Portsmouth firm brings Web savvy to real estate

Real estate agents spend much of their day on office tasks instead of selling homes, but it’s the goal of a new Web-based application to save agents time and money by integrating and automating many of those chores.

Created by Port City Web, a Portsmouth-based Web solutions provider, Savvy Agent pulls together the separate functions of Multiple Listing Service searching, customer management, e-mail/contact management and Web presence all in one product. It is fully integrated with such Microsoft Office applications as Word, making routine tasks — like e-mailing clients and updating information on Web sites — familiar and simple.

“The goal of Savvy Agent is threefold: It creates and supports an agent’s brand identity, it manages clients and it offloads more tedious tasks, such as weeding serious buyers from those just looking,” said Erik Crago, president of Port City Web.

Central to Savvy Agent is the MLS database, the repository for properties that are on the market. Savvy Agent updates an agent’s Web database from the MLS every 30 minutes, ensuring that potential buyers are viewing only properties that are currently available. There also are features that track the activity on a property, such as days on the market and price history.

According to Crago, each state has its own version of the MLS database without any standardization. Savvy Agent streamlines data entry and searching for both the agent and the customer.

Most property search tools have limited customization, but Savvy Agent allows searches in just the areas the real estate agent represents, eliminating unnecessary searches for both the agent and the customer, he said.

Customers also can save their searches by registering with the agent representing the property, always preserving their privacy by selecting how or if they want to be contacted or notified if a property that meets their criteria becomes available.

Savvy Agent’s customer registration feature allows information, including the types of properties being searched, to be updated in the contact management module, and is quickly available to the agent for follow-up. This saves both the agent and the customer time by displaying buyers who are genuinely interested in a property and wish to speak with an agent.

Jeff Mountjoy, a Seacoast area real estate agent, was the first New Hampshire client to roll out the system. He said he was “thrilled” with the product, calling it “a cinch to learn, and it’s a huge timesaver.”

For more information, visit savvyagent.com or call 430-6247.