Estate agents have had a tough year. Even as prices have been rising in various countries around the globe (especially in the UK) – the Covid pandemic has layered new challenges into the market.
Providing agency services – for selling and letting is very different to how it was even 12 months ago.
As you already know, estate agents have to constantly run two separate marketing campaigns – one to advertise and sell the properties on their books, and the other to sell themselves to new potential clients.
Often, focussing on one (the properties usually) leads to putting the other onto the backburner. So what if you could find ways to automate, or at least reduce the amount of time, that marketing your business requires?
Remote working (often from home), restrictions to in-person property viewings, and even simply communicating with customers, have all become more complicated in 2020/21.
For the rental market, inspecting properties and checking out tenants after a lease is now more troublesome than before.
And whilst online property services cannot help with all these challenges, there are many areas of your property business that can become more streamlined, and taking pressure off you in one area only helps you to improve in others.
One of the key results of leveraging some of these online services is in client acquisition. Simply by offering a better level of service to your clients, you will naturally attract more business.
In the eyes of the home vendor, selling a property is not cheap, so they want (expect) great service. The more you can offer (without adding great expense to yourself) the more clients you will win.
With a large number of online estate agents popping up at “discount” prices (although we all know what that really means), add-on services are the marketing essential for high street agencies.
So put your estate agent business streets ahead of your competition. And if you are still running your estate agency fully manual, perhaps it’s time to sit back and allow someone else to take the strain a little.
Here’s a round-up of some of the best online services for estate agents that can add value to your business and make you more marketable.
This online property service offers a wealth of information on local properties and areas.
Although a large proportion of their services are designed for property investors, they also work with estate agents and provide a good range of data and even white-label reports, which make you look good!
These include:
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- Branded reports on local areas, valuations, comparable properties, together with live market data and analytics
- High-resolution plot maps
- Live data provision via an API to integrate with your agency website
- Competition comparison
As just one simple example of how you can use this to win more clients for your agency, their API integration means that you can run a simple property valuation tool on your website using live data.
Designed to help estate agents meet their anti-money laundering and consumer protection regulations, Landmark describes itself a ‘compliance in a box’.
They offer a range of tools for estate agents which are designed to make your life easier and your business more profitable.
In addition, their service offers a complete time and date stamped audit trail for your compliance activity, backed up by on-going account management support, training and regular compliance updates.
This enables you to protect your business from financial penalties and reputational damage, by ensuring complete compliance with all current regulation.
Proval provides an instant online valuation tool for estate agents.
Enter an address, and they will return you an instant, beautifully presented report on estimated values, recent sale date of similar properties in the area, comparables and a lot more (sample of the free version below).
Subscribe for a low monthly fee, and they offer additional features, with comprehensive reporting and they also offer excellent lead management tools for your business – including branches.
Agent Extra is a lead generation machine.
Imagine, for a moment, that you had the most amazing social media campaign that reached thousands and generated dozens of leads and appointments for you.
Every month.
That is Agent Extra.
They are experienced property experts who work with estate agents across the UK doing just one thing – getting new homeowners to list their properties. From new independents, established brands and seeded start-ups, they will win new instructions for your business in any volume.
They target your market, prospect to them, generate contact and follow up. Their methods have seen hundreds of new customers instruct estate agents on a monthly basis across multiple platforms.
MRI is a SAAS (software as a service) that allows you to run the many aspects of your agency from within one streamlined software package.
Familiarity brings efficiency, and also means an end to logging in and out of various systems to complete different tasks in the day to day running of your business.
Securely offering access from both desktop and mobile, the system will happily integrate with third-party applications, enabling you to choose the systems that suit you best.
Reports and analysis always keep your finger on the pulse of your business in real-time, while the system gives your staff one integrated, familiar interface for all your computer services.
To date, MRI has over 17,000 happy customers (and counting).
Credas are a buyer and seller AML verification service that offers live customer ID services.
They offer a simple, slick and smart identity verification solution, which utilises full traceability, electronic verification, a user-friendly portal and a secure mobile app and ensures compliance with HMRC and other regulatory bodies.
They are a one-stop-shop for real-time identity and ID document verification, including document and face recognition technology.
And all this with 97.7% accuracy of facial recognition software and 100% NFC chip reading.
Best of all, their services integrate seamlessly with your existing CRM and current onboarding processes.
As they describe themselves, PropertyFile is an online communications tool that connects you with your customers, allowing you to provide a better level of customer service, making your agency stand out from the crowd and allowing you to win more instructions.
Services are white-label (branded for your agency) and allow you to offer your customers 24-hour online service. You can even keep in touch with them via the mobile app!
PropertyFile enables you to keep in touch with ease, with vendors, landlords and tenants alike (even managing property repairs).
Even tenants benefit – by being able to report issues electronically from their mobile device – including pictures – and in a format that works with your systems. No missed phone calls, no lost letter and – at the moment – safe, socially distanced communication with everyone!
By offering a second-to-none service, you will gain second-to-none clients.
For fast, professional property photographs and video, Splento can be booked online with just a couple of mouse clicks – even at short notice.
Low fixed fees and guaranteed delivery of the finished, edited photos or video in under 24 or 48 hours, Splento is the perfect visual partner for you agency.
Services include 3D Matterport video, 360° photo and video, drone footage and anything else you may need to present your properties to perfection.
Splento has property specialist photographers and videographers all over the country – so they are always local to you.
Sell more properties faster – with the best visual content on the market.
And not just for selling homes – high-quality visual content is essential for both effective property marketing ideas and for marketing your agency, to attract new business.
Social media and other agency marketing demand the best visuals, so don’t settle for second best.
With consistent customer reviews on Trustpilot of 4.9/5.0, Splento is the only photography and videography service you’ll ever need.
Contact Splento if you are in need of: