50 Ways REALTORS® are Using RPR in Their Real Estate Business

In online real estate threads and face-to-face at live events, we often hear this question from REALTORS®:

“What exactly can RPR (Realtors Property Resource®) do for me and my business?”

Consider this nifty-fifty list the ultimate answer! Pin it, print it, bookmark it and refer to it when you want some guidance as to what RPR can do and help you get done. And of course, if you’re doing something with RPR not already covered on this list, share it with us in the comments below.

RPR is a powerful tool that provides REALTORS® with a comprehensive database of residential and commercial data, analytics, and tools that help you better serve your clients. With RPR, REALTORS® can access valuable insights and data to stay ahead of their competition and help their clients make informed decisions.

This article/list will provide an overview of the many ways REALTORS® are using RPR to better manage their real estate business, from prospecting to valuing properties, listing presentations, open houses, anniversary follow-ups, and more.

• Prospecting
• Valuation
• Listing Presentation
• Open House
• Anniversary Follow-Up
• Working with Buyers
• Commercial
• RPR Mobile™ App

1. Selecting a Geographical farm: Geo farming is a proven prospecting method of marketing your real estate business to a neighborhood or defined local area.
   1. Competition: How many agents are mining the area? Research the number of other REALTORS^® in the area and their market share to understand the level of competition.
   2. Future sales: Is there enough sales activity to invest your time and energy? Calculate turnover and absorption rate to help determine the best targets.
2. Marketing to a Geographical farm: Once you’ve chosen a ripe area, what should you send your targets? Sharing up-to-date housing market trends and statistics, or making a neighborhood market update video for that specific neighborhood is a wise move.
3. Verify homeowner information: Simply pop in a property address in RPR and hit “search” to view the Property Details, which includes owner information and occupancy status.
4. Generate a neighborhood mailing list: With RPR Maps and the Mailing Labels feature, you can create address lists and export them as a CSV file into your CRM or into a Google doc.
5. Generate a mailing list based on key characteristics: Find homes of similar specs or size (beds and baths, square footage, etc.) or better yet, how long the homes have been owned. Then turn the list into mailing labels to set up a direct mail campaign!
6. Generate an absentee owners list: Target investors or home rental owners in a given area with RPR’s mailing labels capability.
7. Keep tabs on home pricing trends: Current, local housing market stats is the kind of knowledge you want in your hip pocket when having conversations with potential clients. Check out this webinar on how to monitor the market to learn more.
8. Show Neighborhood Market Activity with RPR Reports: The RPR Market Activity report really lines up well with your farming efforts by giving homeowners an idea of what’s selling and what’s being listed. Check out this “how-to” for a walkthrough: Create a Market Activity report for a custom area.
9. The RVM^® (Realtor Valuation Model^®): For research and discussion of off-market properties, the RVM^®, the NAR-owned automated valuation model, is a great starting point for conversations.
10. Heat Maps: Conduct searches in RPR Maps and use the heat map filter to analyze and identify potential opportunities or areas of growth.
11. Use RPR reports as lead magnets: Facebook ads are a solid, cost-effective way to pull in warm leads. You can use RPR Market Activity and Neighborhood reports to lure in curious real estate listers or shoppers and get them to fill out a form so you can follow up.
12. Door Knocking: Old school neighborhood canvassing still works for many agents, and with the RPR Mobile™ app in your palm, you’ll have all the info you need for a nice greeting and an icebreaker.
13. Phone calls: Conduct cold (or hot!) calls from anywhere you get a signal and use the RPR website or the RPR app to pull up the property and engage the owner in a meaningful conversation about their real estate needs and goals.
14. Post to your social channels: Use the latest local market trends and statistics to create an impressive market update. A visual graphic will garner attention, and RPR provides you with templates (via Canva) that make for attention-getting social media content.
15. Search homes by distressed status: RPR has a nationwide database where you can search over 160 million off-market properties, including distressed properties such as: Pre-foreclosure (Short Sale/NOD), Foreclosure (NOT/Auction), and Foreclosed (Bank Owned/REO).

16. Create a CMA: Sellers look for agents who know how to properly price properties and with tools from RPR, you can build an accurate Comparative Market Analysis every time.
17. Sales Comparison Analysis: After creating a CMA, you might want to go even more in-depth with the RPR Valuation Workbook. It’s also the right tool for appraisers who need more details on property valuations.
18. Refine home values: How can you adjust home values when upgrades have been made? Or in some cases, need to be made? The RPR Refine Value tool let’s agents increase or decrease home prices based on home improvements.
19. Track changes in neighborhood home values: Keep an eye on the ups and downs of the neighborhoods you specialize in by leveraging the RPR Market Trends charts and graphs. Use them to monitor statistics, data and info to help you track changes in neighborhood trends over time.

20. Pre-listing presentation: Prepare a presentation that sets you apart from your competitors by highlighting the home’s features, collecting comps to create a competitive market analysis, and reviewing the neighborhood and amenities.
21. Research a home: Conduct a simple address search in RPR to access the Property Details to uncover a trove of information, including the home’s public record history, listing history, photos, mortgage, taxes, schools and more. Plus, stay in the loop on hyper-local market statistics and trends.
22. Create a leave-behind report: Build a winning listing presentation that highlights key features and any comparables used, and also includes your contact information and a strong call to action.
23. Compare the Listing History of any Property: From any Property Details in RPR, search and compare Historical Listing Comparisons tool to research the home over time.

