Given the free website setup and paid premium domain options offered by Wix, there’s absolutely no reason that an agent can’t have a high-quality website. Wix does more than provide a business overview or highlight past successes. It helps an agent promote available properties and outline potential future plans. Wix makes website building incredibly easy via an intuitive, organic interface.

2. Home Staging and Virtual Tours – iStaging & HomeRover

The days of agents physically showing homes are in the past with iStaging and HomeRover. An agent merely needs to record a home’s interior to create a complete picture and then upload it to display a tour on a business website, social media and elsewhere. A live tour option also exists. These amazing realtor tools even provide VR aficionados realistic walkthroughs of homes.

3. Marketing and Listings – Zillow

Zillow isn’t merely one of the most well-known platforms where realtors display listings to attract potential buyers. It’s also a lead-generation tool that helps agents connect to potential customers through multiple, effortless communication options. It’s has cutting-edge marketing tools as well. 

4. Fast Communications – EZ Texting

Instant messaging is a necessity in real estate. An agent needs to be able to communicate quickly links to listings and changes to a prospective buyer. They need to be able to handle scheduling and negotiations even while they’re sitting in traffic or long meetings. EZ texting offers them an fast, easy solution.

5. Community Connections – Parkbench

Realtors must connect with businesses and individuals in their communities to acquire new leads, build long-term relationships that generate repeat business and referrals. Parkbench allows an agent to promote their local neighborhood in a single space where they can highlight local news and events and area business partners. This type of hub is often appealing to consumers, and it makes the agent seem like an experienced local guide who cares about the community.

6. Leads Management – HubSpot

HubSpot CRM and Sales Hub offers free and paid options for agents to generate, store and cultivate leads via a wide range of tools, including phone, email and scheduling features. These tools also offer data analysis that helps agents customize marketing and sales efforts to make a greater impact on daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly results. A paid Real Geeks subscription directs traffic via ads on Google and Facebook to a realtor’s website and prompts visitors to leave contact details. It provides extensive organization and tracking tools as well.

7. Social Engagement – HootSuite and Lumen5

Agents generate leads and improve their reputations via interactions with their target audience on social media. HootSuite helps them upload, auto-post to popular social platforms and organize and track posts. Lumen5 makes it easier than ever for them to create, upload and post custom videos to these accounts.

8. One-Stop Business Tools – Propertybase

Lastly, PropertyBase is a paid, full-service platform that supplies realtor tools for every part of the business. It offers tools for administration, lead generation, document storage, website design, marketing campaigns and even data tracking and analysis. It’s a game changer that guarantees higher productivity and greater competitiveness, especially for individual agents and small firms seeking to compete against bigger agencies.