Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog.

According to a recent study by US-based ForSalebyOwner.com, consumers are increasingly using the internet to ‘find’ a suitable property rather than relying on suggestions from the agent. It you look at the data compiled it seems like the two methods of finding property (yourself or the agent) will cross-over in a couple years time. Interestingly enough, finding property by seeing a yard sign outperforms newspapers by a factor of 5. It would be interesting to get the NAEA to do a similar study to see where the UK market sits, although with the current trends I would assume it’s very similar.

If you’ve got some anecdotal data on this would love to hear from you.

Most estate agents need two pieces of IT in order to operate their business -

1. Agency software.
2. A website.

In order to have both pieces of the above IT puzzle, most agents turn to some of the leading providers out there. This includes great products like DezRez, Expert Agent, Property Owl, HomeFlow, Big Property Media, WebDadi and Vebra to name but a few. These are the all singing, all dancing applications to help you manage your business. These systems mostly charge on a licensing basis.

Is there another way ? Absolutely. One solution could be combining Highrise and Word Press.

Highrise is essentially a web based CRM system. It can manage all your contacts and tasks related to property management. Highrise’s basic package costs about £20 a month. You can sign-up online and be live in less than 5 minutes.

Word Press is one of the main blogging platforms on the internet. It costs nothing. Blog software can easily be adapted to running a basic website but also comes with the added power of letting you blog.

Once you get hosting sorted out, you’re all done. Additionally, you’ll need some part-time IT help to setup your website ‘design’ plus manage feed generation for portals like Rightmove and the like. You could get IT help from eLance, which is a kind of e-bay for developer/design projects.

Other than that, you’re all set. The internet is rife with software as service models including lots of ‘free’ applications that will save you time, money and resource. And if you really want to know more, Agent Genius has even more commentary on the template versus custom debate.