Entegral Blog

As a real estate agency, having a website is essential for showcasing your properties and attracting potential buyers. But in today's digital age, it's not enough to simply have a website - it needs to be responsive and user-friendly. Here are the top 10 advantages of using responsive web design in real estate for estate agencies: Improved user experience - Responsive web design ensures that your website automatically adjusts to the screen size of the device it is being viewed on, providing a seamless and intuitive browsing experience for your visitors. Increased mobile traffic - With more and more people accessing the internet from their smartphones, a responsive website allows you to tap into this growing market and attract mobile users to your properties. Enhanced search engine optimization - Google favors responsive websites in its search rankings, so implementing responsive design can improve your search engine visibility and drive more organic traffic to your site. Imp...

Real estate agents looking for creative freedom to adapt their websites to fit their unique needs should look no further than Flex - a website solution for forward-thinking property professionals. Our comprehensive solution allows users to do some amazing things - and to help you see just how easy it is, we review how you can tweak your home page to emphasize your main areas of operation.  This not allows you to showcase your area of expertise, but also makes your social media marketing more effective. Tweak what featured properties display on your home page Did you know that you have full control over the featured properties on your Flex real estate website ?You can: Apply any filters (price range, area, property type etc).  You can apply a custom listing tags filter (e.g. tag with 'featured' or 'showcase' or multiple filters 'sea view', 'mountain view'.) Show the latest listings and tweak the number of properties to display. You can tweak the entire lo...

At Entegral, one of our core beliefs has always been to give freedom to our clients in choosing their systems, how they'd like to operate and deciding on what works best for running their business.  It's imperative for our team to assist real estate agencies and brokers to put together various integrations, systems and applications, simplifying their every day activity.  Hence this outlook,  a new partnership has been established between Entegral and commercial software specialists, Gmaven .   Gmaven, specialising in commercial specific software, is just one of the companies, who implemented our Sync API platform , allowing their clients to syndicate listings to a variety of real estate portals.   From the Gmaven system, commercial real estate managers, property funds or agents capture data on the Gmaven system, and with one click of a button, are now able to automatically advertise their space where potential clients are looking. More about the Sync API Th...

Configure individual user-shared listing and contacts access If you wanted a way to provide access to team member listings and contacts between individual users in Base (typical required for teams), you can now do this. This enables you to ringfence listing and contact access within groups or teams in your office.  See our help file on how to configure profiles . You can also configure individual user portal access . This makes it possible to provide personalised access to portals for specific teams in your office. Base and Flex also support multi-office configurations for national groups. Flex listing address display If you mark your listing as 'show on map' in Base our your supported CRM system, the exact address is now more prominently shown just under the property details. More updates We've increased the number of photos syndicated to partner portal Property24 to 50 photos . New Base Zapier actions  will be launched soon in October, including a property search.  In c...

So you've just received another great review from an ecstatic client where you've sold their home in record time and at the full asking price. How do you create social proof and use this to create more 'free' referrals? Sold brag card Using Base CRM , you can create your Sold listing brag card with one click and post it to your social media channels with your client reviews and a personal description. The export is in PNG image format and it's a time saver. We can even create custom template layouts for your team: This is great to draw immediate attention for a few hours - unless you boost/promote your post, which will extend your post's reach and impact. Showcase your reviews on your real estate website This is a no-brainer and we've made it real simple if you have a Flex real estate website with Entegral.  You can create multiple testimonials per agent and showcase this on individual agent profile pages, listings, and even on your home page.  The basic ...

We are proud to announce the Flex Dynamic Ads is now out of beta and available for order to all our real estate clients. The integration with your Flex responsive real estate website is a game-changer. The platform records detailed buyer search metrics and feeds that straight back into Facebook to deliver high-precision listing ads.  These ads link to your website, and not some external portal. The result is ads that perform better over the long run. We've simplified everything by eliminating the need to manage this in a new tool, Base CRM handles everything . What's more, 100% of your ad spend budget goes into building your brand. Check out the slideshow below:

