Realtors: 5 must have gadgets

Everyone has their favorite techno gadgets. After years of field research, here is what I think every Realtor should have.

GPS
This goes out to all those who are map illiterate. No really, I mean it. Being a Realtor frequently requires you to find a home address, an office or a vacant piece of land. Do you know every street in your city? Every office building? I doubt it. Even if you're familiar with the terrain, a good GPS system will get you there faster.

A portable device is a better value than a permanent one mounted in your car. Why, because you can use it for more than just finding an address. You can take it camping, or biking or hiking. These are real safety items.

Most of the GPS systems on the market today not only help you find locations, but can help you get to locations faster by give you driving directions, and if linked into commuter systems can help you avoid traffic jams and road construction.

Laptop
There are finally enough entries in this market to make having a laptop a must. This versatile machine will be your best friend. It will become the most valued member of your Real Estate team. Everything from Intel based small portable laptops, to large monitor desktop replacements, to Apple iBooks. And lets not forget the biggest mover, the Tablet PC.

A Tablet PC has a lot of advantages, especially for Realtors. For one, you can use it in presentations because most have swivel monitors allowing more people to look at the screen, and two, it acts as a portable writing device. This is important because there is software that I will talk about in another article that allows you to have clients sign documents right on the Tablet, bypassing the need to print, sign and fax. Do it all from your Tablet. It's some of the most exciting technology to come along in quite some time.

Smart Cellphone
The reason I didn't include a PDA as a must have gadget is because I think the Smart Phone technology has matured enough that theres no need for a phone AND a PDA. Client list, email, appointments, notes and maybe some music, your set. You have a small mobile office that will serve you well. Take the time to evaluate several models. The leaders at the moment are the Palm based phones such as Treo, the Windows Mobile based phones and the BlackBerry based devices. I prefer the Windows Mobile devices because they are the most compatible with desktop and laptop PC's.

Thumbdrive Media
This very small but powerful device can come in handy especially if you don't take my advice and use a laptop. Even if you do have a laptop, it's important to have a mobile storage device with a connection that almost every computer in the world has, USB. Putting important documents on a USB drive does a couple of things; it allows yo take documents into environments where you can't use your own laptop, like the library, title company, clients office or a printer.

You can also use the USB device as a backup. Put all your sensitive documents in it and put it away for safe keeping. Blank CD's are good for storage too, but most of the time you can't reuse a CD.

Voice Recorder
Now, you wonder why in the world a voice recorder is a must have. Tell me this. How much time do you spend on the go, in the car, meeting with clients, open houses, closings, shopping? Most of your working time I imagine is spent somewhere other than the office. You want to minimize the amount of time you spend in the office. That's not where buyers and sellers are. Anyway, back to the voice recorder.

If you're like me, my mind is going a million miles an hour and thoughts, ideas, information pass by me all the time. I don't always have the luxury of stopping and writing things down, but you can always press record and start talking. Then, when you get back to the office or during your appointed review time you can transcribe your voice notes.

Being able to capture your thoughts, ideas, actions, or tasks gives you more time to focus on what you need to be doing and less time trying to remember everything. Try it, it's cheap and easy, especially if your Smart Phone has voice recording built in.

Agree or disagree? What do you think. Let me know.