The Chicago Association of REALTORS®, the “Voice for Real Estate” in Chicago since 1883, represents 17,000 members from all real estate specialties including commercial sales, development, property management, appraisal, auctions and residential sales.
Learn how we help our 17,000 members. Membership options are available for licensed real estate professionals and those affiliated with the real estate industry!
REALTORS® Real Estate School offers all kinds of real estate licensing and training. Browse self-paced, online training or live classes in our modern, downtown classrooms!
How can we help your business succeed? Your membership includes multiple resource guides on industry topics, tools to increase your knowledge and market statistics to help your serve your communities.
Create eye-catching animated videos with Ripl! Ripl is like a marketing team in your pocket and makes creating unique content easy. The app features easy to use templates to create videos and boost your social engagement. Showing a house? Whip up a video to tempt buyers! Ripl even tracks engagements for you so you can see how well each video is doing and make changes accordingly. With the Pro version, you can brand the videos with your logo and schedule posts. iPhone/Android
Slydial
In a hurry? Don’t want to bother someone? Ensure your communication is more efficient – just leave a message, with Slydial. Rather than connecting your call to a ring tone, Slydial transfers your call directly to voicemail so you can better manage your time. The app integrates with your contacts in your phone to make the call that much faster. It also has a new group messaging feature that allows you to leave one voicemail in multiple mail boxes at once. If you have a lot of follow-ups and know your response is the same for all of them, consolidate it into one call. iPhone/Android
Videolicious
Video sells – and Videolicious is a quick and easy tool to create high-quality real estate video to boost revenue and get eyes on your listings, showcase neighborhood tours and capture client testimonials. Traditional video editing software can be confusing and extremely time consuming. Videolicious is done right from your phone and makes adding clips, soundbites and photos quick and painless. You can even add your logo and music to up the professional feel of your video. iPhone/Android
Glympse
Running late to a showing? Stuck in traffic before your meeting? Keep your clients and colleagues updated on your location in real-time with Glympse! With Glympse you can share your location with selected contacts for a certain duration of time and even include notes. In a busy city like Chicago, it’s easy for travel plans to get disrupted. Share your location with your clients or colleagues to keep them updated on your location and exactly when you’ll be arriving. You set the duration of time so your location is private again after the meeting or showing. You can even set a destination so those tracking know exactly where you’re heading. iPhone/Android
MagicPlan
When showing a home, it can often be hard for buyers to imagine themselves inside. Maybe they’d love the living room if there was a wall separating it from the kitchen or they can’t decide if their favorite furniture would fit. MagicPlan allows you to create a floorplan of a home by snapping a few photos and then allows you to place objects, move and add walls and edit measurements. This is a handy way to make buyers feel more at-home in a space and picture their belongings inside. It’s also a great tool for sellers to showcase their homes and allow buyers to explore the floorplan rather than just photos. After your floor plan is complete, you can download it and save to refer back to later. iPhone/Android
Open Home Pro
Gone are the days of open house visitors filling out contact information by hand! Open Home Pro allows visitors to quickly fill in their information on a phone or tablet and then sends a professional follow-up containing your information. That means no attempting to decipher handwriting and having to remember to craft unique follow-ups. Plus, open house goers want a broker that’s up-to-date on current technology. Gain the confidence of your potential buyers and follow up with the simple download of an app. Open Home Pro also sends you a list of leads who don’t have a broker or home to sell so you can focus your time accordingly. iPhone/Android
Over
Personalizing photos just became a whole lot easier! Over allows you to add text and designs over an image in a variety of fonts, sizes, and colors. Highlight your latest listing features or congratulate your recently-closed clients in a well-designed, user-friendly way. Over is a great way to curate marketing material from the touch of a few buttons to make your social stand out. Best of all, the app is free! iPhone/Android
Hiya
Hiya identifies the calls you want to take and blocks the numbers and texts you want to avoid! The app uses its broad database of number information and allows you to better manage your calls. Being a REALTOR® often means spending a lot of time on your phone, whether screening calls, returning them or trying to hunt down a phone number. Hiya allows you to know when a potential client may be calling or if it’s a spam call. You can block calls, blacklist unwanted phone numbers and SMS text messages, reverse phone search incoming call information and receive spam alerts. Best of all, the app is free (and no ads!). iPhone/Android
Genius Scan
Don’t let papers pile up on your desk and get lost in the clutter! Genius Scan allows you to quickly take a photo of an image and turn it into a PDF. You can also merge multiple-page documents into a single PDF. Once you’ve scanned what you need, you can email it directly from the app or import it into Dropbox. REALTORS® are always on-the-go and being able to work from anywhere is necessary to stay on top of business. You’ll save time by having your documents all in one convenient location. It also means you can have clients sign contracts or paperwork from the comfort of their home! iPhone/Android
Expensify
The end of the month rolls around and you are scurrying to find your pile of receipts that you’ve been saving to manually enter into a system for expense reimbursement. It’s time to upgrade! Expensify is a simple and quick way to manage your expenses. All you have to do is snap a picture of your receipt within the app and it automatically files an expense report for you. As soon as reports are approved, you are reimbursed within 24 hours via direct deposit! Admins of the app can also flag certain items that will need approval and others that won’t – like a cup of coffee. Expensify also has travel features to consolidate your flights, hotel and vehicle travel into an expense report. It features an easy-to-use interface that allows different workflows to make managing the company’s expenses a breeze. iPhone/Android
Evernote
Organize your notes, files, lists, links and photos all in one place! Evernote is a must-have for going paperless. It’s is also accessible from all devices meaning you can access what you need from work, home or on the road. You can organize, tag and search your notes to quickly find what you are looking for. Evernote is a great way for teams to stay connected on a project through every step of the way. From brainstorms to editing drafts, Evernote is the easiest way to organize and stay on top of projects. Best of all, the premium version has business card scanning, so you can share your information wherever you are. iPhone/Android
Trello
Want to work more collaboratively, and get more done? Trello’s task management software keeps everything all in one place and keeps teams informed. The boards, lists and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your personal and team projects. You can update the status of leads and clients in the transaction process for your entire team to see. And, you can add comments, attachments and other details (like due dates) directly to Trello cards. Their organization system is one of the easiest ways to make sure all steps of a process get completed. Trello also syncs with apps you’re likely already using to create your own unique workflow platform. iPhone/Android
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We Apologize for the Inconvenience
Our phones are temporarily down. Please email membership@chicagorealtor.com for any immediate needs. We apologize for the inconvenience – thank you for your patience!
Precautionary Measures and Information Regarding COVID-19
Your health and safety is of the utmost importance to us. As COVID-19 is predominantly spread through close contact, out of an abundance of caution, all events through April 30 will be either canceled or postponed, except for Coffee with Your GADs, which will take place virtually. This includes our annual Sales Awards, which we are working to reschedule.
If you have registered for one of our upcoming events, look for an email with further details. All tickets for paid events will be automatically refunded. Please allow 3-5 business days to see the refund on your bank statement. Questions? Please reach out to our events team.
Precautionary Measures and Information Regarding COVID-19
As COVID-19 is predominantly spread through close contact, out of an abundance of caution, all in-person classes scheduled through April 30 will take place virtually.
RRES staff has reached out to those of you who have registered for an affected class with an option to transfer into an online option or reschedule for a later classroom date. CAR to You is available in the meantime to assist you with your education needs and we have a variety of classes being offered online and via webinar for your continued development.