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A Flexible Mobile MLS

by Stephen Canale

For agents who do not yet have the ability to carry MLS listings on their Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Pocket Real Estate may just be the perfect solution.

Not only does this software work on either the Palm or PocketPC operating systems, but it also functions with the vast majority of MLS systems throughout the country.

The result is that regardless of which brand PDA you've purchased, you can likely carry MLS listings, agent rosters and related data with you wherever your daily travels may take you.

If the benefits of such flexibility are not immediately apparent, then consider the time-savings that you can realize whenever you have just:

Met a buyer at an open house
Taken an ad call on your cell phone
Run into a prospective seller at the supermarket, or
Driven past a new listing that might interest one of your buyers

In each case, having instant access to your MLS data will enable you to provide customers, clients and prospects with immediate answers to their real estate questions.

Whether the consumer wants information on a particular property, a custom search for listings that satisfy their overall requirements or information that will help them correctly price their current property, being able to provide immediate answers provides two important benefits.

In the first place, satisfying common consumer inquiries on the spot (as opposed to waiting until you can return to the office) makes a strong impression regarding the quality of your service and your professional capabilities.

Secondly, by servicing the consumer's needs immediately, the real estate professional can save countless hours each week through the elimination of extra trips to the office. Additionally, agents are also saved the time that is typically required to keep, and track, the details of such consumer requests until they can be fulfilled.

Favorite features

Aside from the obvious benefits of carrying MLS data on your PDA, Pocket Real Estate includes several advanced features that further enhance an agent's ability to save time and provide superior customer service.

QuickSearch: When the agent or consumer already knows the MLS, Tax ID or street address for a property in question, the QuickSearch function will locate the appropriate MLS listing in a matter of seconds. When a consumer is either in your car or on the phone, the speed and simplicity of this feature really pays off.

Profiles: By enabling agents to save a prospect's preferred search criteria, as well as specific properties of interest, common customer service tasks can be completed quickly and accurately. For instance, when a buyer calls to inquire about "what's new on the market" an agent can simply retrieve and execute the predefined search criteria for that particular customer. As a result, a common procedure that could have taken several minutes to complete, requires only seconds, instead. Additionally, when an agent becomes aware of a property that may be of interest to one of their buyers, they can save that listing to the prospect's Profile for instant retrieval at a later time.

e-mail: Likely the most underutilized feature of the program, yet also one of the most powerful, is the ability to email listings to customers and clients from within Pocket Real Estate. With a few simple "taps" on the screen, a consumer on the other end of the phone can be assured that "the details are on the way." This is a very good feature for servicing existing customers, but also an outstanding method of impressing and capturing prospects from both sign and ad calls. What's even more impressive is that your PDA does not actually need wireless Internet access to achieve this wondrous feat. If your PDA is not Internet enabled, then the email-listing will be transferred to your PC's email "outbox" the next time you HotSync - and then will be sent along with the rest of your outgoing email.

With a "one-time" purchase price of just $199, Pocket Real Estate, offers unparalleled value for the agent on the go.

Published: September 23, 2002

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

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