What Are the Best Online Resources and Tools for Real Estate Agents to Stay Competitive?

As a real estate agent, you might feel like there are not enough hours in the day. Whether you’re an independent real estate agent or work as part of a team, your daily to-do list may include things like market research, property management, networking, and marketing. Having the right real estate tools in place can help you stay competitive and enable you to work more efficiently. 

Online resources for real estate agents offer real-time data insights and tools to streamline every part of your workflow. Real estate marketing tools expand your sales capacity with virtual tours and lead generation to attract potential clients. 

Real estate technology can be incorporated into your tech stack, creating a digital ecosystem to enhance competitiveness, streamline your workflow, and ensure you stay ahead of industry trends. We’re sharing the most popular online tools used by competitive real estate agents to give you a competitive edge.

Marketing and Lead Generation Tools

Real estate technology focuses on identifying and attracting potential leads while marketing property listings to put them in front of your ideal clients. Real estate marketing tools can elevate your content, drive engagement, and broaden your reach. Marketing can be a full-time job, but these real estate tools speed up the process of creating content and offer in-depth data analysis to track performance.  

Mailchimp

Email is one of the most underutilized marketing tools for real estate agents. Mailchimp is a leading email marketing platform that enables real estate agents to create and send personalized email campaigns for clients at different stages of the marketing funnel. You can email clients within a local area to promote an open house or a newsletter to your entire mailing list with your latest listings. 

Mailchimp offers extensive automation features to track campaign performance with easy-to-use email builder features. You can integrate Mailchimp into different platforms with advanced audience segmentation options. 

Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use design tool for marketing materials, presentations, and social media content. Its intuitive user interface means you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create engaging presentations with thousands of templates to choose from, including material designed for real estate agents, such as flyers and property portfolios. 

Hootsuite

Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important tools for real estate agents. You can attract new clients, build relationships with developers, and network with other professionals by growing a social media following. Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media marketing software tools. 

It’s an all-in-one social media management solution that allows you to create targeted ads, schedule posts, interact with followers, and post content. You can do all your social media management within one platform, connecting your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. 

Lead generation is a crucial step in the sales funnel, helping you gain interest from potential leads and enhancing your visibility as a real estate agent. Competitive real estate agents can narrow their search to prospective buyers and property owners who meet certain demographics. It’s recommended to have at least one lead generation platform as part of your real estate technology stack.

BoldLeads

BoldLeads is an AI-based platform that uses algorithms to identify and target potential clients. It assesses online behavior and demographics with automation tools to streamline lead generation. This platform enables real estate agents to identify leads at an early stage, narrowing searches to ZIP codes with exclusive leads. 

BoldLeads also offers customizable landing pages to create high-converting lead capture pages that can be tailored to your specific property types or target audience. It can be integrated with other real estate tools, including HubSpot and Zapier.

Market Leader

Market Leader has three real estate tools for lead generation to help you achieve your sales goal. It offers exclusive marketing leads for customers in your target area monthly. This platform captures prospective home sellers early in the funnel when they’re searching for a home valuation or property.

It operates by capturing leads through HomeValues.com and provides customer information like listing time frames and property details. Market Leader was recognized by Forbes Advisor as one of the best places to buy real estate leads in 2024.

Market Research Tools

As you know, what makes the real estate industry unique is that every town and neighborhood has its own story. If you’re entering a new market or expanding further within your existing market coverage, market research is crucial to helping you understand the local landscape. Of course, i’s also important not to lose track of the market picture hollistically, from interest rates to consumer spending habits and design and construction trends. 

Zillow

Zillow is a real estate and rental marketplace you can use as a market research tool. It operates as a B2C platform  allowingreal estate agents to advertise on its platform. As a real estate agent, you can use Zillow to determine potential property value and access home valuation data for specific areas to monitor trends. Additionally, you can use Zillow’s 3D generator app to create virtual tours to promote listings.

Redfin

Redfin is another real estate tool you can use for manualmarket analysis. The platform began as an online marketplace, offering pricing information, listing descriptions, and property photos. Its mobile app allows real estate agents to access real-time data with instant notifications for new listings and open house schedules. It’s an easy way to get an instant overview of the local market and market yourself to potential clients.

Realtor.com

Another market research tool to consider is Realtor.com, advertising it’s platform, Realtor.com calls itself ‘The Home of Home Search’ with comprehensive information and tools to track property valuation and help compare properties. For your clients, the platform offers detailed home and neighborhood information with the ability to schedule tours and get in contact local agents. As an agent, you can leverage extensive search filters to find, share, and save property listings you are looking for. 

Privy

If you want to help newbies or seasoned investors find investment properties, Privy is an incredible resource.  Privy is a cutting-edge platform that enhances the efficiency and profitability of real estate investing, empowering realtors to quickly identify and validate lucrative investment opportunities for their clients. Utilizing real-time transactional data from successful investors, our platform applies their proven strategies to instantly surface similar profitable investment opportunities anywhere in their MLS coverage area. Quickly become a market expert, offering instant, profitable insights that were previously time-consuming to gather. With our Auto Deal Finder, filter through data to find the best investments, elevating your role to trusted advisors and significantly enhancing their ability to drive client gains. 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

Relationships are the foundation of success for competitive real estate agents. You must nurture these relationships at every stage of their development. A client is trusting you with a major purchase, whether it’s their first-time home or adding another investment property to a growing portfolio. 

