The 5 Best Independent Realtor Apps (And the CRM That Holds It All)
To outsiders, the real estate industry seems rather straightforward:
A homeowner contacts an agent, they agree on a list price, and the house is put on the market. A hopeful home buyer comes along, makes a reasonable offer, and a deal is made.
But if you’re an independent Realtor, you know that life in this industry can be hectic and overwhelming.
You have to keep track of all kinds of paperwork, including legal documentation, contracts, agreements, and more. You have to schedule open house dates and showings. You have to remember all of your client meetings.
It’s amazing that you’re able to do it all.
Fortunately, there are plenty of great apps for real estate agents. These apps can help you keep your business organized and thriving.
Keep reading to find out more.
Here’s a quick look at the five real estate apps (and one CRM) we're going to discuss:
- RPR Mobile
- CamScanner
- RoomScan Pro
- Periscope
- Canva
- Bloom
1. RPR Mobile
The MLS will always be your most reliable sidekick as an independent Realtor. You can schedule showings for interested buyers, market your listings to other agents, and scout out comps to calculate a competitive listing price.
It sure is convenient.
But when you’re on the go and need an easy-to-use platform, the MLS falls flat on its face. That’s why many real estate agents are turning to RPR Mobile as an alternative.
Working With Buyers
The RPR app squeezes the entire local housing market into one bite-sized mobile app. You can carry it around on your trusty smartphone and have 24/7 access to data about every home in a neighborhood or city—whether it’s on the market or not.
This app allows you to search properties according to your buyers’ preferences.
You can draw a perimeter around the areas your client prefers. You can weed out homes outside budget, in a flood zone, or located in a less-than-desirable school district.
If you’re keeping track, that’s already more than what Zillow, Realtor.com, and your Local MLS do.
And when a local home ticks every box on your buyer’s list of must-haves, tap “Save.”
Take a few notes directly in the app about the features of the home your client will love. Maybe it’s things your clients have gushed about, like an inground pool, brick fireplace, or finished basement. Then, send a PDF flyer for the listing directly to your buyer’s email address.
When your client wants to take the leap and see the home in person, give the listing agent a call right through the RPR app.
No more fumbling around with the MLS or your phone’s contact list—just schedule a showing and negotiate that sale!
Working With Sellers
Sellers have one thing on their minds:
Selling their home quickly and for a high price.
Sellers always want to know how long you expect their home to sit on the market, what they can get for it, and whether now’s the right time to sell.
And you’d love to know all those answers.
Those are all things you can figure out by running market reports. But, you may have to run dozens of reports for local towns to find the answers you want.
Or, you can just open up the home screen of your RPR app.
There, you can see things like:
- Average home price
- Average days on the market
- Market increase/decrease in the past 12 months
But that’s not all.
Type in your new seller’s address and take a look at the map view. You’ll see everything you need to know, from what the seller’s home might be valued at today to what similar homes have sold for in the last year or so (a.k.a., comps).
Go into your listing presentation, confident that you calculated the right list price.
Leave the dozens of printed comps and your trusty highlighter at home.
2. CamScanner
In the real estate world, time is of the essence. An offer submitted even a few minutes late can mean your buyer loses their dream home. And as you’re running to the office to print a buyer’s agreement, your buyer changes their mind.
Let’s face it:
There’s no time to waste when the market is booming.
It turns out you don’t need to go to the office to make copies or fax real estate documents anymore. CamScanner keeps the office in your pocket.
Your Office on the Go
Available for both iPhone and Android devices, CamScanner will come in handy when you have to send and receive documents in a pinch.
For example, let’s say you’re away from the office but need a specific form. Or maybe you and your client can’t find a time to meet in person to hand off paperwork.
Here’s what you do:
Whenever you have a form in front of you that you’re going to need later, take a picture of it. Whether it’s a blank template or one that’s filled out, snap a photo and upload it to CamScanner.
The app will boost the image quality and crop the edges, then you can send it to your client or another agent in PDF form.
Your client can e-sign their offer on their dream home from the comfort of their kitchen table. There’s no need to clear your schedule for an in-person meeting!
Clients want you at their beck and call. But you don’t have to give up your nights and weekends to make an unplanned trip to the office just to make copies.
Even More Tech-Savvy
CamScanner also has an optical character recognition feature.
What in the world is that?
