How to Create a CRM for Real Estate: Comprehensive Guide

Here, we are talking about how real estate CRM software development can significantly improve the life of business owners in this industry, which features a good CRM should have, as well as challenges you may face during its creation.

Highlights:

• Relationships are the lifeblood of the real estate business, so tracking client interactions and property information is critical.
• The global CRM market is expected to grow by 13.9% CAGR between 2023 and 2030.
• A CRM can improve client relationships, increase sales, improve client retention rates, and increase profitability.

As our experience shows, investing in real estate CRM software development today will guarantee faster deal closure for real estate business owners and better customer service.

If you are looking for a comprehensive management system that your agents and clients will appreciate, you came to the right place. At Mind Studios, we have years of experience creating value-adding solutions for the real estate sector. For example, Mulki is one of the first high-quality mobile solutions made for property management for the MENA region.

However, this is just one of our projects. Here is what real estate businesses typically say about our collaboration:

“They’ve done an amazing job. While I’d heard horror stories about outsourcing, I’ve had no issues at all with development or general output. The platform has received great feedback, and the process of working together has been very smooth.”

This article will examine real estate customer relationship management software development, how systems revolutionize the real estate sector, and the role of CRM in real estate. Continue reading to learn more about the development process, or request a free consultation to make your idea take off.

The importance of CRM in real estate

Customer relationship management software is essential for real estate companies. This strategic asset allows for the processing of client data easily and has numerous benefits for different types of real estate users.

Let’s find out which benefits real estate CRM will bring to business owners, salespeople, and heads of departments.

Business owners

For real estate business owners, CRM gives a detailed overview of all the company’s operations, as well as helps with improving both profitability and decision-making through such features as:

• Sales pipeline management. You get full visibility into the sales pipeline, which translates into improved financial planning and forecasting.
• Reporting and analytics. You will be able to identify inefficiencies as well as make more data-driven decisions for resources and process optimization, leading to increased profitability.
• Real-time data and dashboard. Get access to real-time data on your property deals, customer preferences, as well as your overall business performance to improve decision-making and drive your business growth.
• Task automation. Automating your client communication and follow-ups ensures all your interactions are always timely and personalized, thus boosting client retention and satisfaction.

Sales managers

For sales managers, such a system can help automate daily tasks through the following features:

• Lead scoring. You will be able to better prioritize high-potential clients and close deals much faster.
• Task automation. Automation of mundane tasks, such as client tracking, scheduling, as well as follow-ups, will increase your productivity and help focus on higher-value tasks.
• Behavioral analytics. Get insights into clients’ behavior, meaning more targeted sales strategies and more personalized client interactions.
• Integrated tools. More efficient communication with both clients and team members thanks to various integrated tools that make all interactions more organized.

Department heads

Department heads get plenty of advantages to help them better manage their teams and ensure smoother operations with the help of CRM features like:

• Detailed reports. Generate reports on the overall team’s performance, task progress, and sales targets to monitor the overall progress.
• Goals and task management. Setting goals and tracking their progress ensures alignment with the company’s objectives as well as performance metrics.
• Centralized data management. Improve collaboration by centralizing the data in a single place, which makes it easier to share client data and update it seamlessly.
• Performance analytics. Find areas for improvement within the team, and then implement changes quickly to improve the overall team’s performance and effectiveness.

Real estate CRM features

Any real estate company should eventually implement a custom CRM system. At the same time, many business managers, regardless of their knowledge and experience, need help to define full functionality from the ground up.

