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5 Inexpensive Tools for Your Real Estate Business

Being a real estate agent has its perks. You’re a business owner, you make your own hours and set your own rules. You also wear a lot of hats — accountant, marketing, HR, and more. Fortunately it’s easier than ever to keep your business (and life) organized. Check out these 5 inexpensive tools for your real estate business.

Canva

Establishing a personal brand is a great way to stand out in a crowded market. Your business card, yard signs, and email signature all offer a way to convey information about yourself to potential clients or associates and Canva helps even the most unskilled to create beautiful designs. Canva offers many real estate-specific templates to get you started and there is a free plan available.

WordPress

If you want to take your business to the next level, consider your own website. You can further your brand, showcase your local market expertise, and collect prospect information all from a personal website. While there are a lot of options for inexpensive websites, WordPress (which powers somewhere around 30% of all pages on the internet) is a great option.

WordPress sites are endlessly customizable and offer many plugins making it easy to have a well-designed website without needing to know a programming language. WordPress itself is free and open source, but you will need to purchase website hosting and a domain name to get started.

BoxBrownie

Real estate pros know homes look best on sunny days, but unfortunately not every day has picture perfect weather. Thankfully there’s no need to wait around for sunny days with BoxBrownie. The service uses photo editing technology to improve and alter real estate photos. This can be anything from replacing the sky to virtually staging a room.

Interested in a more DIY approach to photo editing? Check out the mobile-only app Pixaloop. This very inexpensive app allows you to replace sky, animate water, or add other little touches and works great for your social media pages.

DocuSign

Real estate is notorious for the amount of paperwork required, but Docusign looks to change that. DocuSign has been a vital business tool for many REALTORS® throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as they offer a way to electronically send documents for signature. The program doesn’t require recipients to have any special software, making it easy to send, sign, and return contracts. Docusign offers monthly plans from just $10 and is available for computers or as a mobile app.

RealtyHive

There’s a lot in real estate that can feel like a gamble. You want to price a property high enough to get the most value for your client, but you don’t want to price it too steeply that you don’t receive competitive offers. RealtyHive time-limited events are a great way to make sure you get the absolute most money for your client in a risk-free way. Time-limited events are a soft auction approach that allows sellers to remain in full control of the final sales price while opening up the pool of buyers. RealtyHive offers programs that are 100% success-based — meaning you only pay if your property sells.

Why You Need Digital Marketing to Sell Your House

Need to buy a present for your dad’s birthday? Go on Amazon! Trying to watch a movie? Digitally stream it through Netflix or Hulu. Shopping for a new car? Check out your local car dealer’s website. Ready to sell your house? It’s time to take that online as well.

We’re living in an age where practically everything we do relates back to the internet. This holds true for selling your house. While posting listings in the paper worked wonders for previous generations, you’ve got to get online, and you’ve got to have a strategy.

Marketing online > listing alone.

These days, even posting your listing on MLS or Zillow doesn’t guarantee a successful home sale. Real estate marketing attempts to reach as many interested buyers as possible — not just the buyers who are close to your property. Here are a few reasons why listing without marketing might not cut it:

Exposure for Your Domestic Property

If your property is unique, luxury, or in the middle of nowhere, people in your neighborhood or immediate circle are likely the first to know about it and the last to go for it. Potential buyers often move into the area for a specific reason and need a house to complement their lifestyle. Your neighbors likely aren’t looking to move to your property, they have one of their own.

Exposure for Your International Property

Did you know that Zillow doesn’t list international properties? Your Bahamian beach condo or Spanish apartment need to reach a global audience in order to sell. Without the right marketing team, your international listing will sit on the market for months or longer.

Exposure for Faraway Buyers

Think the only interested buyers are the ones within a 30-mile radius? Think again. Buyers come from all over the country and even the world!

Especially if you’re in a bigger city or near a high-profile company (particularly a tech company), properly marketing your property is crucial. Global or out-of-state buyers won’t drive by your property and know it’s for sale — marketing reaches buyers where they’re at.

But what if I’m selling in a highly desirable neighborhood?

Sure, you might be able to simply list on Zillow or MLS and hear from a number of buyers. You might even get a number of offers. But what sounds better: 5 offers and the highest number is $10k above your listing price, or 15 offers and the highest number is $20k above?

Marketing reaches a wider audience, giving you the greatest chance for the greatest ROI. And who couldn’t stand to pocket an extra $10k from a home sale?

RealtyHive does it all!

International properties, vacant land, residential homes, commercial buildings — we list it all. We take on properties that sites like Zillow can’t. But our services don’t end with listing. We have a premier marketing team in place to help get your property the exposure it deserves by offering a variety of plans. In other words, you cannot pay until your house sells.

So before you try to become a marketing expert or resign to a life of little to no offers, let our team help. List with RealtyHive today!

How to Market Your International Property

What do cooking, painting, decorating, outfit planning, and real estate marketing all have in common? They all are proof that the devil is in the details. 

While we could talk about the details of accessorizing outfits or line movement in art, we’ll stick to what we know best. Because while marketing an international property might seem the same as marketing a domestic one, you’re about to find out how the details make these two selling situations drastically different.

Detail #1: Vernacular is very important.

Thinking of buying a house and renting out bedsits? Do you need a letting agent or a barrister to do so?

While bedsits (single-occupancy rooms) and barristers (lawyers) are U.K. English words, it goes to show that language differs a lot — even across English-speaking countries. For this reason, it’s essential to know the lingo that your international buying audience uses and searches for.

Here are some tips to ensure your listing is linguistically accurate:

  • Measuring units: Convert to metric or imperial measurements when necessary (or consider using both if your buying audience is also international).
  • Use outside resources: Find websites with real estate glossaries specific to a region or talk to someone local who has great insight.
  • Keep it simple: Sometimes it still makes sense to list in English even if your buying audience doesn’t speak American English. If that’s the case, avoid lengthy and descriptive text — a text is considered difficult to read even when a person understands 98% of the words. When potential buyers can’t understand what you’re writing, they’re much more likely to give up on your listing.

Detail #2: Pictures are priceless.

Most of the time, international properties are not sold to locals but to buyers living outside of the region or country. When traveling takes hours or even days, you need knockout, professional photos that show buyers this property is worth the trip. 

With that in mind, honesty is crucial. If your property is further from the beach but your listing makes it seem closer, you’ll turn off potential buyers. Make sure photos accurately depict your property so that potential buyers know what to expect when they visit.

Detail #3: Amp up amenities.

This Dubai condo certainly has some brag-worthy amenities.

This detail is definitely a real estate marketing tip that transcends borders. Everyone wants to know what your property has to offer! Is your house walking distance to downtown? Does it come with a pool? Are the views sensational? Is the bathroom newly remodeled with a to-die-for shower? Every property has its own unique benefits — use photos and your listing to make these benefits both enticing and clear.

You might want to downplay the less-than-stellar aspects of your property (HOA fees, anyone?) but being upfront is essential. If a potential buyer feels like something is sprung on them, they’ll most likely back out. Honesty is always the best policy.

Detail #4: Web presence is powerful.

While very rare, it is possible to get away with a newspaper ad or sign out front for a domestic real estate listing. However, we can’t emphasize enough that a web listing is virtually necessary for marketing your property. This becomes even more true with international real estate marketing — you will likely never sell an international property without an online listing.

But this is where it gets tricky. Since sites like Zillow don’t list internationally, how can you get your overseas property out there? 

RealtyHive is the answer. We offer marketing and international listings to get your property the attention it needs. And since we always list international properties, we have the marketing skills you’re looking for. Sell with RH today!