Real Estate CRM reviews by other agents or by industry experts can be tricky. It’s best to bear in mind that they are opinions, not facts. One of the larger CRM software sites has an article about the Ten Most Reviewed Real Estate CRMs. It does very well in the search engines so I don’t doubt that it gets pretty good traffic from agents.
I’m writing this to raise awareness so you think to question recommendations. In this case I have to question why nine out of the ten CRMs being reviewed are not made for real estate agents. Although my personal opinion about using a CRM that is not built for real estate is simply not to do it in most cases, there are certainly agents who would disagree. But that does not change that there are an exceptionally small percentage of agents that have the ability and the willingness to spend the time to create the work-arounds to a non-Real Estate CRM that are necessary to use it for their purposes. So why would someone writing an article about reviewing Real Estate CRMs mention only one of the 40 some odd Real Estate CRMs that are available? Is it because the generic CRMs are better? Not in my opinion.
What I’ve found over the years with most IT guys that help real estate agents with their technology needs is that they recommend products like Outlook, Google Apps, ACT! and Salesforce because that is what they are familiar with. In most cases their background and what they do most is help small businesses. Helping real estate agents and brokers is usually a small part of their business. That is not to say that most agents would be lost without them. They provide a great service in areas in which they excel. But – most have never been in real estate sales or used real estate specific programs, so they recommend the CRMs they know best. The generic ones. That way they can then help them with their CRM as well. If you need help selecting a CRM, find someone who knows Real Estate CRM. If you need a network set up, they’re your guys.
Wherever you land looking for a CRM, be aware who is giving the advice. Find out what their background is. If they are recommending mostly CRMs that have nothing to do with real estate – why? If they can explain why generic CRMs are better for most agents than the plethora of CRM options available specifically for real estate agents, please by all means let me know. But they won't be able to.
Yes this article ends up being self-serving because I have a background in real estate. But does that change the points made?
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