Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
If you're in the competitive real estate industry, you know how important it is to keep track of all your various deals and clients, and not let anything slip through the cracks. But keeping track of conversations, deals in progress, and updating contact information can be overwhelming without a proper tool in place.
That's where CRM software (Customer Relationship Management) comes in handy to help streamline your business, keep you organized, and allow you to close more deals.
CRM software for real estate
Whatever your role (real estate investors, real estate wholesalers, or agents), anyone in the real estate industry will need a CRM software system in place to manage your contacts.
However, with so many options out there, it can be challenging to choose the best CRM software for your needs. That's why we've done the research for you and compared five popular real estate CRM options, to help you decide on the best CRM for real estate, whether you're a real estate agent, investor or wholesaler.
In this article we'll be looking at:
- folk
- Hubspot
- Streak
- Airtable
- Pipedrive
We will be evaluating these CRM tools based on the features that are most important for real estate agents, namely:
- Contact management - how effectively does this CRM for real estate let you track leads, without having to wade through emails and messages?
- Deal flow management - what options are there for tracking deals, and managing the entire sales process?
- Task management - how easy it is to manage multiple tasks, whether working individually or in a sales team?
- Automations - what level of automation is available to speed up manual tasks?
- Integrations - how easy is it to connect to other tools that you might use, or have data stored?
- Ease of use - how fast can the CRM system get set up and running? How clear is the interface and how user-friendly is it?
folk
folk is known for being lightweight and simple to use, while sporting powerful CRM and customization features, making it one of the best real estate CRMs out there.
Contact management
Keeping your contacts organized is easy in folk. You can import all your existing contacts in one go from Google or Outlook, and it will synch up also with your calendar and emails. You can also bring in new contacts with a CSV file, or use the Chrome extension that automatically detects contacts on any website, and import all their info straight into folk with just a few clicks.
Once in folk, you can sort your contacts into groups, label them with color-coded tags of your choice, and sort them into whatever views are useful to you. Custom fields let you store any data you want on contacts, from how you met to their favorite ice cream flavor. You can also keep and share notes and store documents on each contact.
Deal flow management
Set up and track multiple deal flows in moments using folk's easy drag-and-drop visual pipeline view. You can customize your pipelines as little or as much as you wish, down to what is visible in the cards and the color of your tags.
Task management
In folk you can assign tasks to yourself or teammates, and set up reminders for any time in the future, so you never forget a follow-up. You can also tag yourself or teammates in notes on specific contacts or companies, which will also send a notification, ensuring everyone stays on top of all deals.
Automations
Duplicates are a thing of the past with folk's handy de-duplication feature. Other automations can be set up through an integration with Zapier (more on that below). You can also automate manual tasks, clean up data, and much more, with the powerful AI feature in folk called Magic Fields. These custom fields combine your contact data in folk with AI, letting you request almost anything (clean up data, categorize, enrich data, write personalized emails, and much more).
Integrations
folk's integrations with Google and Outlook mean that not only are all you contacts synched in folk, but also interactions, so on any given contact you can see all past interactions (emails, calendar events).
In addition, connect to 1000+ other apps through a Zapier integration, which allows you to set up "Zaps" to your favorite apps quickly and easily, with no coding involved.
Ease of use
folk is known for its clean interface and the speed with which you can get started. It's "simple as a spreadsheet, powerful as a CRM" - no onboarding or lengthy training required. For real estate agents, you can get set up even faster with this real estate CRM template to get you kickstarted in folk.
Hubspot
Another CRM option for real estate professionals is Hubspot. Hubspot is well-known for its inbound marketing features, including email marketing campaigns and lead generation tools.
Contact management
HubSpot CRM provides robust contact management capabilities. You can store and organize contact information, including names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses. It allows you to track interactions, log communication history, and add custom properties to contacts. You can also segment contacts based on criteria like lead status, property type, or location, making it easier to target specific audiences.
Deal flow management
HubSpot CRM offers a visual sales pipeline that enables real estate agents to track and manage deals. You can create deal stages customized to your real estate sales process, allowing you to visualize the progress of each deal.
Task management
WIth HubSpot CRM you can create and assign tasks, set due dates, and track task completion. Additionally, you can associate tasks with specific contacts, deals, or properties, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.
Automations
HubSpot CRM offers automation capabilities through its Workflow feature. You can create automated sequences of actions based on triggers, such as a contact reaching a certain stage in the sales pipeline or completing a form on your website. Automations can save time by streamlining repetitive tasks, nurturing leads, and sending reminder messages to prospects.
Integrations
HubSpot CRM integrates with a variety of tools and platforms commonly used in real estate, such as email marketing services, lead generation tools, and property listing platforms. It also integrates with popular communication channels like Gmail and Outlook, allowing you to track and log email interactions directly within the CRM. However, it's worth checking if the specific integrations you need are available.
Ease of use
HubSpot CRM, while having some powerful features, isn't exactly a clean and user-friendly experience. It suffers from the clunkiness of traditional CRMs, with quite a crowded interface. If you need help they provide extensive documentation, training resources, and a supportive community.