"Time is what we want most, but what we use worst" ~ William Penn When we get so used to doing things in a certain way we fail to step back and investigate how we can work more efficiently and save time (and money) in the process. We get into comfort zones with outdated tools and fear trying out something new. Time lost on repetitive admin tasks impacts your business bottom line. That's time you could have spent on productive tasks. Save enough time and it opens the door to appointing someone new in your business. At Entegral we have a mindset of always trying to work more efficient and we push this view down into our product development. We are always on the lookout for how we can make your real estate business more profitable. So how much time can you save in your real estate agency by automating everyday tasks? We've compiled 10 ways our platforms can help you create more time out of thin air. Maybe you can think of some more or have some ideas on how w...

by Adriaan Grové, Entegral Founder We know there are plenty of benefits for home buyers to prequalify for a home loan. Running a property portal and real estate platforms we see the usual pitfalls in property buying. While there are plenty of benefits for buyers to prequalify for finance, the benefit for estate agents can easily be calculated too. Think of the time lost working with unqualified buyers or chasing basic documentation once an offer is submitted. Time is your biggest asset, so how do we help you create more time ? Step 1: Create a customer-first, integrated and streamlined experience With this in mind, we've set out to create a  better bond origination service  that handles all buyer pre-qualifications and new home loan applications super efficiently. Creating time you can better spend on serious buyers and negotiating deals, not admin.  A new MyProperty home loans service module seamlessly integrates into your Flex website and from here all home loans servi...

We are pleased to announce the next iteration of our MyProperty Home Loans origination service.  With your feedback, we've streamlined the process even more and introduced new state-of-the-art services to take bond origination in your real estate business to the next level. Click here to read more :  Some of the highlights include: Our improved central processing hub gives you one point of access to our home loans team that processes applications to all the major banks.  State of the art integration into your Flex website , enabling prequalifications and applications to be captured securely without visitors leaving your website. We even help buyers prequalify early on, which in many cases, can provide you with a prequalified lead in your inbox without you having to do any extra work!  Prequalification certificates are done in record time and branded for your estate agency. Our registered in-house debt counsellors will help turn your declined buyers into future approv...

A new Bond & Transfer cost calculator is now available to all Flex South African real estate websites. Try out the demo version on our Bold sample website here: https://bold.themes.entegral.biz/bond-and-transfer-cost-calculator To activate it on your website, please contact our helpdesk at support@entegral.net or live chat. A once-off setup fee of 1 hour is applicable which will also cover any future updates related to the calculations. The bond & transfer cost calculator will automatically be integrated on brand new Flex websites ordered. Our team is currently investigating bond and transfer calculators for other countries including Namibia. Please feel free to contact our team to indicate your interest. If you have a Flex website you may also be interested in these 2 recent announcements: Flex related listings feature Flex integrated tenant application module

Background If you run any sort of online campaign (e.g. Facebook, Google Ads, or other paid advertising) for your real estate business, chances are you would want to track the return on investment. In most cases, this would translate to the actual number of leads generated for that campaign, and to be more accurate the new mandates or sales generated from those leads. Knowing where best to spend your money is part of our goals with Base, and why you can already automatically import leads from all the portals within a few minutes. This gives you great transparency to identify lead sources by a portal, but what about your own campaigns?   Most marketing tools like Google or Facebook Ads will provide native reports with insights into the number of leads and cost per lead. But how do you know the source of the campaign the moment the lead lands in your inbox?   Now consider those links you add in your email signature or somewhere in a news article that offers a free valuation. Ho...

You've just promoted a listing via social media that attracts people to click and view it on your Flex website. Looking through the listing page, they aren't interested - but how do you prevent them from closing your website and prompting them to view more listings? Introducing Flex related listings With this feature, Flex will show up to three related property listings at the bottom of all current listings looking at a combination of area, status, and price range. A sample is shown below where related for sale listings are shown at the bottom of the current listing: And here related rental listings are shown to visitors: The feature is available on all Flex Standard and Premium packages at no extra cost, and if not already available on your website, will be rolled out soon.

