Shawn,
Thank you so very much for making this whole thing available to 'non-techie' folks like myself. You've given me a tool which I've been struggling to find all year!
You, plus my 1 1/2 hrs with Brad today, has given me the tools and knowledge for an excellent start on creating the website I needed.
Once again, thank you for sharing your genius with me!
Truly appreciative,
Michele =)
Agent 3000 is a great resource for agents to use and incorporate into their marketing as education to help potential home buyers and seller better understand what the market is really doing.
ListingSpy, wow, that is phenomenal! I was paying over $250 a month for a website that didn't even have the ability to make landing pages or flyers.
Great products thank you for not charging an arm and a leg for your website, it allows me to use the money I was spending on my other website and use those funds towards getting eyeballs on my ListingSpy websitehttp://www.RealEstate-FortMyersFL.com
I just wanted to comment on how user friendly and helpful Agent 3000 is and that as the Training Director for Century 21 Sunbelt, I have heard great remarks on how easy and useful it is for both new and experienced agents. In my 32 years in Real Estate, I have not experienced a more knowledgeable software developer or one that will take the time to help agents and Brokers use his products and come to our Offices and do personal training sessions on both Agent 3000 and Listing Spy. If you haven't used it yet, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
Cape Coral-based Shawn Sommer has been a real estate agent and broker, a software developer for Ford and GM, a house flipper and a professional water skier.
Now he’s using his experience to create a software package to make business faster and easier for Southwest Florida real estate agents and brokers.
The Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach has a contract with Sommer’s company Direct Axess under which the association provides the company’s Agent 3000 software to help agents manage their work.
“We actually look for applications as a benefit for our members — what they need in this market,” said Beate Jones, CEO of the association: “And we get that with him.”
The brokers and agents who make up the association aren’t required to use DirectAxess software, she said. “We don’t limit our members in what they can purchase. If they feel something else works better for them, then naturally that’s what we’d do. However, I think we’re pretty good at pinpointing their needs.”
Sommer, 48, said he came by his knowledge of the industry the hard way when the real estate boom collapsed in 2006: “I was a broker, and I lost everything.”
Before that he worked on software programs for Ford and General Motors in Detroit, with a stint as a professional water skier that was ended by a back injury.
He knows that designing software for his former profession is a competitive field: giants in the industry such as Zillow.com and Realtor.com offer their own programs for free.
But he thinks the home court advantage will be enough for him to prevail here and perhaps expand to other markets in Florida.
“I don’t have that red tape” that comes with big organizations, he said. If something needs to be tweaked or added to his software, “I can stop what I’m doing and fix it so nobody’s losing any money.”
Monika Wilson, a real estate agent with Century 21 Sunbelt in Cape Coral, said she uses Agent 3000 and its $25-a-month add-on Listing Spy.
The software, she said “is very user friendly. It’s interactive. We don’t need to ask anybody to change it — we can change it ourselves.”
Her clients like it because they can easily surf the association’s Multiple Listing Service to find homes they’re interested in, Wilson said. “They can save their favorites, and I can see those favorites. I can see what they’re picking.”
Jones said it’s important to offer agents programs that are right for them. Realtors nowadays, they don’t have time to test each application. They make the wrong decision, pay thousands of dollars a year in subscriptions. Our ultimate goal is to give our members the values they need for things like lead generation, marketing, public relations.”
Having a good suite of online tools is especially important to someone just starting out in the business, Jones said. “A new Realtor comes here, right out of school — here’s something that’s free.”
Great Realtor Tools!