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According to the Grand View Research study, the international real estate software market size is expected to reach USD 90 billion by 2028 adding another 25+ % to the real estate CRM revenue share.
In addition, more than 87% of top-earning real estate agents use real estate CRM to keep track of their transactions, listings, and clients. And for 4,000+ real estate firms, Salesforce is the best platform. Check out why brokerages choose Salesforce for real estate and what top CRM solutions are powered by this platform.
Salesforce is the CRM industry leader with 20% of the market. Salesforce for real estate helps provide clients with a more personalized experience via advanced in-built sales and marketing automation tools, AI-powered analytics, customizable reports, and dashboards.
Such a rich functionality set is difficult to learn fast but Salesforce’s extensive community and tons of free educational materials are here to help with change management and necessary staff training.
Also, Salesforce has set an industry data protection standard with its meticulous permission functionality, multi-level security protocols, including multi-factor authentication, data encryption, 24/7 monitoring and audit, and an advanced Trust Layer.
Unfortunately, Salesforce does not offer a tailored cloud for the real estate industry, but over 2,000 Salesforce consulting partners are ready to customize the system to every tiny agent’s request or integrate one of the 7,000 Salesforce-native add-ons featured on AppExchange.
Salesforce CRM is the heart of the Salesforce ecosystem. The platform serves as a centralized database for managing all client interactions, property listings, and transactions so that real estate professionals can:
The system’s customizable nature is a perfect basis for adaptations to specific real estate workflows, ensuring that all crucial information is captured and easily accessible.
Contact management in Salesforce | Source: Salesforce
Real estate agents can significantly benefit from Salesforce CRM’s lead management capabilities. The system allows agents to track potential buyers and sellers, schedule property viewings, and maintain detailed records of client preferences and interactions.
Mobile accessibility ensures agents can update information and respond to inquiries while showing properties or meeting clients. The task management features help agents stay on top of follow-ups, deadlines, and important dates throughout the transaction process. Also, the platform provides comprehensive reporting tools that offer insights into productivity, lead conversion rates, and overall business performance.
Property managers can leverage Salesforce CRM to track tenant relationships and property occupancy, manage maintenance requests, monitor lease status and renewals, and automate reminders, rent collection, and maintenance scheduling. Also, it is a secure platform for storing all necessary legal documents and maintaining detailed property portfolios, including information about amenities, maintenance history, and financial performance.
Real estate investors can utilize Salesforce CRM to track their investment portfolio, monitor property performance, and manage relationships with property managers and partners. Here they can keep detailed records of property acquisitions, renovations, and dispositions. All that can be enabled with some mere customizations like creating specific objects inside the CRM. Investors can also use the platform’s built-in analytics and dashboards to analyze investment opportunities and track ROI.
Lending officers in real estate can leverage Salesforce Mortgage CRM to manage loan applications, track borrower relationships, monitor loan pipelines, automate loan processing workflows, maintain compliance documentation, and track communications with appraisers, underwriters, and other third-party service providers. With some customizations, mortgage brokers can use Salesforce CRM for loan servicing, reminders about payments, mortgage term modification tracking, and other activities that are not available by default.
Real estate developers can use Salesforce CRM to manage project pipelines, track construction progress, and maintain relationships with contractors, suppliers, investors, brokers, and other parties involved. The system can be further configured to monitor and manage project timelines, budgets, resource allocation, deal stages, invoices, etc.
Experience Cloud is a basis for creating custom portals that integrate seamlessly with Salesforce CRM data. These digital spaces can be tailored to specific audience needs and branded to maintain consistency with company identity. Flexible, convenient, and minimal coding.
Real estate agents can use Experience Cloud to create branded portals where clients can view property listings, schedule viewings, and access information about the agents themselves. An attractive interface with structured information will help clients understand your services better and take the first steps like tour scheduling through the platform without your involvement.
Real estate firms can use such functionality to create comprehensive digital workspaces for their teams with training materials, company resources, and collaboration tools.
Property managers can create tenant portals where residents can submit maintenance requests, pay rent, and access important documents. Such platforms can also facilitate communication between property managers, maintenance staff, and tenants. For example, if a property manager schedules regular lift maintenance, they can post a schedule on the portal, which all tenants will be able to see.
Experience Cloud is used to create customized digital experience portals for investors, too.
Through such portals, investors can access their account information, collaborate with colleagues, partners, and stakeholders on investment opportunities, monitor their investment portfolio, and track overall performance in real time.
The Example of the Real Estate Investor Portal Interface | Ascendix
The mortgage lending process consists of multiple time-consuming stages and involves many different professionals checking everything before making a decision. Portals created with Salesforce Experience Cloud can serve as a digital hub for managing all those aspects.
Mortgage brokers can use such portals to manage relationships with appraisers, underwriters, lawyers, title companies, and other service providers engaged in the lending process. Meanwhile, potential borrowers can enjoy user experience on self-servicing portals for handling loan applications and other document submissions, loan status tracking, and basic communication.
Thanks to Salesforce Experience Cloud, building such multifunctional and user-friendly portals is less time-consuming than creating a website from scratch.
Developers can use Experience Cloud to create project-specific portals for investors, contractors, and potential buyers. These user-friendly portals can include construction updates, financial reports, and marketing materials. Attractive user interface and informative content – are the basis for finding the right people to develop your real estate project together.
We will help you create a completely custom portal powered by Salesforce Experience Cloud without overpaying for unnecessary functionality.
Power your portal with structured and efficient customer service capabilities by integrating Service Cloud.
Salesforce Service Cloud is a comprehensive customer service platform that provides real estate professionals with a centralized hub to manage all aspects of client interactions. The platform enables efficient case management, automated service processes, and multi-channel support capabilities. Service Cloud can be customized to handle various real estate-specific service scenarios and workflows, from maintenance issues to tour scheduling. Service Cloud and Experience Cloud are a perfect combination for an enjoyable user experience.
Agents can use Service Cloud to manage client inquiries and handle showing requests. Imagine, a new client contacts a real estate broker, interested in finding their dream home. Brokers then can quickly tap into a knowledge base for faster response while case management features help track and resolve client issues efficiently. If the user sends an inquiry during off-hours, the AI assistant or set automatic response will take over, ensuring 24/7 availability.
Property managers can utilize Service Cloud to handle maintenance requests, tenant inquiries, and property-related issues. When a tenant reports an issue, the property manager can immediately access the tenant’s information, the property details, and any previous maintenance records to respond quickly, address the problem efficiently, and keep both tenants and landlords satisfied. The platform’s automation capabilities can streamline service delivery if customized accordingly with advanced message routing and knowledge base.
Case Management in Property Management | Source: Salesforce
Mortgage brokers can leverage Salesforce for real estate via the Service Cloud to manage borrower inquiries and loan servicing requests. Any inquiry is recorded and tracked with efficient case management. Did you receive a loan modification or payoff request? Create a case connected to this particular deal or contact to track the process and not overlook it.
If you receive simpler inquiries like application status or recent mortgage payments, Salesforce Service Cloud automation capabilities will pull necessary data from the system and return a prompt response without your intervention.
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (AKA Pardot) provides real estate professionals with sophisticated marketing automation tools for nurturing leads, managing digital campaigns, and tracking prospect engagement through targeted drip campaigns, leads scoring, and automated marketing workflows to reach the right audiences with the right messages at the right time.
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Automation Workflow Example | Source: Salesforce
Agents can use Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE) to create and manage email campaigns, social media content, and digital advertising. The platform’s journey builder helps agents create personalized communication sequences for different client segments and execute them automatically.
Property managers can promote available properties, communicate with tenants, and maintain community engagement through automated email campaigns enabled with Marketing Cloud Account Engagement. For example, sending out newsletters with seasonal maintenance tips is not a core activity for property managers but is very helpful for keeping tenants satisfied and property conditions decent. Thanks to MCAE, you do not need to spend your time on that, the newsletter will be delivered automatically at the scheduled time.
If you have a perfect option for a specific segment of potential borrowers who expressed interest in lending but didn’t find a suitable property or bearable conditions, use MCAE to inform them about a new opportunity. You can use automated email newsletters to inform mortgagors about changes in laws and regulations and send reminders about pay collection as well as notices about overdue.
Developers can use Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to promote new projects during pre-sale campaigns to find investors to fund the construction or brokers to find end customers – tenants and residents.
Tableau and Salesforce CRM Analytics provide real estate professionals with powerful data visualization and analysis tools. CRM analytics is used to create customized dashboards and reports based on your Salesforce CRM data. For deeper insights into market trends, property performance, and business operations, Tableau is used since it can pull data from various data sources.
An Example of CRM Analytics Interface | Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-tossell-051489101/
Agents can use CRM Analytics to analyze their sales pipeline, identify trends in client preferences, and optimize their lead conversion strategies. The Salesforce for real estate platform provides insights into which marketing activities generate the most qualified leads, and which properties are attracting the most interest. Tableau can be used primarily for analyzing the market for setting adequate property prices.
Property managers can track such things as occupancy rates, maintenance costs, and tenant satisfaction metrics. Meanwhile, data visualization helps spot patterns in maintenance requests, optimize resource allocation, and predict potential issues before they become problems. More detailed analysis of different data sources with Tableau can help in setting competitive rental rates based on market data and property performance.
Analytics is a key to successful investment. Investors can leverage Salesforce for real estate via its built-in analytics but it’s better to use such products as Tableau to leverage data stored not only in your CRM but in other sources, too.
Visualizations will help to see the big picture, while analytics will help to evaluate investment opportunities, track portfolio performance, and analyze market trends with indicators like property value changes, rental yields, and return on investment metrics.
Investors can also create customized dashboards to monitor key performance indicators across their investment portfolio.
Lending officers can leverage Salesforce for real estate analytics for analysis of borrower creditworthiness, property valuations, loan performance metrics, and other trends in loan applications to optimize their lending criteria. Tableau would be useful for assessing loan risks caused by external factors, tracking portfolio performance, and monitoring market conditions.
Developers can leverage Salesforce for real estate via its built-in analytics and dashboards but for a more comprehensive view, it’s better to use CRM Analytics or Tableau. In particular, when it comes to assessing project feasibility and monitoring financial performance. Tableau provides insights into market demand, helping developers make informed decisions about project scope and timing. At the same time, CRM Analytics can help identify potential risks and opportunities in the development pipeline.
Salesforce offers three types of AI: predictive, generative, and conversational. AI is omnipresent throughout the Salesforce ecosystem and is mostly used for automating repetitive tasks and boosting user productivity through assistance with lead scoring, sales forecasting, email writing, etc.
Sales AI (Sales Cloud) is an umbrella term that covers a few Salesforce products that can be bought either separately or in an Einstein 1 Sales Plan:
Einstein Scoring in Salesforce | Source: Trailhead
Marketing AI (Marketing Cloud) has gathered all types of AI in one place to optimize marketing strategies, enhance targeting efforts, and improve campaign effectiveness. Predictive AI for forecasting campaign outcomes and their further correction. Sentiment analysis and generative AI help to tailor personalized content for marketing campaigns. Lead scoring and segmentation for enhanced lead nurturing.
Service AI (Service Cloud) focuses on enhancing customer experience through:
Also, Salesforce has launched new-level AI assistants built with Agentforce. Agentforce focuses on creating agents that can analyze data, make decisions, and execute actions autonomously. Basically, you get one more team member – a robot programmed to execute specific actions according to the provided data. It can be anyone, from Service Agent available on Service Cloud, sales coach or SDR available on Sales cloud, or any other professional you need. Agentforce has conversation-based pricing that starts at $2 per interaction.
Ascnedix’s experts can assist you with selecting suitable options or creating custom and more affordable AI solutions within Salesforce.
Contact our consultant to discuss Salesforce AI solutions suitable for your business and budget.
Salesforce is like a soft play dough – a flexible basis for embodying your ideas. Salesforce has grown into a vast ecosystem with various products, but still, some customizations like adding specific objects and workflows are necessary. With a knowledgeable partner, you can mold out Salesforce for real estate industry needs.
Dealing with finances in real estate is another challenge that Salesforce for real estate can lighten. Salesforce, mostly Financial Services Cloud, already has basic accounting functionality, but it’s better to extend this bare minimum with available Salesforce-native integrations.
You can get finance management functionality through integrations like Juniper Square for reporting. Another example: Xero is a cloud-based Salesforce-compatible accounting software. It can help with everything related to finance management, from commission and interest calculations to invoice creation and management.
Considering the downsides, it’s not free and not tailored for the real estate industry. The good news is that Ascendix can help you create such functionality in your Salesforce CRM via some customizations like creating specific fields and objects and creating custom workflows. It is a more cost-effective approach in the long run since you do not have to pay additional subscriptions.
Salesforce also offers a low-code platform with a set of tools that enable building completely custom solutions for various real estate needs, including financial management. We can equip Salesforce with loan origination and servicing functionality for mortgage brokers.
Also, we can create tools for investment managers to manage investment portfolios and capital structures, track financial performance like return on investment across properties, etc.