Streak
For real estate professionals who prefer to keep CRM strictly within Gmail, Streak is the CRM software for you. It offers several tools, including pipeline management, email tracking, and lead generation. The platform’s user interface is quite similar to Gmail, making it easy for Gmail users to adjust to its system.
Contact management
Streak CRM offers contact management capabilities within the familiar Gmail interface, allowing you to organize contacts, store relevant information, and track interactions within Gmail. You can create custom fields and tags to categorize contacts based on criteria relevant to you, such as property type, location, or lead status. However, it's important to note that Streak's contact management features may not be as extensive as those of dedicated CRM platforms.
Deal flow management
With Streak you can get a visual pipeline view directly within Gmail. Create customized deal stages, track the progress of deals, and move them through the pipeline with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Additionally, you can associate emails, tasks, and notes with specific deals, allowing you to keep all relevant information in one place.
Task management
Streak CRM offers basic task management. You can create tasks, assign due dates, and set reminders. Tasks can be associated with specific contacts or deals, enabling you to track and manage your to-do list efficiently.
Automations
Streak's automation capabilities are limited. While it offers some automation features, such as email tracking and scheduling, the platform's automation options may be relatively basic compared to dedicated CRM systems.
Integrations
Streak CRM primarily integrates with Gmail since it operates within the Gmail interface. It also connects with other Google Workspace tools and services, such as Google Calendar and Google Drive. Other applications can be connected through a Zapier integration.
Ease of use
One of the notable strengths of Streak CRM is its ease of use, particularly for users who are already familiar with Gmail. Since it operates within Gmail, the learning curve is generally low. Streak provides a clean and intuitive interface, allowing users to navigate seamlessly between emails, contacts, and deals. However, the simplicity of the interface may come at the cost of advanced features found in more comprehensive CRM platforms.
Airtable
While Airtable isn't strictly a real estate CRM system (it's a database and project management tool), its flexibility and customizability mean it can be adapted into serving as a CRM for real estate.
Contact management
You can create and manage contacts through Airtable's custom fields to store your real estate leads information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and property preferences.
Deal flow management
With its customizable database structure, Airtable can be configured to support deal flow management. You can create tables and views to represent your sales pipeline stages and track the progress of each deal. By adding relevant fields and using filters, you can organize and manage your deals in a way that aligns with your real estate sales process.
Task management
Airtable offers task management features that can be incorporated into your CRM system. You can create tasks, set due dates, assign them to team members, and track their progress. By linking tasks to specific contacts or deals, you can establish a workflow and ensure that important tasks are not overlooked.
Automations
Airtable provides automation capabilities through its integrations with other platforms. By connecting Airtable to automation tools like Zapier or Integromat, you can automate various tasks and actions based on triggers.
Integrations
As mentioned above, Airtable can access third party integrations through Zapier or Integromat. Additionally, Airtable provides an API that enables custom integrations and data syncing with external systems.
Ease of use
Airtable has a user-friendly interface that resembles a spreadsheet-like environment. However, the level of ease depends on the complexity of your setup and the extent of customization you need. And the seeming simplicity could be seen as a trade-off for other more powerful (and arguably essential) CRM features, such as messaging.
Pipedrive
Lastly, Pipedrive is an option for real estate professionals who like data-driven insights to improve their business. The platform’s automation features allow for easy tracking of leads’ progress through the pipeline and its visual pipeline management tool makes it easy to identify areas for improvement in your sales process.
Contact management
You can store and organize contact information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and property preferences. The platform allows you to track interactions, log communication history, and attach files or notes to contacts. You can also segment contacts based on criteria like lead status, location, or property type, useful for client management.
Deal flow management
Pipedrive excels in deal flow management. It provides a visual sales pipeline that allows real estate agents to track and manage real estate deals effectively. You can create customized deal stages to match your real estate sales process and move deals through the pipeline with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Pipedrive also offers deal tracking, activity logging, and the ability to set reminders and notifications to stay on top of your deals.
Task management
You can create tasks, set due dates, assign them to team members, and track their progress. Tasks can be associated with specific contacts or deals, allowing you to tie them to relevant entities and maintain a clear workflow.
Automations
With Pipedrive you can create automated workflows based on triggers and actions. For example, you can set up automations to send follow-up emails after a certain stage is reached, create tasks for specific events, or move deals to different stages based on predefined rules.
Integrations
Pipedrive CRM integrates with a wide range of third-party tools and applications – it's worth checking it if connects to the tools you use. Additionally, Pipedrive provides an open API, allowing for custom integrations and data syncing with other systems you may use in your real estate business.
Ease of use
Pipedrive has a relatively user-friendly and intuitive interface, with helpful features like drag-and-drop functionality. They also have a comprehensive knowledge base and support team if you need extra help.
Conclusion
Choosing the best real estate CRM will be instrumental in growing your real estate business. The five CRMs we’ve compared in this article are all solid choices in their own respect. However, for sheer ease of set-up and the cleanest most customizable interface, without sacrificing powerful CRM features, folk wins this real estate smackdown.
Best of all, folk's free plan is unlimited - try it out for as long as you like for free.
Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
