Today most buyers don’t leave their armchair, train seat, office desk even toilet seat to look for property! Information is accessible anywhere anytime and in real time. The tools that agents use have driven this revolution. It started with email and portals, extended to the website and the advanced functionality (3D floorplans and walkthroughs) and now leads to Apps and mobile sites for various devices.

Agents often ask us are there any reasons for taking on yet more “channels” to display property! We advise yes – the same as we did when agents asked us in 1999 whether a website was necessary. It can be a minefield trying to get such a devise created and we are seeing a wide variety of different quality products with a variety of functions.

So why should you go down the App route? Importantly, as with vendor logins, vendors will require Apps when instructing (irrespective of whether they use them) – we call this keeping up with the Joneses. Apps should not be considered only as “display mechanisms” but an effective medium in which to communicate in real time with buyers. Buyer will use them impulsively. Buyers are more likely to act on a “spur of the moment” basis rather than – I must reply to that mail ‘Freds estate agency’ sent me! We’ve all forgotten about those! Push messages are effective, clients can communicate with you in an instant, quickly taking snippets of information and keeping you and your stock in the forefront of their mind.

Dezrez are launching a full range of apps on 1st Feb, give us a call or drop mail us for a sneak preview or a chat.

Notable features in our new apps include Full statistical analysis (who downloaded, whose searching etc) Vendor login (slick), advertising you can sell on to your suppliers if you wish (cost effective)? A full content management system that’s easy to use and fully integrated with MyDezrez (and it really is easy to use). Standard features that should be in place are; Full search, near me, favourites, and full interaction with social media.

Have a look at the video below showing the iPhone App:

There are now triple the number of 95% mortgages available to first time buyers with interest rates at 5.25%.  It appears the banks have finally got a little more faith in the property market. I must admit that the “feel” in the industry is a lot more positive. Many of the people we have spoken to have said that the Sales market has “woken up”. Just within our own conveyancing dept we have seen a recent but steady increase in instructions, which has resulted in a massive 30 completions in a single day last Friday. We are not alone, as the L&G mortgage club has seen a surge in applications from first time buyers. Perhaps this surge has something to do with the imminent end of the Stamp duty holiday, but I hope not!

Example:-

Dezrez have worked with Chase Buchanan (www.chasebuchanan.co.uk) for many years. They are a great team of guys who we get on very well with. We encourage them to utilise the software and in fairness they really do (regularly in the top 5% of users). They also push us with software development and give us suggestions to improve our product.

When we rolled out Mydezrez we paid the guys at Chase Buchanan a visit. We showed them lots of changes we made and discussed how these changes could fit their business; we showed them how to modify the system so that the interface matched the job role of the user. We demonstrated how to access new powerful reports and created dashboards for the managers, valuers, negotiators and Saturday staff.

What I loved the most was the way that Chase Buchanan created a dashboard for managers and directors to analyse staff performance in specific areas of the business.

The guys have some 30+ users and wanted a way to create some competition and make sure people were doing what they should be doing. That’s what we worked on with them. Chase Buchanan now have a monthly get together where they praise and reward those who are achieving the most from their day. This monitoring and analysis via Mydezrez also enables them to highlight training or personnel issues and nip them in the bud before they become a bigger problem.

Well done to Chase Buchanan – that’s progress. If you would like us to come and visit your agency and help you fit the software to the goals you want to achieve talk to us. We love improvement!

The site has been designed and developed by The Property Jungle using our XML based feed.  The site provides customers with a wide range of information on each property and its surrounding area, with features such as maps showing local schools, public transport and other amenities.

Despite the site carrying a lot of information, the layout has been tailored to ensure that you are never lost, with company colours used to draw you attention to the most important features, such as price and number of rooms.

The property searching functionality is well thought out, with a range of searching criteria.  The site also offers you the ability to map out you own search area, a feature made popular recently by Rightmove.

Congratulations to both Preston Baker and The Property Jungle!

• Gallery@HD1 – Huddersfield
• Chase Buchanan – St Margarets
• Orchard Sales and Lettings – Orchard Sales
• Emsleys – Crossgates
• Harvey Robinson – Huntingdon Office
• ISIS Residential Homes – Staines Office
• Rochills Limited – Head Office
• Rampton Baseley – Battersea
• Bloore And King – Halesowen Office
• Sanderson Estate Agency – Porthmadog Office

All of these estate agents have achieved this status by consistently using 90% or more of the entire dezrez system. We can monitor your usage of dezrez from our specially designed software, making it possible for us to tailor training specifically for your estate agency. We can also offer you advice on how to improve efficiency in your estate agency.

Well, we think it’s been a great success with the suggestions coming in steadily over the months and many people have been submitting, commenting and voting on all sorts of ideas.

Every time you Submit, make a comment, vote, someone votes for your idea or your idea is marked as completed i.e. developed – you get some points! This way we can create a league of Uservoice Users!

So, without further ado, out of 367 active users and all the dezrez customers, I give you the TOP TEN contributors to the Dezrez Uservoice Forum!

Top 10 contributors: All time:

Well done to Ross Phillips of Moginie James. The majority of Ross’ points have come from commenting on Ideas and helping out other agents.