Ascedix’s team can customize Salesforce for real estate developers to improve their finance management, too, with custom objects to track investor and broker relationships and monitor project financial performance by managing construction loans, and project budgets, including funding. And all those features are directly in your Salesforce CRM thanks to some low-code customizations.
Paperwork is a core activity of every real estate professional. Invoices, contracts, property reports, title documents, lease agreements, all necessary documents for underwriting – all these are just scratches on the surface. Sounds overwhelming.
While Salesforce offers basic document handling, real estate operations often demand more robust solutions. Popular integrations like DocuSign (starting price is $30/user/month) and Formstack (starting price is $92 user/month) seamlessly connect with Salesforce CRM, enabling automated document generation, e-signatures, and intelligent routing.
If you are looking for a more advanced and future-rich solution, consider Ascendix Composer – versatile document generation software with a rich template selection – perfect for commercial real estate professionals. Ascendix Composer pulls the data directly from your Salesforce CRM and uses it as a basis for creating reports, contracts, invoices, and all kinds of business documents. Also, it has the functionality to create visually appealing property brochures, flyers, emails, landing pages, and other marketing materials in just a few clicks.
Template creation in Composer Online by Ascendix
If you are looking for a custom document management solution, Ascendix has built an Intelligent Document Processing framework that can become a solid basis for this.
It’s so easy to get lost in thousands of contacts and records, but advanced search and filtering capabilities are examples of how beneficial Salesforce for real estate is.
Browse contacts and properties by location and specific complex criteria. If property managers need to inform residents in certain areas about electricity outages, they can use Ascendix Seach to find them, create a list of necessary contacts, and send out email notices with a few clicks. If realtors or mortgage brokers need to promote a new property option perfect for potential first-time homebuyers with low budgets and high credit scores, AscendixSearch can do that too.
You set criteria, and Ascendix Search finds what you need in no time.
CRE software Ascendix Search
Generate documents and marketing materials. Leverage advanced search. All in your Salesforce CRM
Property Developers and real estate agents will benefit the most from floor plans and 3D walkthroughs. There are more than enough products with such functionality on the market, but why hop from app to app when you can do it in Salesforce?
RenderDraw offers a 100% Salesforce-native solution for creating floor plans and 3D tours on the basis of existing materials like photos and PDFs. Surprisingly, such a useful and versatile solution is affordable starting at 2USD/user/month.
RenderDraw for Real Estate | Source: RenderDraw
Property managers and private equity firms can facilitate general visibility with Salesforce for real estate, particularly by including stacking plans in their CRM. Stacking plans help better understand and manage space occupancy and utilization, especially with commercial real estate, multiple residential properties, and hospitality businesses.
Property developers can also use stacking plans to see the big picture, enhance overall layout planning, and monitor the progress of different property sections. If the ground floor is dedicated to commercial units, it means different floor-to-ceiling heights and overall layout requirements than residential. In this case, the stacking plan provides space labeling with purpose, construction phase, and additional notes.
There are two AppExchange options for stacking plans. First, StackRE by Platinum Cubed is free and mostly focused on creating stacking plans how we are used to seeing them – editable color-coded table-like schemes.
Real Properties is another stacking plan Salesforce for real estate add-ons. It has the functionality to use actual property plans as a basis and label the particular segment with information about occupancy and specific notes if necessary. Pricing varies depending on features.
Real Properties Interface | Source: AppExchange
AppExchange offers seamless solutions for real estate professionals seeking property data integration. Whether you’re a real estate agent trying to set the right price for a house, a property manager calculating bearable but not too low rent or a real estate investor considering expanding your portfolio, property valuation is at the core of your activities.
Zillow Home Value Connector brings Zestimate directly into your Salesforce CRM at no cost. It automatically refreshes property profiles with Zillow’s latest valuations and enriches system records with key details like address, estimated value, and year built.
Zillow Home Value Connector
While Zillow Home Value Connector is a practical solution, custom-built integrations offer enhanced precision and expanded capabilities while maintaining robust data security. Ascendix can help with that, too.
Underwriting and risk assessment are fundamental factors in decision-making in the mortgage industry. Recently, Salesforce has launched a digital lending solution with underwriting functionality but it’s an enterprise-level option that starts at 43K USD per year and still has a limited amount of loans it can handle.
