An assistant who handles your leads works in the CRM for much of the day, so the system you choose shapes how fast they learn the job and how clean your records stay. A CRM (customer relationship management system) stores each lead's details, the history of contact and the date of the next follow-up. Our guide to the best communication tools for real estate virtual assistants covers the chat and email side of the same setup.
Key Takeaways
- Zoho CRM has a free edition for up to three users and paid plans for larger teams.
- Salesforce is a general-purpose CRM that companies tailor to their own process.
- HubSpot offers a free CRM with deal pipelines, email tracking and a reporting dashboard.
- Pipedrive is built around a visual sales pipeline, while Freshsales and Insightly both list lead scoring and automation.
- Agentbox, now Reapit Sales, serves Australia and New Zealand, and Propertybase is a Salesforce-based CRM built for real estate.
Zoho CRM
Zoho's free edition supports up to three users and covers leads, documents and mobile apps, according to Zoho. That fits an agent, an assistant and one more person, and a bigger team needs a paid plan. Zoho also lists workflows and cadences among its tools, which an assistant can set up once you approve the follow-up steps. Our article on how automation is changing real estate virtual assistants looks at how tools like these change the job.
Salesforce
Salesforce describes its CRM as scalable and customizable and sells a Starter Suite for small businesses. Because companies adapt it to their own process, a new assistant usually starts with a tour of your setup: the lead statuses, the required fields and the reports you check. Plan for that training time.
A lighter tool may be quicker to learn, while a brokerage that already runs Salesforce for other work has a reason to keep its leads there.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot says its free CRM has no expiration date. The free tier lists contact management, deal pipelines, email tracking and templates, task management, forms, a meeting scheduler and a reporting dashboard, and paid tiers add features such as contact scoring. For lead work, an assistant logs each inquiry as a contact, moves it through the pipeline and follows up by email with templates you approved. Our article on how virtual assistants help real estate agents with lead generation shows that routine in more detail.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is built around a visual pipeline, a board with a column for each stage. Its features page lists lead management, qualification and prioritization, task automation, customizable reports and a mobile app. For example, an assistant moves a card when a lead replies, adds the next activity and keeps call notes on the card. The company's home page offers a 14-day free trial, which gives your assistant a couple of weeks to try it on real records before you pay.
Freshworks CRM
Freshworks sells its sales CRM as Freshsales. The features page lists web forms for lead capture, email and phone from inside the CRM, workflows, built-in reports and a mobile app, and it says an AI assigns a score to every contact. A 21-day free trial is available.
An assistant can use the score to decide whom to follow up first, as long as they still read each lead's message and reply to the person.
Insightly
Insightly is a general-purpose CRM. Its site describes pipeline tracking, automatic lead scoring, follow-ups, marketing campaigns and connections to more than 2,000 apps through AppConnect, and it offers a free trial. A general-purpose CRM usually needs more setup for real estate, such as fields for listings and deal dates, and the assistant can build those from your checklist. Keep the field names plain so the assistant's entries match yours.
Agentbox
Agentbox is now sold as Reapit Sales, formerly Agentbox, which the company calls Australia's leading real estate CRM. Its site names Australia and New Zealand as the main markets, with regional options for the UK, Ireland and Denmark. The features it lists include:
- Websites
- Marketing automation
- Prospecting and database management
- Digital appraisal proposals and vendor management
United States agents should ask Reapit whether it supports their market before paying for it.
Propertybase
Propertybase calls itself the CRM built natively on Salesforce for real estate. Its site lists lead capture, routing and matching, a deal pipeline through to commission payout, email marketing and property alerts, dashboards, a mobile app, document management with compliance checklists and an e-signature tool.
For an assistant, the checklists and the deal pipeline are the parts to learn first, since they keep track of the transaction deadlines. Salesforce experience helps when something needs customizing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Choose the Right CRM for My Real Estate Team?
Start with what your team does every day: how many people need a login, which lead sources you use, whether you work in the United States and what you can pay. Try two systems on a free plan or trial with a small set of real leads, especially if the assistant will do most of the data entry, and see which one they find easier. A CRM built for real estate, such as Propertybase, comes with deal and document features, while a general one needs more setup.
What Features Should I Look for in a Real Estate CRM?
Look for lead capture from your website and portals, a pipeline view, follow-up reminders, a log of calls and emails, simple reports, a mobile app and an easy way to export your data. Make sure it has a place to record do-not-call and email opt-out requests, so the assistant can honor them.
How Do I Integrate My Real Estate CRM With Other Tools?
Start with the connections you need most: your website form, your email account and your calendar. Check the CRM's integration list before you commit, ask its support team to connect the forms and email, and test with a made-up lead. Have the assistant confirm each morning that new leads arrived, and keep a list of every connection and who set it up, so a broken form does not go unnoticed.
How Can I Customize My Real Estate CRM to Fit My Needs?
Work in this order: lead statuses that match your process, a field for the lead source, fields for budget and timeline, follow-up tasks and saved views for the assistant. Write down what each field means so entries stay consistent.
What Is the Best Way to Train My Virtual Assistant on Our CRM?
Record a screen walkthrough of each task, give the assistant a practice account or a few made-up records and review the first real entries together. Add a one-page guide to your fields and statuses, and hold short check-ins until the entries come back clean.
Final Thought
Whichever system you pick, a CRM only helps when someone updates it daily. Choose the one your assistant can learn fastest, write down what each field means and check the records every week for the first month.