CRM for Real Estate Agents

The problem

• Leads are scattered: a Zillow inquiry, a form fill on your IDX site, an open house sign-in, and a referral text all live in different places, so no one is your single source of truth and follow-up falls through the cracks.
• Speed-to-lead kills you: the first agent to respond usually wins the client, but inquiries spike at night and on weekends, exactly when a generic inbox goes quiet and the lead goes cold.
• Long-cycle nurture rots: a buyer who is six to twelve months out needs steady touches, and your sphere of influence needs a check-in a few times a year, but without a queue those contacts silently go untouched for months.
• Compliance is a landmine: TCPA consent, Do-Not-Call scrubbing, and honoring opt-outs are hand-managed in spreadsheets, and one careless mass text can turn into per-message penalties.

A day in the system

1. 7:12am: an overnight Zillow inquiry hits your capture form. A contact is created automatically, the source is tagged, the response timer starts, and a red 'Call new lead' task jumps to the top of your queue before you have had coffee.
2. You open the dashboard and the unresponded lead is flagged in red. You tap to call, log the call as an activity, and move the new deal from New to Contacted, all from one card.
3. The lead agrees on the phone to receive texts. Before sending anything, you flip sms_consent to true and record the source and date, so the consent is documented, not assumed.
4. Midday: the pipeline board shows three buyer deals sitting in Showing. You schedule tours; each one creates a task with a due time and links to the property record so the address and price travel with it.
5. A seller listing goes Under Contract. You drag the card over, the expected_close date starts a countdown, and a closing checklist of tasks appears so nothing slips between accepted offer and signing.
6. Afternoon: the nurture queue surfaces sphere-of-influence contacts you have not touched in 90 days. You send a consent-checked check-in to the ones cleared to receive it and skip the rest.
7. A contact replies STOP. The system flags the opt-out, halts any further outreach to them, and logs the timestamp so you honor the revocation well inside the required window.
8. End of day: the dashboard shows what is still unanswered, which tasks are due tomorrow, and which deals close this week, so you leave knowing nothing important is buried.

Where AI trips up

• Consent is not optional: do not let the app send a marketing text without express written consent tied to your own business. Store the consent source and timestamp, and honor STOP or any opt-out within ten business days. A naive build that blasts every contact invites per-message penalties.
• Do-Not-Call goes stale: numbers must be re-scrubbed against the registry roughly every 31 days, not once at import. Calling FSBO or expired-listing owners who are on the list is a classic trap an AI build will happily walk you into.
• Duplicate leads multiply: the same person often inquires from Zillow, your site, and an open house within a week. Without dedupe on phone or email you get three records, call them three times, and split their history across all three.
• After-hours timing breaks silently: a large share of leads arrive nights and weekends. If the response timer or the unresponded flag uses server time or only counts business hours, you miss the window that matters. Store timestamps in UTC and display them in the agent's local time.
• One contact is not one deal: a past buyer can list their home with you while referring a friend who is buying. Model deals separately from contacts, or repeat clients and referrals collapse into a single confused record.

FAQ

Can I bring my existing contacts and notes over?

Yes. Describe the columns in your current spreadsheet or export, name, phone, email, source, stage, notes, and the app maps them into the contacts and deals tables so you start with your book of business already loaded, not a blank screen.

Will this keep me compliant with texting and calling rules?

It is a system of record, not legal advice. It stores consent with a source and date, flags contacts who have opted out, and reminds you to re-scrub numbers, but you set the consent language and honor opt-outs. Used properly it gives you the paper trail regulators expect.

Can my team share one pipeline?

Yes. Each agent signs in behind managed auth, every contact and deal has an owner, and you can see the whole team board or filter to just your own leads and closings.

Does it connect to Zillow or my IDX website?

In v1 you route leads in with a capture form or a forwarding address, so an inquiry from any portal or your site becomes a contact instantly. Direct two-way portal sync is a later addition once the core pipeline is proven.

Where does my client data live, and is it safe?

Your CRM runs hosted on ybuild and served on your own domain, backed by a managed database and gated behind managed auth, so client contact details and deal history stay in one secured system you control, not a shared spreadsheet.