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IFoundAgent is a website design and marketing service for real estate agents.

Platforms: Browser Ideal for: New agents, brokerages needing new websites, teams

Top selling points Great value for the cost Saved search website pages AerialSphere map search integration Ease of content management IDX-integration Top concerns

This is a stand-alone website development company focused on helping agents get on the web. Those seeking large-scale advanced marketing system integration might want to seek larger proptech solutions.

What you should know

With more than 600 real estate websites built and now with a multioffice brokerage website product in development, iFoundAgent has coded itself quite a market.

I attribute the company’s book of business to its ability to provide easy, attractive and affordable websites for agents. They look good, rest on WordPress, can incorporate IDX feeds and allow agents to manage their online presence without it detracting from their real world presence.

IFoundAgent came to my attention after a demo with AerialSphere, a 3D-aerial photography home-search service that is currently being beta-tested in all iFoundAgent sites.

The company offers customers an array of WordPress templates that can be customized as needed. They can also do from-scratch projects for those whose budgets dictate that kind of time and sophistication. Most agents and small brokerages can succeed for years on iFoundAgent’s core competency.

Current customer websites include:

jasonbuck.com philtibigroup.com barryvanpatten.com sellinghomesalongthecoast.com teamdowning.com rmcherrycreek.com

If you’re at all familiar with the WordPress CRM, you can manage your iFoundAgent website, as well as the custom tools that come with it.

Remember that affordability drives user experience here — the Campaign Manager, which builds saved searches and automated messages, is more traditional in its look and feel than a lot of what’s out there these days. There’s a lot of drop-downs and text fields that can make it feel a little overwhelming, but it’s all there and ready to help you stay in touch with new leads.

Campaigns can be built in conjunction with your MLS’s standard property details, a specific location and — here’s a nice touch — according to monthly payment.

IFoundAgent uses a quick mortgage calculation tool that produces a list of resulting properties that will be sent to the contact each time a new match enters the market. Cool.

Plus, every saved search in your systems is also published on your site as a stand-alone page. Granted, it results in a somewhat clunky URL, but there are some cool advantages to this, namely from an SEO perspective.

Agents can use the feature to build campaigns, and thus pages, for popular neighborhoods or parts of town before a prospect asks for it. They’ll automatically update via the IDX feed, which means you’ll have a library of self-sustaining listing pages and ready-to-send campaigns.

Contact interaction with listings and web-pages is tracked with a series of email notices.

The Lead Manager tool is where you’ll find contacts imported from your CRM or database.

Currently iFoundAgent has a relationship with Wise Agent, and it’s working with LionDesk, the former is currently two-way, meaning updates in iFoundAgent will be reflected in your WiseAgent interface.

IFoundAgent will for a fee import your contacts at a rate of 500 every three months.

There’s a testimonial feed plugin, a way to keep up with completed information forms and a card that timelines recent lead activity within the site. There’s also an automated feature that publishes listings as blog posts and lead valuation pages.

The company also assists agents on a custom level with lead generation strategies, scripts and general marketing tactics.

Support is offered in the form of two live seminars each week, as well as through chat, phone and email. All support is in-house and full-time, meaning you’ll talk to someone who walks into the iFoundAgent office each day for work. That’s increasingly rare these days.

Most websites start at $134 per month for IDX connections and the Campaign and Lead Manager tools.

Totally custom websites and the new “Big Broker” service are priced per project scope, meaning they’re not as cheap as the standard site. Nor should they be.

In a 2:30 voicemail after our demo, Dave Mason, founder of iFoundAgent, said that he developed his product because he doesn’t want to see agents marginalized by emerging technologies or fly-by-night business concepts.

“We have all technology stuff, and that’s the product, but what we do may not translate on our website, but I’m really committed to making sure agents get their dignity back,” Mason said. “My mother was an agent, I’ve been in it for 40 years … I think real estate agents are valuable in the transaction, and that technology can take people away from what’s really important, which is the relationships.”

Those are important thoughts from the founder of company that builds websites for agents.

As of today, iFoundAgent is working with agents throughout Arizona and is on its way into Los Angeles, San Diego and Denver.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.

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