There are many features that CRMs can have, but most real estate agents will find this list of the top features to be useful to make working with clients easier:

Automated task management	A good customer relationship management system would streamline your operations by eliminating the need for human intervention in routine operations like data collecting, analysis, and marketing campaigns. It aids in the smooth streamlining of your operations and routing and provides easily accessible reporting.
Document management	CRM should also include document management, which allows you to successfully store your documents digitally and preserve all of your information in a location that is both easily accessible and secure. Keeping your data in one place, protected, and easily accessible is a complete game changer for building campaigns that will have the desired impact.
Reports and analytics	One of the most important components of any CRM is sales analytics. Data analysis from social media, website traffic, and polls allows you to run more effective campaigns in the future. To streamline your operations and improve your client experience, you will also require a variety of various insights and analytics. More importantly, it would help if you had this data easily accessible and digestible so that all your employees, sales reps, and customer service representatives can grasp what's going on with a short scan.
Contact management system	Clients, leads, and vendors can all be centrally managed using real estate CRM software. With a contact management system, you can create deeper relationships with clients and offer tailored services by storing their contact information, property preferences, transaction history, and other relevant data.
Marketing automation system	The ability to automate marketing tasks like social media postings, email campaigns, and targeted advertising is another important function of real estate software. Various customer segments can be targeted with personalized messages and campaigns, and the effectiveness of these campaigns can be monitored.

Mind Studios’ recommendation: If you are deciding between a ready-made CRM and a custom solution, we always recommend opting for a custom one. Many businesses initially use ready-made CRM software. However, the needs of an organization change as it grows. Out-of-the-box solutions sometimes become too restrictive and no longer satisfy the needs. In the worst-case scenario, they can even disrupt workflows. In comparison, a scalable custom solution can grow alongside your business, and you can easily add new features along the way.

Here are some additional CRM features that, based on our experience, will benefit your real estate business even more:

• Lead scoring. Such a system automatically ranks leads based on their potential to convert and helps agents focus on high-priority clients more.
• Customer segmentation. Helps you to divide your whole client base into groups based on various criteria (such as location, property preferences, budget, etc.)
• Built-in communication tools. Integrated messaging tools (like SMS, email, or chat) allow you to communicate with your clients directly from your CRM. This ensures that all your communication is stored in one place and is fully tracked.
• Mobile app integration. As a real estate agent’s job sometimes requires lots of moving around, mobile app integration ensures you always get access to the key information. Besides, you can easily manage tasks and respond to clients promptly.
• Property listing management. A single centralized database for property listing management helps you to store, update, as well as share property details with your clients easily.

If you didn't find the feature you need on our list or have some special requests, feel free to contact our specialists. They will consult you and answer all your questions.

What information to include in your real estate CRM system

If you aim to get the most out of your real estate CRM system, you have to make sure you include all the relevant data that will help you streamline operations and client relationships.

Here is a brief checklist of basic data that you need to include:

1. Information about clients and leads (including contact details, property preferences, interaction history, etc.)
2. Property listings (specifications, marketing materials, availability status, owner information, etc.) to ensure your agents always have access to the right information.
3. Daily task management (task assignments, deadlines, reminders, sales pipeline tracking, appointment scheduling, etc.) to help agents focus on high-priority activities.
4. Communication logs (emails, calls, follow-up schedules, meeting notes) to ensure nothing is missed.
5. Reports and analytics (sales reports, lead performance, marketing metrics, etc.) to improve overall business performance.
6. Documents (digital versions of documents, contract templates, etc.) to ensure everything is easily accessible and organized.
7. Integrations (email and calendar integrations, Multiple Listing Service (MSL) integration, accounting software integration, etc.) to streamline operations even further.

Best practices for real estate CRM software development

“There is no better tool for real estate companies than custom CRM software. It offers many advantages, including keeping stakeholders informed and facilitating easy collaboration. Within minutes, you can organize your calendar, handle real estate leads, manage contacts, keep tabs on lead generation campaigns, and complete document work.
At Mind Studios, we’ve built CRMs and property management systems for clients around the world. One of them is a property management tool for the MENA region called Mulki, which helps landlords manage their property assets more efficiently by automating time-consuming payment and contract tasks. Within just one click, they can have a full overview of their property portfolio, upcoming payment collections, and ongoing contracts.”

— Dmytro Dobrytskyi, the CEO of Mind Studios.

However, developing custom CRM software is a significant investment, and you must follow certain practices to ensure business growth.

Here are our recommendations on what you need to do to develop a fully-fledged CRM that brings value to your business:

Research industry trends and conduct market analysis

To select the best solution for customized real estate CRM software, extensive study of current industry trends, real estate customer relationship management development cost, installation, and market research are required.

