Octagon Business Solutions, the software development company, recently released its management system for the property marketing industry.
Greg Brill, Managing Director of Octagon, says: "By combining our existing brand, E-Properties, already in use by over 750 companies in SA, with a completely new product The Estate Agent Management System (TEAMS), we can now offer the industry a comprehensive and complete system that enables them to control all aspects of their business relationships with their clients.
"The system allows the agent to record information not only on their clients but also on all the properties involved in their area in complete detail. In addition, they can record both their own marketing endeavours and the efforts of their competitors. Marketing trends become reliably and instantly available and no longer depend on frequently misleading data that is, at best, months old."
The system is based on and caters for all the various marketing concepts used by South African estate agencies, from the smallest standalone operator to the largest groups, franchisees and multi-listing participants.
A test system has been in operation, in a limited market sector, for the past year and has proved to be highly successful in providing the truly professional agent with all the tools needed to control and understand their local market area. The system provides them with an invaluable tool to demonstrate their market knowledge to both sellers and buyers, which in turn enables them to present a truly professional image to their clients. At last, within their own office, agents can produce reliable and correct data for producing credible comparative market analysis reports.
The database is constructed to cater for the recently implemented Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), providing agents with the necessary protection from the horrendous penalties the Act can impose.
"Few agents know that not having the required data available for five years from the date of a sale of a property can lead to potentially financially crippling fines and even imprisonment," says Brill. All the data required by the Act can be recovered in minutes, should any client be under investigation by the centre.
The system also caters for 17 different report types, which are available within seconds at the press of a button, allowing management to perform SWOT analysis on their own and opposition businesses.
All in all, the E-Properties product with its suite of services will provide the professional property agent with the marketing information required to perform their jobs as efficiently as possible, and the increases in productivity and professionalism will undoubtedly turn into increased sales.
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