Also, Salesforce Financial Services Cloud comes with a business rules engine to ease decision-making, but once again, implementing SF FSC just to automate underwriting and compliance is not the most cost-effective decision you can make here.
The optimal decision in a long-term perspective is creating own custom underwriting engine inside Salesforce to eliminate the need to pay annual subscriptions for functionality you do not use to the fullest.
For automated underwriting, we need to integrate your Salesforce mortgage CRM with other systems like those for property valuation. Then, we create decision tree logic with Salesforce Flows to automatically fill data and recommend approvals. Some coding may be needed to enhance the algorithm. This way you have a basic automated underwriting solution. More advanced options require more time, coding, and probably some AI integrations.
Of course, we can directly connect your CRM with off-the-shelf automated underwriting solutions through custom API, but if we have a goal to pay once and not on a subscription basis, it’s not our option.
The traditional real estate transaction process is stressful, complex, and lacks transparency. That’s why Ascendix has helped to leverage Salesforce for real estate companies such as Cresa, Black Bear Capital Markets, Talonwest, Innovative Capital, Savills, and many others. Prominent industry players trust Salesforce, so why not learn from them?
Zillow has grown so enormous that it’s become a verb. Right at that moment, thousands of people are “zillowing” their future home. And it’s no secret that Salesforce has helped Zillow become the #1 property marketplace in the US.
As a result, adopting Salesforce has almost doubled the sales team productivity, according to Eli Eliason, Zillow’s Sales Executive Manager. Also, Zillow executives prised enhanced communication within the six-thousand-member international team, precise lead scoring, effective automation, and more personalized marketing.
“ Evolving our business to provide an end-to-end service for customers takes a lot of technology, a lot of operational rigor, and a lot of customer service. Salesforce brings automation and scaled technology to our workforce, so they can work with our customers better. ”
CREXI or Commercial Real Estate Exchange, Inc. is a huge property marketplace focused on commercial real estate. CREXI had been using Salesforce for a while when Einstein was launched. Now, CREXi saves its sales reps 5 hours a day with Sales AI. Those five hours are now spent on building actual customer relationships and fruitful communication. CREXI prefers the human-in-the-loop approach to combine both AI effectiveness and human touch.
“ Sales AI is making it easier and better to work, but not by taking jobs from sales reps. Deals are won by having a conversation, and I think you’re always going to need a person to have that relationship and build that rapport with the customer. What we want to do is leverage AI so that they can do more of that. ”
Also, AI learns from CREXI’s sales team interactions with customers and the system itself, gathers insights, and initiates knowledge sharing, so all members are aware of best practices.
We will navigate you through all the steps and challenges, from initial set-up to sophisticated customization.
Ascendix brings over 25 years of deep real estate expertise combined with extensive Salesforce consulting experience. As a Crest Salesforce Consulting and AppEchange partner, we’ve helped numerous real estate companies like Savills, Cresa, and Calson transform their businesses through custom Salesforce solutions. We’ve developed our own real estate-specific products on top Salesforce and can confidently navigate you through pitfalls of this journey.
Whether you’re a commercial real estate firm, residential real estate agency, or property management company, our experts can help you leverage Salesforce to its full potential. Contact our team today for a free consultation and discover how we can help streamline your real estate operations with Salesforce.
Salesforce perfectly suits the needs of real estate agents. They can take advantage of the available CRM modules, like Sales and Service Clouds, and customize the Salesforce platform to individual brokers’ needs. In addition, brokers can choose from 40+ pre-built real state CRM solutions available on the AppExchange app marketplace.
There are four available Salesforce real estate pricing plans: Essentials – $25/user/month (paid annually); Professional – $75/user/month (paid annually); Enterprise – $150/user/month (paid annually); Unlimited – $300/user/month (paid annually).
Use it to manage leads, track property listings, and automate marketing campaigns. The platform allows for customizing workflows to fit the real estate business model, such as setting up automated follow-ups with potential buyers or sellers and integrating MLS data.
Utilize Salesforce’s robust CRM features to keep detailed records of client interactions, preferences, and transaction histories. Additionally, leverage the analytics and reporting tools to gain insights into market trends and business performance. Integration with third-party applications can further extend Salesforce’s capabilities, enabling seamless management of everything from document signing to virtual tours.
Kateryna is an experienced writer focused on topics related to Salesforce consulting and optimizing operations within the real estate industry via CRM implementation. Through her insightful articles, Kateryna aims to help organizations make the most of their Salesforce adoption.
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