Mind Studios’ recommendation: When developing a CRM for international markets, you should consider the local nuances, too. And localization goes beyond just translation. For example, for Mulki, we localized the app to meet both the cultural and business needs of the MENA region. This included adding Hijri calendar support as well as Arabic-language optimization. This way, we were able to cater to the needs of the local users.

Choose the features you need

To make the choice easier, create a checklist to stay in touch with clients, determine their needs, and update the plan regularly to meet those demands. It's also crucial to identify the benefits of real estate CRM software by filtering them based on your company's needs.

Compare features and conduct tests

To guarantee that you choose the best software for your needs, compare features and costs and go through a comprehensive trial and testing period.

Improve your reporting and lead capture

Some of the additional practices for custom real estate CRM software include strengthening company analytics with reporting, anticipating client needs to boost lead capture, optimizing channel partner communication, and delivering bulk emails promptly.

Centralize data collection

An efficient real estate CRM software centralizes data collection, making it an ideal tool for analytics.

While developing the Mulki app, one of our client's issues was fragmented data across multiple systems. So, we had to consolidate the property, tenant, and financial records under one central location. As a result, landlords could access everything, from tenant history to financial reports, in one place, which significantly improved daily operations.

[Source: Mulki]

Invest in mobile accessibility

Accessing lead data and managing it on mobile devices is critical for real estate professionals who are constantly on the go. A tailored real estate software should be responsive and user-friendly across multiple devices, allowing agents to access critical information and manage activities while on the go.

Ensure scalability for future expansion

Your real estate CRM will have to be scalable to accommodate a greater workload and new features as your company grows. This versatility ensures that your CRM system stays a valuable tool throughout your expansion journey.

Consider data security

You should implement best practices to reduce hazards and improve the security of the CRM for real estate investors. These include routine software updates and patches, strong authentication techniques, user access controls, and sensitive data encryption.

Cloud-based real estate CRM solutions offer cost-effective and convenient access to data from any device with an internet connection. However, investing in extra data security solutions is important to protect sensitive information.

Mind Studios’ recommendation: Don't rely solely on marketing claims; discuss data security with your team or vendor for a professional conclusion. Consider selecting a CRM vendor that allows you to choose the storage location, but be prepared for potential pricing changes if you don’t want to invest in your own data storage.

If you need professional help with building a custom CRM for your real estate business, Mind Studios experts are just a click away. We can build a development roadmap that will meet both your budget and deadlines.

Challenges and solutions in CRM software development

It is important to recognize the difficulties of the real estate CRM development and integration process. Many real estate companies encounter the following problems when using a customer relationship management system:

Besides the common challenges above that can be conquered with ample research and a bit of charisma, we can also name some others that might be trickier to solve. Let's talk about some real estate CRM software development hurdles in detail:

Challenge #1: Data migration

Data synchronization is one of the most common issues firms face when adopting CRM integration, which can lead to data discrepancies and errors. Data inconsistencies might develop due to a lack of automation, poor data quality, security and compliance concerns, and other factors. For example, manually transferring data between multiple systems can increase the risk of data inconsistency since human errors may occur during the process.

Furthermore, when merging different software systems to consolidate customer data, data formats and structures, such as naming standards, can differ, resulting in data inconsistency. These inconsistencies might complicate and lengthen the data translation and mapping procedure. Finally, inconsistency in data might stem from ineffective decision-making and result in unsatisfactory integration outcomes.

Mind Studios’ solution

Data migration errors and conflicts can be mitigated by enhancing data quality. You want your data migration to go smoothly? Do your research, standardize formats, map fields carefully, set proper ownership rules, and perform rigorous testing.

Challenge #2: User adoption

CRM adoption is vital to business success but is riddled with difficulties. These include data entry, a lack of support, a lack of trust in the technology, and insufficient training. Data entry and manual tasks are frequently problematic with the new software, resulting in duplicate contacts, manual entry errors, poor activity logging, poor client data quality, and considerable time losses. Once the software has been deployed, a lack of support can lead to misuse, incorrect data production, and user dissatisfaction with the new software tools. At the end of the day, inadequate training usually causes users to avoid the tool and its features.

