The Best Free Tools For Real Estate Agents 2021

Last year, Home ASAP published its first ever guide to the best free tools for real estate agents across the internet. The response was tremendous. So this year we’ve decided to update and expand our list to give you more free tools than ever. After all, the past year has been tough enough without having to fork over more of your hard earned commissions!

Best Free Marketing Tool for Real Estate Agents

Real Estate Agent Directory

The Real Estate Agent Directory (READ) has been busy this year adding new and expanded free features. First, it has added several new MLSs to nearly all agents across the US to have acess to automatic featured listing pages. These pages can be easily be shared to social media or emailed to interested parties. Agents can also opt in to sharing their listings on the brand new myagentdirectory.com for even more free exposure.

The Real Estate Agent Directory (READ) also added a new digital business card feature. This allows agents to generate and automatically post a virtual business card to their Facebook page up to twice a month. This feature coupled with the Page Poster tool can save a lot of time for agents looking for things to post to Facebook.

The perks don’t end there though. READ members get access to a nationwide referrals network, too. Plus, they receive access to one of the largest moderated real estate agent groups on Facebook where they can pose questions and get advice from other agents around the country. As far as free marketing tools for real estate agents go, READ is a no brainer.

Best Free Project Management Tool For Real Estate Agents

Clickup

Over the past year, Clickup has gained significant investment to put them even further ahead other organizational tools like Trello. At its core,Clickup lets you organize tasks plus any relevant information into lists and spaces of related tasks. In addition to its constantly improving workflow management tools, it has also added built in documents, chat, and more.

So let’s say you’re a broker handling a team of agents. You can have a list of tasks you assign to all of the people you manage. As tasks progress towards completion, people can add status updates so you can check in easily at any time. Need a little more info? Leave a comment or pop into a chat so that all of the discussion about a task stays in one place that you can refer to later if needed. Plus, with documents, you can have important info available for people in one place.

Of course, this only scratches the surface of what Clickup can do because it is so insanely customizable. I could write an entire article telling you about all of the customization options for everything from project statuses to dashboards. What makes Clickup especially incredible is that you get a ton of features used by Fortune 500 companies for free.

Best Free Data Tool for Real Estate Agents

Realtor’s Property Resource (RPR)

Last year, we showed you how to use Realtors Property Resource (RPR) to create CMAs for free, but that only scratches the surface of what RPR can do. NAR created RPR to give its members easy access to all kinds of property data from flood zones to taxes to schools and everything in between.

This data can be used for creating listing presentations, relocation packets, and a lot more. NAR also offers free iOS and Android apps, so it can be handy for fielding questions during showings and open houses, too.

Best Free Website Builder for Real Estate Agents

WordPress.com

Over 40% of all websites on the internet are built on an underlying technology called WordPress. WordPress.com allows you to build a website using that same platform for free. This gives agents the ability to get stake out their own corner of the web inexpensively, and then the site can be easily transported to other hosts when you’re ready to upgrade.

Of course, there are a couple of limitations on the free plan. First, the site will not include its own web domain, so your site’s web address will be something.wordpress.com unless you upgrade to a paid plan. The other drawback is that your site will contain an floating bar encouraging others to build a site on wordpress.com at the top of each page. Fortunately, paid plans start at as little as $4 per month if you decide to upgrade.

Since it’s so popular, WordPress has a huge system of themes and plugins that let you customize your website, too. That means you can often create a great looking website for less effort, and you can also make a WordPress site do nearly everything you’d want. Again, under the free plan you’ll be limited in some regards, but the same is true with any free website on other platforms.

Best Free WordPress Plugin for Real Estate Agents

Easy MLS Listings Import

Speaking of WordPress…If you have a WordPress site, you need this tool. Easy MLS Listings Import is a free WordPress plugin that lets you easily add your listings to your website. Best of all, once you finish initial setup your listings update themselves based on the latest MLS data (which gets refreshed several times an hour).

So you have a new listing? Your website updates itself. Price reduction? Updates itself. Under contract? Updates itself. Off the market? You get the idea.

Best Free Graphics Tool for Real Estate Agents

Canva

Maybe you have a graphic designer on hand to create flyers and social media posts for you. For the rest of us, Canva can be a great free alternative. Canva has hundreds of templates for commonly needed graphics including Instagram posts, presentations, and more.

Canva has a wide range of available templates, but they do tend to be modern and trendy designs. So it may not be a fit for every audience or brand. Fortunately, Canva’s editing tool gives you the ability to customize each design to suit your needs.

Best Free CRM for Real Estate Agents

HubSpot

Most agents are already aware of the value of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, but the costs can add up quickly. While some brokers may offer their agents a free CRM, that means your contacts and leads are tied into their system. So what happens if you need to change brokerages?

Luckily, HubSpot offers free tools for real estate agents and other business owners. Their CRM will let you organize your contacts, track leads, and nurture those leads in one place. Plus, it includes a powerful e-mail builder for building and sending marketing e-mails to your leads, so you can build client relationships over time.

Best Free Educational Tool for Real Estate Agents

Thrive Real Estate Education

Continuing education is a fact of life for real estate agents…an expensive and inconvenient fact of life. Thrive Real Estate Education solves these problems by offering completely free online CE courses. In fact, they’re currently the only free CE platform in the nation.

Not only are the courses completely free for real estate agents, but they also satisfy licensing requirements for continuing education in several states. So if you live in Florida, Colorado, or other states where they offer fully accredited CE courses, you can save lots of time and money with Thrive. For those that don’t live in a state with accredited courses, Thrive still offers some great professional development for keeping your skills sharp.

Best Free Photo Editor For Real Estate Agents (Tie)

Pixlr

As a real estate agent, good imagery can make the difference between a home selling fast or languishing. Pixlr is a fully-featured online photo editor that lets you make common corrections such as cropping and adjusting brightness with ease. Since it’s funded by ads, Pixlr is a free tool for real estate agents.

Pixlr actually has two different photo editors available depending on your needs. If you have little or no experience with photo editing software, then you’ll want to use Pixlr X. For advanced users, you can opt for Pixlr E which gives you an experience comparable to Photoshop.

Colorcinch

Many people may be annoyed by the ads that come with Pixlr’s free photo editor. Fortunately, Colorcinch is a more than capable alternative without the ads. Colorcinch allows agents to accomplish common tasks like adding watermarks or cropping quickly and easily. The controls and interface feel simple and intuitive which may make it a bit less intimidating than Pixlr for agents without a lot of experience in photoediting.

So what keeps Colorcinch from being the undisputed best photo software for real estate agents? The purpose of the apps. While Colorcinch matches most of the features as Pixlr, Colorcinch seems to be a bit more oriented towards creating art than pure photo editing. For instance, most agents will never need to use something like a cartoonize filter on their images. All the same, both options will serve agents well.

Free Tools for Real Estate Agents vs. Paid

Now that you’ve seen the free tools available to real estate agents, we should also say that free comes at a price. While you can get lots of powerful functionality at the free level, some of the tools such as HubSpot and Canva require paid upgrades to access premium features. Others like Pixlr use ads to generate revenue.

For many people, these drawbacks will still be well worth the value of getting real estate tools for free. After all, you want to keep as much of that commission check as you can. Your broker and taxes cut into your commissions as it, so why not save money where you can?