Properties for sale or rent

Everyone is agreed these days that an agent's web site is one of the most important marketing assets with more and more people every year using the Internet to find properties.

The facility therefore for any software solution to assist in the publication of properties for sale on an agent's site is of growing importance. Most software authors will have some form of solution to offer in this regard although common sense dictates that those solutions delivered via the Internet (Aspasia, Dezrez, Viewpoint, etc.) will have an advantage over the suppliers of Windows based systems.

The diversity of methods used to supply agent's web sites with property data is too great to list in detail here.  Some suppliers even offer to host an agent's entire web site usually offering a standard set of pages which can be added to at additional cost if required.  Larger agents will, however, typically have (and want to retain) their own local web site designers and they simply look for the software providers to supply some method of integration with their sites.

Such integration is usually one of two types.  Either the software provider will provide a mechanism to export data (usually in ASCII format) which is then imported into the web site according to procedures created by the web designer or the much simpler option is provided whereby the software supplier provides a hyperlink which the web designer then embeds into the site.  This latter option has the distinct advantage that the data is always "live" and up to date without any interaction on behalf of the agent at all.

Applicant and vendor/landlord registration

All agent sites need the ability for applicants, tenants, vendors and landlords to register their personal details and requirements.  Again the suppliers of Internet based software are able to offer a superior solution in that they can provide the facility for such data to be entered directly into the agent's software without any involvement on the agent's behalf.

Internet based suppliers are beginning to introduce much more sophisticated facilities like the ability for vendors and landlords to query live applicant data on-line. All this is designed to enrich the vendor or landlord's on-line experience in an attempt to assist the process of gaining instructions.

Customer login

It is becoming commonplace these days for agents to provide their customers with the ability to login directly to their web sites and to interrogate data related to their transactions with the agency.  Once more Internet based software suppliers are at a distinct advantage here in the range of facilities they are able to offer as all the data is already live on the web.

Examples range from things like vendors being able to see everything the agency is doing on their behalf to landlords being able to obtain copies of statements on-line.

Summary

In this day and age the ability to provide more and more useful data on an agency web site is becoming increasingly important. When considering a residential property software solution this subject should therefore take a prominent part in the selection process.