Mind Studios’ solution

To encourage the adoption of CRM, sometimes it is necessary to make management changes, provide specialized training, and establish consistent support. The personalization of training workflows and the provision of support on demand are all areas that can benefit from the appropriate training. It is also possible for a custom software solution to offer specific testing, communication, and feedback slots to align the team with their CRM performance.

Challenge #3: System integration

Planning ahead and preparing for the complexity involved when integrating CRM systems is important. Insufficient understanding of the project's scope is one tech issue that may develop throughout integration and cause bugs, overruns, and additional expenses.

Budget overruns and delayed return on investment (ROI) can occur, for example, if the effort needed for integration, data migration, customization, and end-user training needs to be reconsidered. Data integrity issues and project delays can result when companies underestimate the amount and quality of CRM data that needs to be transferred to the new system.

Mind Studios’ solution

It is critical to have a trained team with CRM system integration knowledge to mitigate these issues. They can assist with the detailed identification of requirements and adopt an agile project methodology that allows for the early discovery of problem areas. The agile methodology allows for continual improvements and the incorporation of input with each iteration, which can aid in the avoidance of delays and deliver swifter software.

Furthermore, a trained team can forecast the CRM system's costs and advantages, collaborate with various departments to predict how it will affect the business during and after deployment, and manage any production dips that can arise throughout the rollout.

Simply put, integrating CRM systems is a complex process, but having a trained team with CRM system integration experience can assist in alleviating the challenges and ensure a successful deployment.

Successful integration stories: Mind Studios' experience

Mind Studios has extensive experience developing apps that help reimagine CRM systems. Real estate CRM systems and rental services projects have taught our team how to design solutions that motivate people to adopt new management systems and technologies.

As a company with extensive experience in the real estate sector, we know creating a unique solution that attracts users even in a highly competitive market is practical if you have a worthy idea and talented staff. There are many successful real estate CRM examples, but here’s one of ours:

Mulki is a one-of-a-kind real estate management tool for the MENA region that automates time-consuming chores and helps real estate owners with everyday operations. Finance, scanning, calculation, calendar support for the Islamic Hijri calendar, analytics, and notifications are among the functions included in the application. Mind Studios worked with the client to create the app that features a mobile-only property management system and a standardized contract form. The app's user interface is focused on efficiency and simplicity, with an emphasis on Arabic.

Essentially, Mulki is a mobile app created for iOS and Android that caters to Saudi Arabia's substantial market share. The app includes smart contract scanning, machine learning for text recognition, and unique payment calendar algorithms. For property management, Mulki also features powerful filtering options. From the initial list of requirements, the features have upgraded the app from a simple payment schedule with reminders to a full-fledged task management system for landlords.

Working with Mulki was a unique experience for Mind Studios in many ways. After the discovery stage, the requirements for the final product changed rapidly, and the team learned how to adapt to these frequent changes.

Similarly, we learned much about how CRM system localization differs from simple language support.

To make this happen, our developers worked hard to create a highly flexible app architecture, allowing us to integrate new functionality seamlessly. Mulki, launched in September 2022, has experienced steady user growth and positive feedback. If you want to learn more about the project, you can read our case study here.

Final thoughts

Customized CRM systems are transforming the real estate industry by streamlining workflow, increasing client interaction, and ultimately boosting business success. Today, automated task management, document management, reports and analytics, mobile accessibility, and scalability are all important features of real estate CRM software.

While these features assist real estate agents in effectively managing client relationships, organizing business records, analyzing data, and accessing critical information on the go, it is important to understand the challenges associated with implementing a new CRM system. Data migration, user adoption, and system integration are common challenges during the real estate CRM software development phase. However, they can be addressed with proper planning, training, and support. Investing in customized CRM software is critical for real estate firms to remain competitive and grow.

Do not hesitate to contact us for a free consultation if you have any particular tech issues you want to address or expansion potential that you would like to explore. No matter what your company needs, our business development team is here to assist you with developing a CRM system uniquely suited to your needs.

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