Real estate is a high pressure 24/7 business that is often conducted outside the office. By using cloud technology, real estate agents can put themselves in the box seat to make the most of every opportunity. Here’s how.
Go mobile
Most of the hard work in real estate happens on the road, so it’s important to be able to access the information you need and update files, without having to go back to the office. Need to go through a property’s maintenance history? Refresh your memory on contract details? By having your business critical programs in the cloud, you can access data, and work from anywhere you choose, whenever you need to.
Collaborate with other agents and office staff
Working in the cloud also allows for numerous people to work collaboratively on the same document, with changes being saved in real-time. This means data is not only easily accessible from the road, it’s also always up to date. You’ll be aware of offers as they come in, and properties that are sold or that have just hit the market.
Switch to a virtual fax service
Services like eFax allow you to securely send and receive faxes via email or online, so you don’t have to be tied to the office in order to send documents by fax. You can send faxes that arrive as normal on ordinary office faxes, and you receive faxes as PDF or TIF email attachments.
With eFax, any mobile device connected to the internet becomes a fax machine in your pocket. You can attach an electronic signature to important documents, and all your fax communications are securely stored in the cloud.
Send documents through the cloud
If you regularly need to send large files such as property images to colleagues or clients, you’re probably familiar with what happens when you try and do it in one go over email and the system crashes. With the cloud, you can share large files easily over the internet. For example, eFax allows you upload files to the cloud, then send a link so recipients can download them.
Cloud back ups
Information that is kept in the cloud will be backed up so there is no need to constantly rely on numerous devices such as USBs or external hard drives. Cloud computing allows users to have access to older versions of documents, so there’s no worry about saving over older versions, or creating confusion with too many versions of the same document.
As it offers so much mobility and flexibility, cloud computing is a natural progression for real estate agents. If you’re not using the cloud in these five ways, you could be losing out on being as efficient as possible, and making the most of the opportunities that come your way.