Real Estate CRM Setup Checklist

Common picks for independent brokerages: Follow Up Boss (best-in-class lead routing), kvCORE / BoldTrail (CRM + IDX website bundle), Sierra Interactive, BoomTown, Chime, LionDesk, Wise Agent. Confirm the platform decision is final and that the contract / subscription is in place before any data work begins — switching mid-import is the most expensive mistake at this stage.

Designated REALTOR / Broker-in-Charge gets full admin. Team leaders get team-level admin. Transaction Coordinator gets back-office access without commission visibility. Confirm seat count matches the contract — overage fees are silent and add up.

Set who can see whose leads. Common pattern: agents see only their own pipeline; team leaders see the team; broker sees the brokerage. ISA roles need read/write on every lead but no commission visibility. Get this wrong and you'll spend a year unwinding cross-team lead visibility complaints.

Upload brokerage logo, set color palette, and configure agent email signatures with name, license number, designated REALTOR / brokerage name, and required state advertising disclosures. Most state license laws require the brokerage name and the agent's license number on outbound marketing email.

Pull CSVs from the prior CRM, Gmail / Outlook contacts, sphere spreadsheets, ShowingTime contacts, and any past Zillow / Realtor.com lead exports. Keep one master export per source with the source name in the filename — you'll need it to debug duplicate merges later.

Map source columns to target fields before import: First Name, Last Name, Phone (mobile vs. home), Email, Lead Source, Pipeline Stage, Agent Owner, Tags, Address, Property Type Interest, Price Range, Buyer/Seller/Both. Decide upfront how 'spouse' or 'partner' relationships are modeled — most CRMs handle this as a linked contact rather than a freetext field.

Run the import in batches by source (Zillow leads, sphere, past clients, sign calls, open house). Tag each batch on import — retroactively reconstructing 'where did this lead come from' is nearly impossible. Spot-check 20 random records after each batch.

Run the CRM's native dedupe by email, then by phone, then by name+address. Manually review every merge involving a past client — losing closing-date history or referral source is worse than carrying a duplicate.

Standard real-estate custom fields most CRMs don't ship with: pre-approval status (none / pre-qual / pre-approved / conditional commitment / clear-to-close), lender name, target neighborhoods, lease expiration date (for renters), home anniversary date, last touch date, referral source person.

Typical buyer stages: New → Attempted Contact → Working → Appointment Set → Met / Signed Buyer Rep → Actively Showing → Offer Submitted → Under Contract → Closed → Past Client. Seller stages parallel but with Listing Appointment Set / Signed Listing / Active / Under Contract. Buyer Rep Agreement is now required in most states post-NAR settlement — make sure it's a gating stage, not optional.

First text within 5 minutes, first call within 10. After that: email at hour 1, text at hour 4, call at day 1, email at day 2, text at day 4, call at day 7. Most leads that ever convert respond in the first 48 hours; the drip exists to catch the long tail without manual work. Scrub all template copy for fair-housing trip words ('perfect for families', 'safe neighborhood', 'walking distance to church').

Decide routing by source, geography, price band, or weighted round-robin. Build in reassignment rules for no-response (e.g., if no contact attempted in 15 minutes, reassign to next agent). Confirm after-hours routing — Zillow leads at 11pm shouldn't sit until 9am.

Different lead sources need different drips. Zillow / Realtor.com paid leads get a high-intent script. Sphere and past-client referrals get a warm personal-touch sequence from the agent's own email. Open-house registrants get a property-specific follow-up. Pick whether this brokerage runs one drip per source.

Create separate drip variants for Zillow Premier Agent, Realtor.com Connections, Facebook lead-form, IDX website registration, and sphere referral. Each gets a different opener — Zillow leads usually expect a fast call back; sphere referrals expect the agent's personal voice. Variant the cadence too.

For leads not ready to transact: monthly market-update email tied to their target neighborhood, quarterly home-value report. For past clients: home anniversary touch, property-tax-assessment reminder in season, annual home-value report. This is where 80% of repeat and referral business comes from.

Confirm every IDX registration form, home-valuation form, and saved-search alert pushes into the CRM with the right source tag. Test by submitting a form with a known burner email and watching the lead land — most missed leads are a broken webhook, not a slow agent.

Zillow Premier Agent and Realtor.com Connections push leads natively into Follow Up Boss, kvCORE, Sierra, BoomTown. Authorize the connection from each portal's settings; confirm leads arrive tagged with the portal name and the listing they inquired on.

Showing activity is a high-signal data point — a buyer who's seen 12 houses is closer than a buyer who's seen 1. If the CRM supports ShowingTime / BrokerBay / CSS integration, enable it. Otherwise have the TC log showings manually for active buyers.

Link Dotloop, SkySlope, Brokermint, or zipForm so that 'Under Contract' status in the transaction system flows back to the CRM pipeline stage. Avoids the classic problem where the CRM still thinks a client is 'Working' three weeks into a contract.

Each agent connects their Google or Microsoft 365 account so outbound and inbound email logs against the contact automatically. Calendar sync pulls showings and listing appointments into the CRM activity timeline. Brokerage policy: agents use brokerage-domain email, not personal Gmail — agents who use personal accounts can walk away with the lead history.

Two 60-minute live sessions: pipeline hygiene + mobile app. Most agents work from their phone — if they can't accept a Zillow lead, log a showing, and send a templated text from the mobile app in 30 seconds, adoption fails. Record sessions and post in the team Slack / Teams channel.

One-page quick reference: how to claim a new lead, the speed-to-lead expectation, when to move a stage, how to pause a drip, how to log a showing. Pin in the team channel and include in new-agent onboarding.

Designated REALTOR or compliance lead reads every email and text template before go-live. Watch for 'great for families', 'safe area', 'walking distance to [church / school]', any protected-class reference. Discriminatory advertising is the most common Fair Housing Act complaint against brokerages — and templates scale the mistake to every lead.

Edit the flagged copy, document the specific change made, and route back to the Designated REALTOR. Keep a change log in the file — useful evidence if a Fair Housing complaint ever surfaces.

Final go-live sign-off from the Broker / Owner. Establish ongoing cadence: weekly pipeline review with team leaders, monthly admin office hours for agent questions, quarterly audit of unworked leads. Capture the support owner — the person an agent texts at 9pm when a Zillow lead isn't routing.