This feature will convert your newly-scanned photo into a text file, making your documents searchable. Now, you can find exactly what you’re looking for without endless scrolling.
Typing up a listing description that’ll wow other agents?
Search the seller disclosure form for “central air” or “deck” to quickly discover some key features worth mentioning. And that’s all without having to flip through pages or read every word in the document.
But this app is for more than just scanning contracts and legal documents.
You can also use it to:
- Take high-quality photos of homes to send to buyers
- Capture the business card of a seller’s agent
- Take notes in the margins of key documents
Save these files to your DropBox or Google Drive, so they’re always at your fingertips! Or, upload them to a CRM like Bloom where you can send these crucial documents to clients directly through the platform.
3. RoomScan Pro
Picture this:
A buyer calls you up, tells you they saw your listing on Trulia, and they’re ready to make an offer now. You call up your client to get them out of the house for a showing that night. But when you get there, the home isn’t what the buyer expected.
Now you, the potential buyer, and your client are disappointed.
A floor plan gives buyers a chance to imagine themselves in a home. RoomScan Pro takes the guesswork out of this task.
Floor Plans Have Never Been This Easy
Unless you’re listing a brand-new property and have the blueprint on hand, a buyer won’t know a home’s layout until they actually tour it.
RoomScan Pro cuts the architect out of the equation, allowing you to make the floorplans yourself.
All you have to do is press your phone against a wall and wait for the beep. It measures the wall for you!
By scanning every room in the house, you can create a professional blueprint of the property, without a pencil and paper. The entire home can be mapped out in less than an hour!
Save the floor plan as a PNG file and upload it, along with pictures, to the MLS. You can even upload them to Zillow, Homesnap, or other real estate listing sites. Let buyers know exactly what to expect in this new home.
Best of all?
Not many other agents are offering floor plans to supplement their listings. Your listing already stands out among the bunch!
4. Periscope
In real estate, you’ll do just about anything to claim a listing or see an offer. But nothing in real estate is convenient. Not everybody is free on a Saturday to visit your open house or free on Tuesday night to attend a showing.
You watch clients and sales slip through the cracks right before your eyes.
The problem:
You’re hoping to bring your clients to these events.
The solution:
Bringing these events to your clients through a live-streaming app like Periscope.
Periscope & Real Estate
When you think about Periscope, you likely think of teenagers streaming live concerts or gamers streaming a tournament. But Periscope has become wildly popular in the real estate industry within the last five years.
Confused?
We’ll explain.
Periscope is a new way to host open houses and home walkthroughs.
All you have to do is post a link to your stream on social media or send it to your entire email list. Record yourself walking through your newest listing, narrating the features of the house, and answering questions that viewers ask in the chat.
Once the tour is over, save the video and share it on your social media accounts.
This gives your new listings a wider audience than you could imagine.
People can essentially tour this home in their PJs from across the country. This offers unrivaled access to tours for out-of-state buyers, the immunocompromised, and those with packed schedules.
And those who are really intrigued after watching your Periscope will be the ones to give you a call and schedule a showing.
You want serious buyers anyway.
5. Canva
Real estate marketing concepts aren’t all that tricky. You have a great listing, snap a few photos, and write a short but detailed bio explaining why this home is a new buyer’s dream.
Yet, how you present this information is equally as important.
Professionalism is essential.
When there’s no money in the budget to hire a professional graphic designer or time to learn how to use Photoshop, Canva is your shortcut to beautiful marketing materials.
Why Real Estate Agents Need Canva
Canva is the tool real estate agents need to craft beautiful ads and marketing materials in mere minutes. That’s all thanks to this graphic design platform’s wide range of premade templates.
Some are even built for agents like you!
Just choose a template, swap out the text and photos with some of your own, and then share the marketing materials with your audience.
That’s it.
In terms of what you can create on Canva, your options are practically limitless.
Here are some common uses you might find as a Realtor:
- Promotional postcards or flyers for your EDDM route
- Unique business cards that people keep in their wallet
- Open house brochures or flyers (no more printing from the MLS!)
- Trendy photos or ads for Facebook and Instagram
- Drip campaign greetings (like holiday or birthday cards)
The key benefit of Canva is the professional vibe.
Attractive fonts, stellar stock photos, and well-designed ads will be eye-catching online and in print. With thousands of other agents competing for the same clients, you need anything that makes you stand out!