Tenant applications can take up a considerable amount of admin time. This includes getting the application, managing it somewhere centrally, and keeping it safe for further access. We had a look at how we could not only streamline and optimise this process but also develop an integrated tenant application module. The result of this is our newly launched optional tenant application for your Flex website (available in standard and premium packages). Integrated  Tenant Application wizard for Flex Once enabled, an integrated tenant application link will show on all your rental listings like this: You can see it in action on this sample rental property on our Flex Bold demo site. It takes you through a wizard where all application details including personal contact, bank, and supporting documents are captured. Since Flex is responsive, the application is seamlessly integrated and will work on any device. With 100% uptime and SSL security as standard, tenants can capture in confidence....

We now include a separate real estate credentials field on the latest Flex real estate websites , under the agent name and role, as showcased below:   The feature is available to all clients on the latest Flex websites. If you have a custom website (Premium solution), please contact us to get this feature enabled for your site. The credential field can be updated in Base under your profile, or if you use the Sync API , through the new credentials field.

As of 1 February 2022, the new Property Practitioners Act (PPA)  of South Africa will officially commence. Here is how the Entegral platform helps your estate agency comply.  Management System Of particular importance is the requirement to keep any mandate, sale, and marketing documents for a minimum of 5 years within the agency: Base real estate CRM system provides unlimited file storage for your office, both on individual mandates , so you can store the mandate agreement, offer to purchase, and other files, and on your office document library which is perfect to store all general marketing material. With a massive 200MB/file limit you can upload super large files too. Since there is no need to delete any listings from Base, any expired, sold or other inactive listings will also be saved, together with all documents saved on them. Stored an unlimited number of files with Base and access them from anywhere Save all mandate related documents securely on every listing The lis...

We are kicking off the year on a high note with the announcement of Flex Ads , a platform that allows agents to dynamically create automated real estate ads on two of the most prominent social networks, Facebook and Instagram. An an industry first, real estate ads can be created in record time from newly added listings captured in Base , pushed to social platforms, and clicks will direct straight to your Flex responsive website  (and not some 3rd party platform). The platform will automatically create all the ads, and ensure that it is delivered to the right buyers and sellers with fine tuned campaigns. We will onboard a limited number of clients in the beta phase, so if you are interested, please sign up here for more info:  https://launch.entegral.net/

We take you through our top 20 hits of 2021 and give you a sneak peek of something special we are launching for the real estate industry in 2022.

It might not seem like an important aspect of your homepage but compelling introductions are quite pivotal in hooking a potential client. For many visitors to your FLEX website , the first page they will land on is your homepage, and as the saying goes - first impressions last. Consider your homepage and what you are trying to do - as a real estate agency, it is not just about selling property, you have to sell yourself and your business to build those lasting relationships that turn into profit. How do you do this with a homepage? By introducing yourself as the leading expert that you are through a well-written introduction. How to write winning introductions Writing effective homepage copy doesn’t need to be complicated and these tips will help you not only introduce your business to visitors but also move them to action. Be concise Everyone visiting your website already knows that you are a real estate agent or agency, they don’t need an explanation on what you do. What they do need...

If you look at the current real estate tech landscape, it is filled with cookie-cutter real estate templates, that all feature the same property search experience. While this works well for some, experience has taught us that every real estate business we work with, is unique, and in many cases, they focus on different market segments. It would therefore make sense to be able to implement a unique property search experience suited to their market.  Until now, implementing such a unique search experience was impossible and expensive (not to mention a nerve-wracking experience if you built a website from scratch). We've changed that. Flex was the 1st real estate platform to offer a property search that can be personalised to your unique needs.  The already powerful property search tool shown below can now be modified in various ways, including adding or removing search options, and  implementing customised search fields: We've now further tweaked this functionality and com...

A powerful new way to categorise your listings in Base, and even turn it into a searchable feature on your Flex real estate website is now available to Entegral clients.    Listing tags are automatically displayed on individual listings, similiar to the above. They highlight certain property features, are clickable to filter on similiar listings, and can even be included as search options .  See this help article and learn how you can use listing tags in creative ways on your Flex website.  Listing tags can be configured in Base by office administrators, and is made available to all users on their listings.  You can read more here on how to configure listing tags .  P.S. the feature has been rolled out to all of the latest generation Flex website. If you don't see this feature on your website, and would like to enable it, please contact our team. Flex is the benchmark for creating highly personalised real estate websites, and with listing tags, we give ag...