I’m pretty sure this is more IMHO than GQ, so I’m putting this here.
Anyway, the company I work for does real estate listings for new home builders into MLS (Multiple Listinge Service). We then act as sort of a middleman between the real estate agent who might see one of the properties we’ve listed and the builder we listed it for. So essentially, an agent sees one of our listings in MLS and calls us to set a showing. We take their information, name, agency, phone number, what day and time they want to show it. We then call the builder, or more specifically the builder representative (salesperson, essentially), give them all the real estate agent information/time of showing, and then the builder rep calls the agent to set up a showing.
I’ve looked online, and the only software I’ve seen available is geared towards real estate agents. The reason that software won’t work for us is because we handle multiple builders and hundreds of listings. Software geared towards agents assumes a handful of listings and no builder contacts.
So, what we need the software to do is:
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Allow us to import listings we’ve entered into our existing listing inventory software each night, AND to notice any changes to any existing listings it may have imported and reflect those changes. The inventory software is Visual Foxpro, but it can export data into any manner of format such as csv, or delimited.
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It must have a way to track builders and builder representatives. This information is also in the inventory software I mentioned above.
Those first two are the barriers to us using normal agent software. Beyond those we need things that any good appointment type software should have. Such as being able to email the builder that an appointment has been made. Ability to create reports on each property, builder, builder representative, etc. And preferably it would be accessible online to enter showings remotely.
At some point we do plan on creating a completely new software system from the ground up to combine the functions of the inventory program we currently use as well as the appointment setting showings I’ve just described. But in the mean time we’d really like a good appointment showing solution.
My guess is we are so niche that nothing is commercially available, but I thought I’d appeal to the wisdom of the crowd (in this case the wisdomiest crowd around, Dopers!) to maybe steer me into a direction I’d not looked before.
Thanks!
Jeff