Stop spending your hard-earned money on bland business cards and flyers that end up right in the recycling bin. This is a free app (with an optional upgrade) that you can use to create professional marketing materials.
Give your audience something they’ll remember (and keep)!
Want more marketing ideas? Check out our article about Small Business Marketing Tactics.
Other Useful Apps for Real Estate Agents
Looking for more apps to make your real estate career even simpler? Take a look at these other apps agents love!
WordPress
With premade templates and easy-to-use plugins, you can design your very own agent website. This is a great way to build your online presence, start a real estate blog, and go beyond what your brokerage offers.
Docusign
This is for all those times you need a document signed ASAP without being able to arrange an in-person meeting. Send and receive e-signed documents through a secure portal to speed up the process.
Slack
Bring your entire real estate team into one central location! This messaging app can help you keep in contact with other agents in your office, your broker, and your preferred contractors (carpenter, plumber, and more).
Zoom
When an in-person meeting isn’t in the cards, don’t wait until both of your schedules align perfectly. Use Zoom to host listing presentations and update your clients on their home’s status via video call.
Evernote
From the seller’s agreement to putting homes on the MLS, you have a lot to do. This app will help you create checklists to keep track of your schedule.
The Best CRM for Real Estate Agents: Bloom
What does your typical morning routine look like as a real estate agent?
You probably check Facebook Messenger for new seller leads, open your Outlook app to see if your new client has returned the buyer’s agreement, scout out your calendar app to see what the day ahead looks like, and repeat.
Bloom is a great way to make this hectic Realtor life a bit easier and more organized.
Here’s how:
Helps You Get Leads and Book Meetings
Bloom is a CRM system that automates the lead generation process.
First, you create your own personal lead capture form through Bloom. A few minutes later, your lead capture form is ready to send out to the masses via email or social media.
Clients looking to buy or sell can enter their contact information into the form. At that point, you can reach out to the client to discuss what they’re looking for.
Now, nobody likes playing phone tag or going back and forth on Facebook Messenger. That’s where Bloom comes in. It makes scheduling meetings as simple as possible.
Clients can book a meeting directly through the form. This meeting is then added and locked into your work schedule.
It’s that easy!
With Bloom, you can keep track of your open houses and meetings without ever overbooking or having to cancel on a client. It’s kind of like a time management hack for real estate agents!
And unlike most CRM systems, Bloom has an in-app website builder to help you create your own real estate website. You’ll have your very own home on the web so potential clients will always know where to find you!
Streamlines Client Communication
Communicating with clients isn’t the hard part.
The hard part is that some clients prefer text messages, others use Facebook Messenger, and a few like email. This will cause leads to slip through the cracks accidentally.
What’s great about Bloom is that it helps to centralize all client communications.
Using the in-app chat feature, you can message or call up your leads and clients directly. This can help you to nurture those hot leads on a schedule and convert prospects into paying clients.
But there’s another benefit:
You can also use Bloom to send, receive, and store documents.
You can send copies of contracts, listing agreements, and floor plans directly to the client, right through the app. They can then sign these forms digitally and send them right back.
You no longer need to schedule a separate meeting just to sign a few forms!
For more info on the importance of a seamless client communication process, check out our article about client interfacing.
Bloom vs. Other CRMs
A CRM is an essential tool for any real estate professional.
But if you’re an agent with a franchise brokerage, you probably already have access to a nifty CRM tool.
That begs the question ...
Why Bloom?
Bloom takes the average real estate agent’s daily tasks and simplifies them. In a matter of just a few minutes, you can:
- Send out a lead collection form on Facebook or your website
- Automatically pen client meetings into your schedule
- Market your newest listing to your entire email list (with a click of a button)
- Follow up with interested leads and existing clients
- Track your business expenses and commissions
It’d be hard to find a CRM that does all of that, is easy to use, and is affordable like Bloom.
Conclusion
The apps above are some of the best real estate apps out there. They’ll help you stay organized and productive throughout your real estate venture.
If you work for a brokerage, they may have a certain app they want you to use. But if you’re an independent contractor without a boss, the choice is yours.
Now, you’ll have to pay for some of the apps discussed above. That just comes with the real estate territory—spending some money to make a lot of money.
But trust me:
You’ll get your money’s worth.
As long as you nurture your leads, generate sales, and provide strong customer service, your real estate apps will pay for themselves in no time.
