According to Nielsen, 40% of mobile users have smart phones. Additionally, they predict that by the end of this year, 50% of the population in the U.S. will own a smart phone. What is it about these little rectangular-shaped devices that seem to draw people to them? More importantly, what can smart phones do for real estate agents to maximize their time and business? Are they absolutely necessary to conduct business more efficiently?
Smart Phones For Real Estate An Entire Office In Your Pocket!
Smart phones are a complete necessity for real estate agents today. The smart phone has basically taken the virtual office to the next level. In one small apparatus, you have phone, email, internet, and every app under the sun so that you can work from basically anywhere. In a nutshell, real estate agents can now do everything from a machine the size of a deck of cards.
In 2009, when I began my short lived career in residential real estate, I had the basic Nokia flip phone that had been all the rage in 2007. After all, I had a camera on my phone! I decided that it was going to be necessary to have a smart phone to help me be more available to clients so that I could email, text and call from one gadget. After talking with other agents, I determined that a Blackberry was the best bet for my entrance into the world of the smart phone.
It could do all that I wanted plus it had an app for the electronic lock boxes for listed homes. At that time, no other smart phone had that capability. From a personal standpoint, I liked the “QWERTY” buttons that I could press so that I could easily type emails and texts, just as I do on the computer.
Smart Phones Are Here To Stay So Jump In!
Fast forward to today, and things have already changed. Smart phones have virtually taken on the appearance and capabilities of a laptop. Along with calling, emailing and the other general stuff a smart phone does, apps are available for practically everything! People monitor diets, the stock market, fitness, and whatever else they want from their phones. Add to that the fact that most every business industry has its own apps available to help streamline what it is they do, and you have a virtual must-have for the realtor!
The real estate industry has a plethora of apps from which to choose in order for agents to be a more effective and efficient. There are different apps within each category but for the most part, the following are the most popular and necessary categories of smart phone apps.
First of all, having the MLS with you at all times is more than helpful. It is necessary. There are apps like Smart Agent that give you access into the area/state MLS. Additionally, most state real estate boards have apps for their MLS listings. These are excellent ways to look at recent comps to help establish a general listing price on the spot for a seller, pull up homes for a prospective buyer during an open house, or anything else agents get from the MLS.
Because agents have the MLS at their fingertips and can pull any listing at any given point and time to forward to a prospective buyer on the spot, with apps like Adobe Photoshop Express (available on iOS smart phones), they can take sending a listing from their phone to the next level by immediately uploading pictures to give them a more professional look before they forward them to a client.
There’s An App For That!
When out with buyers who are serious about buying a home, an app that is an excellent tool is a mortgage calculator like the Mortgage Calculator Pro or Loan Fox Mortgage Calculator. Real estate agents can give prospective buyers a general feel for the total amount of a house payment while they are looking at houses in an effort to help narrow the field.
As the apps progress, more and more become available. There are apps like DocuSign and Zosh that allow documents to be signed on an iPad or iPhone by using your index finger. The signatures are embedded in the PDF and don’t show as digital signatures. This is great for submitting offers on homes in that it streamlines and speeds up the process by doing everything on the spot. Or from the other end, apps like Scan Pro and Scanner Pro allow you to scan and send contracts as soon as they are signed, again streamlining and shortening the whole process.
Lastly, in terms of apps that are very helpful for real estate agents, Dropbox is a hugely popular app, especially for real estate “teams” who share files and information. It allows you to save files, pictures, forms and anything else you need in your folder(s) which makes it available to everyone in your circle who might need something. Plus, for agents who work alone, it wipes out the need for a thumb drive as it is all saved on a server.
There are so many apps out there for smart phones today that it is a wonder anyone even goes to an office except to pick up and drop off checks and for sales meetings. With such hectic lives and juggling so many balls, having a smart phone is one of the best investments real estate agents can make. Once the process is in place, the daily business flows much better and curve balls are handled much more calmly. So bite the bullet. Throw away your flip phone, if you still have one, and upgrade to the latest and greatest smart phone. You will be glad you did!
This guest blog on Smart Phones for real estate agents was provided by Tech Savvy Realtor Kimberley Kelly. If you’re interested in seeing tech in action, you can visit Kimberley’s high end website where you can also search homes on your smart phone!