Closely followed by William Hill of Country Property in 2nd place, a forward thinking agent who always likes to keep us on our toes!

And bringing up the rear in the last of the medal positions is Jeremy Godfrey of Mather Marshall, a long term dezrez agent and a great advocate for the software.

The current stats for uservoice make for some interesting reading, here are the figures (click to enlarge):

The current Top 3 ideas are:

1: #64 votes – Under Review – Standard Letters, Email each party only their own letter
2: #56 votes – Under Review – Emailed Sales Progression Notes
3: #56 votes – Requires More Info From Agents – Mark a property as SOLD, but keep marketing as if its For Sale

A. is for Angharad. She’s not called Ann Harad but many of her clients make that mistake

B. is for buffets. We always put on a good office spread for special occasions.

C. is for communication. We like talking to you!

D. is for drinking, we’re no strangers to the odd tipple.

E. is for email. Unlike some law firms we’re not afraid of modern technology!

F. is for fancy dress. We quite like an opportunity to look silly.

G. is for Gina! One of our longstanding conveyancing referral account managers. She once spelt her name to a customer using the phrase ‘G is for Gina’. The joke follows that she then went on to explain ‘I’ for the ‘I’ in Gina … but we may have exagerated here.

H. is for healthy… well we try but often fail (see B & D).

I. is for Integration with your dezrez software.

J. is for Jolly. We’re a pretty upbeat bunch and to have a few team giggles every day.

K. is for kettle. We’re ever so slightly dependant on Tea & Coffee.

L. is for Lauras. Together they keep us all in check.

M. is for monitors, we get 2 each in this office so we can work twice as hard!

N. is for no sale no legal fee.

O. is for oestrogen in our all-female office. Colin our Business Development Manager calls in every 4 – 6 weeks but we get the feeling he’s ready to leave again by the end of the day

P. is for Paper! We’re trying to wean ourselves off it but the legal profession are addicted. We printed a massive 429,690 pages in 2011.

Q. is for quids in with your minimum £100 referral fee

R. is for recruitment. We’re growing and have welcomed several new team members in the last year – we now have 15 full time staff members and are rapidly running out of space!

S. is for Saras/Sarahs. It’s all getting rather confusing!

T. is for treats. Colin likes to take a sweet treat in exchange for a brew when he calls into see you.

U. is for umbrella. Our home (Swansea) is the wettest city in Britain… But it’s also one of the most beautiful.

V. is for vendor satisfaction. We pass all our feedback forms on to you so you can see how we’re doing.

W. is for Weddings. We had 1 in 2011 and a whopping 3 of our team will be getting hitched in 2012.

X. is for Xtreme sports, we have snowboarders, surfers, scuba divers and sky divers among our team.

Y. is for Y Tim. That means ‘ The Team’ in Welsh. Can you tell we were struggling here? It gave us an excuse to get the team pic in (minus some camera shy people)

Z. is for zzzzzzzzz!!! All the team try their very best day in day out to bring you the best conveyancing service we can. By 5.30pm we’re about ready for a nap before that tipple we were talking about earlier.

Jump on the social media band wagon and get tweeting from within the dezrez software! Don’t forget to follow us on twitter @dezrezsoftware

Check out the video below:-

Will any Estate Agent be making a Smart TV app to advertise their Property Stock?

Or how about a Smart TV app for Lettings Agents, that will allow them to communicate with their Tenants through the app on the TV? Rent reminders? Remind them of their tenancy end date?

Last year it seems that QR codes became very popular in the Estate Agency world, we have seen huge demand from agents looking to incorporate QR codes into their Property Particulars.

So what will overtake QR Codes?

I believe Estate Agents will be able to utilise Blippar technology in the future. So what is Blippar?

Imagine being able to turn any real world product, advert, logo or physical landmark into an interactive experience simply by pointing a phone at it. No scanning or photo taking.

Imagine a member of the Public is walking down the street and sees a for sale board outside a property, they point their phone at the For Sale board and a brochure of the property or a 3D floor plan or a virtual tour appears on the screen of their phone they can interact with.

Check out the following link showing how Blippar works HERE

Or give it a go, download the Blippar app to your iPhone, iPad or Andriod device and once you have the app try it on some examples HERE

What tools do you think will be big next?

Name: Matthew Dendle
Age: 30
Job Title: Head of Software Development

If you were an animal what kind of animal would you be? And Why?
A snow leopard, get to hang around in the snow all day, and I wouldnt get cold, plus, i’d be really dynamic. Reminds me of my younger self, plus, in a rage, I could pull some massive gibs. A bit like this – http://go.dezrez.com/hq. And i’d be under protection from hunting.

Who is your favourite person in dezrez?
Matt Davies because he helps me with my golfing problems

How would you describe your boss in three words?
Absent, Incomunicado, Climbing Everest

How would you describe yourself in three words?
Dynamic, Energetic and Bald (ing)

What would I find in your refrigerator right now?
Cold Air

If you won £20 million in the lottery, what would you do with the money?
Buy a nice house, then knock it down and build an even NICER house just because I could

What makes you angry?
The emotion “Anger”

What is a perfect weekend for you?
A big night out with no hangover, followed by a lottery win, followed by accidentally discovering a cure for cancer, followed by acheiving world peace