Over the past few years I have spoken from time to time about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packages and how companies such as Hub Online (owned by realestate.com.au) and others are integrating these packages into their property management systems.

I have always though one day a company would build a CRM web based solution specifically for the real estate industry. The first to do so (as far as I know) as a standalone product is RealFutureCRM

RealFutureCRM at the moment it is specifically targeted at US agents, but really it would not take too much effort to customise it fro an Australian market. Take a tour of their software. It does look basic but it also looks to have a great feature set and at $299 USD per annum for the top level package it is also great value. That is of course if it does all it says it can do!

A few months ago I did a short article on Copycat, a nifty little software tool for real estate agents who struggle to write imaginative copy for their real estate listings. A new kid on the block is reallysold.com.au which is a sort of up market copy software tool that costs only $1.95 per week (paid quarterly in advance) and offers over 7000 phrases.

Copycat is FREE of course but reallysold.com.au does look a lot more professional and claims to have a bigger more sophisticated database. There will be more of these kinds of tools in the future, but the winner will be the copy company that creates API’s (application program interfaces) that allows software companies like HubOnline and Portplus and real estate agencies- franchises the ability to integrate the software into their own systems.

API’s allow programmers to build on top and into their own systems and this is how these types of companies grow. Take a tour your self at either of these sites and see what you think!

This article maybe a little boring, but I do believe it is important. Everyday I find myself writing articles, filling in forms, preparing documents, or researching real estate agent and portal websites.

One thing I do notice is that property listings on the Internet have many spelling mistakes. Firefox has many features that I think make life easier for front office staff. Not the least being the ability to edit multiple pages in one window through tabs, but my favourite is the spell checker (English Australia version of course).

[Firefox is a web browser just like Internet Explorer]

Here is an example of how it works:

Basically it underlines everything it thinks is spelt in-correctly with a red line. It is not perfect but you can quickly build your database. All you need to do is right click over each red line and choose from the various word options.

Now this product (English Australian Dictionary) is what Firefox calls an add-on. You download Firefox and then you can choose from thousands of free add ons to suit your needs.

The add ons I have installed are:
Web developer (checks all sorts of code on sites)
Forecast Fox (gives me up to date weather for today and forward forecasts)
Firebug (tool box for developers)
Linky (allows me to open multiple links in tabs at once)
Password Exporter (great for travelling - and taking all links and user names and passwords)
Google Toolbar (search and tools from Google)
Bookmark Extensions (an extension to normal book marking- adding to favourites - saving to pc etc)

This is not to say that Internet Explorer 7 is not a fine product, it is I think Firefox is just so much better for what we do. IE7 also has add-ons but I do not find them as useful at this stage.

Today marks a pretty significant step forward for Firefox Browser - The FREE browser underdog who has forced Microsoft to update the Internet Explorer Browser. Firefox has become a favourite with software developers with CNET quoting over 50% of developers using it.

If you are serious about the Internet, I suggest you download Firefox (you can use it alongside Internet Explorer) and make sure you check out extensions and install all major add ons…..

Get it here………………..

Testing your Site
You should also make sure your website is compatible with both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2, if your site has bee developed by someone who knows what they are doing you should not have any problems….

Here is a comparison chart for each browser version….

There are many ways to make your real estate website more effective, however here I just want to speak about the basics. These are of no particular order although usability is number one for a reason.

1. Usability
The majority of visitors to your site come to get property information, so make sure you make it as easy as possible to get to the information they want. If you have less than 50-60 properties at any one time, ditch the search facility and just provide a nice clean informative list of your properties. In other words, don’t waste your visitors time. A user of your site should be able to get whereever they want on your site from wherever they are.

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