Field Guide: Real Estate Agents

Helping people buy and sell homes can quickly become a tangled mess of email threads. Basecamp keeps everything organized in one place and everyone on the same page.

This guide walks through one way real estate agents use Basecamp with their clients.

Jump to:

• Getting started with your projects
• Working with clients
• Managing your work
• Schedules and showings
• Files and client resources
• Staying on top of everything

Getting started with your projects

Everything in Basecamp is organized into projects.

As a real estate agent, you’ll likely create a project for each buyer or seller, along with a private project for your own work.

In our example, we've organized our projects in two folders — one for your selling clients and another for those buying. You could also create another for personal projects, but since we only have one here, a folder isn’t necessary.

You'll likely use the same kind of projects for your buyers and sellers, so creating project templates for each type of client will save you loads of time.

Let's take a look at the tools used in the "Buyers" project template:

If you're curious, here's how it looks when a new project is created from the Buyers template:

Working with clients

Once your project is set up, you can invite clients and start working together.

You’ll most likely add your clients as Clients in Basecamp. This user type has the most limited permissions, so you can choose exactly what they can see.

When adding clients, you’ll be asked to create (or add them to) a Client company. Since real estate agents typically work with individuals, you can use something like “Buyer” or “Seller” as the company name.

Here’s how the project’s Team tab on the People page from our example looks:

How the Client tab looks:

And, how all users appear on "Manage people" page in Adminland:

When you invite clients, they won’t have full access to the project right away.

They’ll start receiving email notifications from their project(s) and can reply directly — those replies will appear in Basecamp as comments on the original item.

If they prefer, clients can work entirely from email. But to view documents or files shared in a project, they’ll need to set up their account.

To do that, they’ll accept the invitation sent to their email. Once they’ve completed that setup, they can log in and access the project, where they’ll only see the items you’ve made visible to them.

Here's a comparison of what a Client sees versus what a non-client will see:

With any collaboration, effective communication is key. Basecamp offers a few ways to ensure everyone is on the same page.

The Message Board tool is where you’ll want to post any important information you’d like your clients to reference later.

For example, here's a Message Board with three posts — one sharing how to use Basecamp, one that introduces the agent, and one that sets expectations when buying a home:

Wondering what that number 1 you're seeing next to the Introduction email is? That's the total number of comments left on that message. This number won't change once you read the comment as we want everyone to know how much chatter is happening in a specific post at a glance.

For quick conversations you want everyone in the project to see, use the Chat tool. Below is an example of the agent and clients chatting:

The example also shows Boosts and @mentions — Boosts can be used anywhere you see a "rocket ship" icon, while @mentions can be used anywhere there's a text editor.

You can also chat privately using Pings.

Managing your work

Basecamp has two tools to help you manage your work — To-do lists and Card Tables.

The To-dos tool is where you and your clients can add, assign, and complete (or track) binary tasks. Here's an example of how you could use To-do lists in a buying project:

For work that moves through stages or phases, like getting approved for a loan, you'll use the Card Table.

Schedules and showings

The Calendar tool pulls in all dated To-dos and Cards in the project, and you’ll also have the option to add events here. The buyer project is set up with two Calendars — one for due dates and another for scheduled tours.

Files and client resources

Any documents and files relevant to your project can be found in the Docs & Files tool.

Most of the documents shown above can be seen by the clients, but the Notes from buyers document remains private to the team as these are for the real estate agent's eyes only. 👀

You'll likely run into situations where you and your clients need to log into another app or outside service — add these as External links so everyone can access them in a click. The buying project example has External links to the MLS  and mortgage lender client portals:

Any emails related to the buying process, like ones sent from the mortgage lender, can also be stored in a project. You'd just forward your emails right into the project's Email forwards tool and anyone with access to the forwarded emails can reply directly from Basecamp:

Or just leave a comment for other folks on the project:

Staying on top of everything

Once everything is set up, Basecamp helps you stay on top of what’s happening without needing to check every project.

At the bottom of your screen, the "My Bar" gives you quick access to what’s relevant to you — your tasks, upcoming events, bookmarks, and notes. On the right, you’ll see what’s “New for you”, along with your Pings.

In addition to the notifications you've set, you'll receive an email with the latest activity every morning, and an email with your upcoming assignments every week. If you don't need those email notifications, you can always turn those off.

For recurring questions like “Are there any properties you’re interested in touring?” or “Do you have any questions for me?”, use Automatic Check-ins to collect updates from clients in one place.

That's a wrap for now! We hope this guide helps you close on properties quickly and smoothly. And if you need any assistance with Basecamp, you can always check out our learning center, help pages, sign up for a class, or send us a note at Support. Happy Basecamping!