Who says starting a real estate team has to be expensive? The services covered in this post provide everything you need to run your real estate team for a total of just $84 per month.
This includes the basics, like email accounts and file storage and real estate essentials, like fully featured customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Read on, and discover what you can use to get your new team going strong without spending thousands (or even hundreds) on the tools agents need to coordinate, collaborate and close.
Office software
To meet all of your basic business needs (including email, document creation, file storage, etc.) without spending hundreds per month on separate services, get G Suite.
As a cloud-based work platform (by Google), it’s perfect for real estate professionals who might not share the same hours and office space. With G Suite, you and your agents can access everything needed to get things done while at work, at home or on the go.
Price $10 per month (business plan)
Team communication
Slack is a great tool for team communication. It keeps messages organized in a way that makes it incredibly easy to keep track of conversations, more so than email. It also allows users to create different channels for ongoing projects, send direct messages and more.
Plus, with reminders and built-in file- and link-sharing capabilities, Slack offers everything needed to serve as your team’s central communication platform. It’s what I use, and it’s a tool I can highly recommend to anyone starting up a team of their own.
Price: Free (basic plan)
Task management
The ability to assign tasks and monitor their completion is something that no team lead should be without. Trello is perfect for this, and its card-based UI (user interface) makes it incredibly easy to jump right in.
The free plan provides ample features for the average real estate team, but you can opt for the business plan at $9.99 per month for a few additional perks that might save you some time on project management.
Oh, and Trello’s built-in integration with services like Google Apps and Slack make using it in conjunction with the other items in this post a breeze.
Price: Free (basic plan)
CRM software
Opting for the most expensive CRM on the market won’t guarantee better lead conversion. It will, however, run up your monthly expenses significantly. If you aren’t already sold on a specific CRM, consider giving LionDesk a try.
Many of the brokers and agents I’ve interviewed swear by it, and you can try it for free for a full month. After that, it’s still one of the cheapest CRMs out there. In the event that you decide to upgrade to a different CRM later, your data can be exported.
Price: $25 per month (pro plan)
Email marketing
Every real estate team needs powerful email-marketing capabilities. One of the best services for this, and one that I use personally is Drip. With Drip, it’s easy to segment your list of contacts in a way that allows for a more personalized approach to email marketing.
Not only is it possible to create email campaigns that you and your agents can use to automate follow-up and build top-of-mind awareness, sending one-off emails is just as simple.
Plus, with in-depth analytics, an intuitive tagging system and support for HTML templates, Drip has literally everything a real estate team needs to grow and maintain its contact database via email.
Price: $49 per month (basic plan)
Starting a real estate team doesn’t have to be an expensive venture. For just over $1,000 a year, you can have office software, team communication, task management, a CRM and email marketing for your entire team.
Pat Hiban sold more than 7,000 homes over the course of his 25-year career in real estate. Now, he dedicates his time to helping others succeed as agents and investors. As host of the Real Estate Rockstars Podcast, Pat interviews real estate experts to explore what works in today’s markets. He also founded Rebus University, an online training platform for real estate agents and sales professionals.
