Tech tools that work for agents on the run
Assist your clients quickly and efficiently with the latest recommended mobile apps
There are three things that many real estate agents have in common: They spend a good part of their day on the run; most work alone, as opposed to on teams; and they rely on their smartphone to remain organized and productive.
Fortunately, there are many mobile apps that can give a leg up to a busy real estate agent or broker. But with more than two million of them available at the App Store (for iPhone) and Google Play (for Android devices), where does one start?
The following are a handful of recommended downloads to help close the deal.
Sign of the times
Real estate agents and brokers need a simple, yet secure way to sign documents and with more than 50 mil- lion users, Adobe’s DocuSign is one of the most trusted solutions available. As you might expect, the DocuSign app lets you fill out and sign legally-binding documents with your fingertip, send docs to others to sign (via email, Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote and others) and receive real-time notifications when they have been signed. Store, manage and access your encrypted documents from anywhere, and on multiple devices.
Cloud comfort
Create one central and secure place to hold all your important files and access them from virtually any Internet-connected device. That’s precisely what free “cloud” services let you do. Whether you prefer Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive or iCloud, you’re protecting your important work docs from local threats — a lost, stolen or broken device, for example — and you cannot only log in with a password, but also type in a one-time code to prove it’s really you (“two-step authentication”). Load up your drive with files, agreements, surveys, listings, photos and more.
Rate of change
As the No. 1 rated mortgage app in Canada, the easy-to-use Canadian Mortgage Calculator by Bendigi Technologies lets a real estate agent easily calculate monthly mortgage costs for their clients, compare rates between banks for both fixed and variable rates and figure out total home ownership investment to accurately determine affordability.
Scan, man
Microsoft’s free Office Lens turns your smartphone into a flatbed scanner. Real estate agents can snap a pic of a document, whiteboard, receipt or business card and it will be immediately digitized onto your device.
Printed and handwritten text is automatically and accurately recognized using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, so you can then search for text by keyword, as well as copy, edit and share digitized text.
If desired, you can also import what you’ve scanned into Office apps (Word, PowerPoint, OneNote), save to OneDrive or other cloud storage, or convert into a PDF.
Note taken
Whether you need a more effective way to stay organized or simply want to jot down ideas wherever life takes you, a free app like Evernote is a great tool for real estate agents on the run.
This app lets you create, view, organize, search and share your ideas — sort of like a digital version of yellow sticky notes — with the option to include voice notes, photos and videos, too.
An auto-sync cloud feature means your notes are automatically saved and accessible on other Evernote platforms, such as the web, personal computer or other mobile devices.
Remote possibilities
Available for multiple mobile and desktop platforms, Splashtop Remote 2 lets you log onto another computer wirelessly from your smartphone, tablet or computer to see and control the remote Windows PC or Mac as if you were sitting in front of it.
That’s right, you could be at a coffee shop on your iPhone or Android device, but tap and flick through your office or home office computer.
It’s not the first solution to do this, mind you, but this encrypted solution is free and lets you also stream full-motion video and audio from your computer to your mobile device (not just files you left behind).