3 Time-Saving Business Tools For Real Estate Agents

#1:  123 Notary

This is a free nationwide notary-finding service that lets you enter a city or zip code and then finds the mobile notaries who cover that location.

It came in super handy when I needed a courtesy signing at a client’s place of work and escrow’s regular mobile notaries were all booked up. I used it again when some clients needed to sign while vacationing in another state and escrow couldn’t find any notaries nearby.

Tip: Check with your escrow service first to make sure the notary you choose is acceptable to them based on whatever guidelines they may use. And just for the record, one notary I’ve used twice via that service is not “123Notary.com Certified” and she has done a good job.

#2: Teux Deux Online Planner

Amazingly, when I first got into real estate (kind of, cough cough, a while ago), although I used the wire binder At-a-Glance schedulers I could still remember an appointment scheduled five weeks prior even if it wasn’t written down.

No longer. I will spare you the details. ;)

For a long time it seemed like every online planner I’ve tried was either complicated with features I didn’t need, or just not the kind of thing I ended up using consistently.

Enter the Teux Deux planner, which is surprisingly simple and effective. I’ve been using it pretty much daily for around four years now and am really happy with it.

TeuxDeux offers a 30-day free trial, and after that it’s $3 monthly or $24 per year. (So not free, but it kind of feels free. :) There’s an iPhone app, or if you’re like me and use an Android phone you can just use the web version on your phone.

Tip: There’s also a section below the calendar portion where you can create lists based on categories rather than dates.  This makes it easy to quickly add an item to a list of Real Estate Marketing Ideas or Preferred Contractors, for example.

#3: The Pablo Image Creator

You know those cool images everyone shares on Facebook and Instagram? The ones with a caption making some kind of inspirational or insightful statement?

(Yes, the ones that subsequently get shared about 7 million times regardless of whether the statement is actually true or the person being quoted actually said it.)

These images (the actually true ones :) are a great way for you to spruce up your own real estate content, whether it’s on social media or your blog or website.

Fortunately they’re very easy to make using the free Pablo Image Creator.

On Pablo you can choose from over 600,000 free images (including home decor and real estate themed photos), and either write your own message or use the “Add Quotes” feature to share someone else’s wisdom. You can play with various font and filter styles, or even upload your own photos to work with.

Once you’re done, it’s easy to download your graphic in the correct size for each social media site.  (These are, of course, usually different sizes. :)

Bonus Resource #4: Buffer

Buffer is a service that lets you post simultaneously to multiple social media accounts. Since they created Pablo it makes sense to give them a shout-out here too.

For example, if you have a great real estate post that you’d like to send to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (except your phone is ringing and the dog clearly needs to be walked), you can just post it to your Buffer account and tell Buffer to send it to those accounts for you.

Buffer has a free plan (not just a trial) that lets you post to three social media accounts, so it’s easy to try out and upgrade later if you need more options.