24. Build a neighborhood database: Invite the neighbors to your open house! This tactic will help you identify nearby neighbors, and create a CSV list or labels for a special preview invite list.
25. Marketing Prep: Use these tips (and RPR) to get your pre, during and post open house game up to par. Also a great time to learn how to create an RPR Open House Property Flyer.
26. Interested Buyer Takeaway: Read how one successful against uses open houses and RPR to provide various takeaways, such as the RPR Mini Property Report, to connect with interested buyers. And sometimes even sellers!
27. Answer unplanned questions: Don’t hold any open houses without your secret weapon: the RPR Mobile™ app. When guests start throwing questions at you about other homes in the area, you can pull out your phone and engage them with plenty of “listing intel.”

28. Equity Report: Following up with previous clients on a regular basis is a no-brainer. By providing past clients with valuable information and regularly checking in, agents can differentiate themselves and stay in touch to maintain positive relationships and stay top of mind for future business opportunities.

29. Buyer Search tools: When working with buyers, turn to RPR to quickly identify target properties. The search filters within RPR let you drill down and hone-in on properties that fit a buyer’s criteria.
30. Create customized property reports: RPR offers eight different types of property reports, each with its own focus. Customize a property report for potential buyers (and sellers) and be sure to include custom pages that can feature testimonials and/or your business philosophy.
31. Review FEMA Flood Zones: In certain areas of the country, flooding is a major concern. If your clients ask about a property being in a flood zone, you can easily find out by using the maps in RPR.
32. Review heatmaps: The maps in RPR are powerful tools that can provide deep insights into local market trends. You can also identify potential areas for investment, keep tabs on pricing trends and make data-driven decisions and client recommendations.
33. Investment Analysis: RPR has several data partners that can help you guide your clients in a solid direction, including Valuate^®. When you need to do financial analytical research on commercial properties, RPR’s Valuate^® is the perfect resource.
34. Making an offer–know the market: Use your knowledge of the local market and its performance to help you craft the perfect offer by researching the recent local market activity.
35. Making an offer–know the home: What can you gather from the home’s current history? Have there been price reductions? Has the home come on and off the market? Research the home and its history.
36. Create school reports: Homebuyers with school-age children often put schools at the top of their lists when it comes to where they want to live. RPR provides school district information, school grades and reviews, as well as school district side-by-side comparisons.
37. Travel Time or Distance searches: “How far away will my commute be?” Answer this common question in a jiff by utilizing the Travel Time and Distance searches in the RPR Maps.

38. Your commercial one-stop-shop: Search 846,000 active commercial listings and 57 Million+ off-market commercial properties and a large network of data partners.
39. Increase property profitability: From any property in RPR Commercial, open Valuate^® by REFM to gain a comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date valuation analysis.
40. Access to tenant data: Understand the tenant mix for millions of commercial properties nationwide. From any Commercial property, when available, this section includes the tenant name, contact person, phone number, suite number, move-in date, type of business and business start date.
41. Research a Trade Area: Guide and advise your commercial clients by learning where customers are, and gaining insight into their mindsets with RPR’s Trade Area analysis and consumer segmentation data.
42. Site Selection: Find the best locations with potential spending power that can support your clients’ business.
43. View Traffic Patterns: Retailers need an idea of how many people will drive by their business each day. The tool displays estimated current and historical data based on average daily traffic counts.
44. View Points Of Interest: The POIs in RPR’s Commercial Maps is a helpful tool for research. This method is a really easy and smart way to search the area around a property to learn about nearby businesses.
45. Search in Opportunity Zones: Take this guided tour in RPR to see how you can find Opportunity Zones. OZs were created to drive economic growth in economically disadvantaged communities by offering tax incentives to investors.

46. On-the-go access: With the RPR app in your hands, you’re a walking-talking database. Search on- and off-market properties, send reports in seconds and answer questions on the fly.
47. Add photo and text notes: The RPR app lets you add photos and notes about a property for your records. These notes and pics sync with the desktop version, and can also be added to your RPR reports.
48. Create reports in the wild: Out and about, on the go, in the field… Your job doesn’t end when you leave the office. Your RPR Mobile™ app keeps you in contact with your clients, and you can use it to create a variety of property reports that you can deliver via email or text.
49. Buyer Tour: A mobile app exclusive, the RPR Buyer Tour easily allows agents to select properties and determine an order to tour them. And afterward, you can provide your buyers with a colorful, client-friendly report that summarizes what they’ve seen.
50. Mobile CMA: You don’t need to be at your desktop computer to create a CMA! The RPR Mobile™ app gives you the ability to create a comparable market analysis to help your sellers set a listing price, or to help your buyers make a better offer.

There you have it! Fifty ways RPR can help you “wow” your clients and close more deals.

Did we miss any? Let us know how you’re using RPR! We would love to hear from you below.