Customer relationship management (CRM) software simplifies communication with clients, helping to develop and nurture these relationships, easily building trust between both parties. Keeping track of these relationships isn’t easy. A CRM streamlines the process, from email tracking to automated marketing outreach. There are three popular CRM real estate tools you can add to your tech stack.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM solution designed for real estate agents. It allows you to automate marketing, track sales, and manage contacts. HubSpot has a user-friendly interface with extensive features, like email tracking, comprehensive contact management, and detailed analytics and reporting. It offers free plans with affordable CRM monthly subscriptions starting from just $50 a month.

Wise Agent

Wise Agent has been voted the best real estate CRM by Forbes Advisor for three years in a row. This all-in-one real estate CRM offers lead generation, contact management, automation tools, team features, and real estate content. Its simple interface comes with extensive customization and integration options. What makes Wise Agent unique is that it offers a monthly subscription with no contract and a 14-day free trial. 

Zoho

Zoho is a cloud-based CRM and all-in-one marketing automation tool designed for real estate agents. It’s one of the most versatile real estate marketing tools, acting as both a CRM and a marketing platform. Zoho offers different ways to engage clients, from webinars to surveys, to help retain customers and nurture relationships. It provides lead generation software with comprehensive lead conversion reports.

Property Management Tools

Property management software makes life easier as a real estate agent. It manages tasks like data storage, tracks workflow, and automates tasks. Adding a property management tool to your real estate technology stack can maximize your profitability, give you a competitive edge, and boost efficiency. There are different management options designed for a range of property types and brokerages. 

Buildium

Buildium is one of the most popular real estate analytics tools with a customizable dashboard for property management. It enables real estate agents to monitor key metrics, such as occupancy rates and rent tools, as well as managing maintenance requests. Buildium provides an instant overview of properties with lease tracking, rental analytics, and financial reporting tools to maximize ROI. 

AppFolio

AppFolio automates real estate management, allowing you to manage your portfolio within one platform. Its user-friendly interface is suitable for multiple property types, from single-family homes to multifamily complexes and community associations. 

This cloud-based property management solution automates key parts of your real estate business, including lease management, accounting, and marketing. It allows real estate agents and their teams to access data and reports on-the-go with the real-time data insights. The platform is continuing to grow its integration options, making it a great option for any real estate agent’s tech stack.

Virtual Tour and Presentation Tools

Clients are no longer just seeing properties in person. Competitive real estate agents leverage online resources to showcase their properties with presentation tools and virtual tools to offer an immersive experience to customers, from anywhere in the world. 

If you’re operating in cities and highly desirable areas, these real estate tools will enable you to work with customers and close deals without needing an in-person viewing. 

Matterport

Matterport creates virtual property models, including 2D-floor plans and 3D mapping with detailed descriptions. These virtual tours and open house visits feel impressive, enabling potential buyers to explore properties without needing to step foot inside. 

This online resource is crucial for making your property listings stand out against the competition, with a first-class viewing experience for remote property buyers. 

3D Vista

3D Vista is a multimedia software package for creating interactive 360-degree virtual tools. It overlays multiple features and media types to create a fully immersive virtual environment to create a real-life look and feel. You can embed sounds, photographs, floor plans, and clickable hotspots for potential clients to explore the property.

Educational Resources

The real estate industry is always changing. Competitive real estate agents embrace the concept of life-long learning and utilize opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills. Online resources for real estate agents mean you can continue learning at your own pace through digital courses offered by professionals and academic institutions at any stage in your career.  

Coursera

Coursera works in partnership with over 300 leading universities and companies to offer flexible and affordable educational options for professionals across multiple industries, including real estate. You can choose from courses that offer job-ready certificates, degree programs, or hands-on projects. Coursera offers courses and educational programs operated by Keller Williams, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, and Yale University. 

It’s an ideal option for new real estate agents or those looking to refresh their skills before entering a new market or transitioning to a different property niche. 

Udemy

Udemy is an online learning marketplace with over 70 million students and 220,000 courses. It allows you to search for real estate courses by filtering for beginner-friendly options and classes, focusing on aspects like financial modeling, real estate flipping, and property management. You’ll find some of the most affordable online real estate classes and modules on this platform. 

Industry blogs and websites are an easy way to stay up to date with the latest market developments. These platforms often offer snapshot, easy-to-follow articles with multiple posts per day. Inman is one of the leading news websites for real estate agents, focusing on the U.S. market with insights and analysis to help grow your business. 

Another platform to follow is BiggerPockets, a news outlet with a community of over 3 million real estate investors. You can create a free account to access educational resources, including podcasts, blog posts, webinars, and books. 

Networking and Community Platforms

Competitive real estate agents understand the importance of networking. You never know who you might meet and the opportunities you can create. Whether it’s investors, contractors, or homeowners, real estate agents should be finding ways to engage and connect with other professionals and potential clients.

One of the most overlooked online resources for real estate agents is online forums and communities. These tools are a great way to network without the pressure of face-to-face interactions. BiggerPockets offers a real estate investor forum, while there are thousands of groups on LinkedIn tailored for real estate professionals.

National Association of Realtors (NAR) is America’s largest trade association with over 1.5 million real estate professionals. As an NAR member, you’ll get access to exclusive NAR insights, resources, and campaigns with savings on marketing solutions, technology, and other assets like personal insurance. Sign up to their weekly newsletter or attend one of their local or national events. You can currently see information for summits and conferences from 2024 to 2029.