The Global Leader in Web-Based Real Estate Software

Masterkey has released it's next version - 4.3 to a Closed BETA. See below for a screenshot of the new interface.

New features include: Speed improvements, Contacts without leads, Cross browser functionality, Arabic support and more.

Contact the Support Team if you'd like to participate in the closed Beta. 

Masterkey, the UAE’s leading provider of web-based real estate software, formally unveiled Masterkey Connections today which will allow real estate professionals to form reciprocal partnerships with other Masterkey users worldwide to share each other’s listings and expand their operations.

In building a reciprocal community of agents, Gulf-based real estate professionals will gain access to an exponential number of potential lead sources across the worldwide Masterkey community.

Masterkey CEO Avinash Advani stated, “Collaboration is a key strategy in generating more business, and the Masterkey Connections feature provides real estate professionals with the ability to do just that – cultivate a community and generate more business.”

Masterkey Connections allows customers who are part of the Masterkey ecosystem, to connect with each other and seamlessly share listings. Clients can simply choose who they want to connect to; if that person or company is a Masterkey customer as well, they then opt to accept the connection. At that point, each party manually selects which units they want to share with each specific partner. Upon selection, each party is able to view each other’s shared listings, providing instant access to a larger amount of properties they can offer to their clients.

Masterkey believes this feature provides a timely opportunity for professionals to thrive in the region’s slumping real estate sector.

Avinash Advani, Masterkey CEO highlighted this by saying, “While there are a finite number of leads that can be distributed to an agent from within an individual company, agents can broaden their lead base by simply looking outside their company and connecting with other agents at home and abroad.”

Masterkey firmly believes that Masterkey Connections is the next generation platform for conducting real estate business worldwide and sees today’s announcement as a significant achievement in the company’s commitment to continually develop innovative ideas, products and services to better serve the global real estate industry.

To learn more about Masterkey Connections check out our March Newsletter: Masterkey's March Newsletter

How real estate professionals conduct business and operate has drastically changed in recent years. Technology has paved the way for next generation web solutions, MIS platforms and complete process automation. The real winners have not only accepted this progress, but they learned and now utilize these techniques. This willingness to morph and grow with technology provides a true advantage over the competition.

Like we said, real estate brokers and agents today have a wealth of new information and technology available to them, but only the truly dedicated will be extremely successful. It’s simply not enough to make phone calls and post flyers about properties. Instead, one must implement the best practices that have been laid out in front of them to expand limitations and redefine business paradigms. When that is the case, the only real limiting factor to success is the number of leads one is able to secure.

This leads us to our next point…while there are a finite number of leads that can be distributed to an agent from within an individual company; Agents can broaden their lead base by simply looking outside their company and connecting with other agents.

That sounds simple, right? In short - Yes, but in reality there’s much more to it.

There are challenges and considerations that have to be made. There must be structure, rules, and infrastructure in place to facilitate such an open exchange of sensitive and exclusive information in a way that is acceptable to all.

Introducing the Masterkey Connections functionality:

The concept (as we said) is simple, Masterkey’s Connections will allow Masterkey clients to form reciprocal partnerships with other Masterkey users to expand their operations and share each other’s listings.

Collaboration is a key strategy in generating more business, and the Masterkey Connections feature provides real estate professionals with the ability to do just that – cultivate a community and generate more business.

From a business process perspective things couldn't be easier. Agents can simply choose which listings to share on their select invitation-based networks. Subsequently, all other members of the network will be able to view and access those listings. Being able to view external listings, these members get instant access to a larger amount of properties they can offer to their clients. Similarly the members responsible for listing those units will instantly tap into a client base which was unknown to them before. All of this translates into being able to generate more revenue through direct collaboration between one another. In other words, a reciprocal community of agents working together to drive business success is created.

We’ve put together a couple of quick video to walk you through the process of sharing listings and give you some more insight to exactly how it works in the “New Features” section of the newsletter. Take a moment to see what the new feature is all about. And as always, if you have any questions, contact us directly and we’ll get you sorted out right away.

Click here to watch videos and find out more.

Masterkey, the region's leading provider of web-based real estate software has inked a deal with emerging real estate portal http://www.beeyoot.com, giving brokers a unique opportunity to promote property side-by-side with owner-investors of UAE real estate.

"This partnership is instrumental to improving our liquidity and strengthening our plans to welcome brokers this quarter," says Beeyoot.com CEO Hashim Ahmed.

"We understand the advantages of working respectfully in the same real estate market with local brokers. By joining our portal, brokers can grow their real estate revenue online and enhance their brand by connecting with our high value visitors."

With thousands of properties available in the market, buyers and renters, by necessity, are more discerning in today's market. The partnership between Beeyoot and Masterkey allows brokers to populate and update their properties directly to the online portal via Masterkey. As a result, hours of time and overhead is avoided, and brokers ensure they are displaying the most up-to-date and accurate information about their properties - all with the click of a button.

Masterkey sees this partnership as integral addition to their Portal Partner Program, and represents an important step in the company's evolution toward a market-driving platform solutions company. For more information on Masterkey and its Portal Partner Program, visit the Masterkey website at http://www.gomasterkey.com.

What makes a good property portal? How do you differentiate between a portal that will ultimately generate an abundance of worthwhile leads and one that will waste both time and money? Here’s a list we’ve compiled of the top 7 things to look for in a property portal:

1. Cost per lead

While the number of leads generated is an important measure, your cost-per-lead is one of the most important measures of how well a property portal is doing for you. Simple in concept and difficult in practice, you’ll need to have well organized data and a tracking mechanism that shows you the number of leads generated.

What you need: The number of leads generated by the specified portal (see #2 below) and how much you’ve spent on advertising with that portal. Simply divide the two, and there you have it.

How hard is it to measure?  Very hard. To ensure every lead is tracked is a difficult but surmountable problem, and ensuring you know the total expenditure should be relatively easy. The results though, will definitely help you on your quest to stretch every marketing dollar spent.

Not relevant if: you’re conducting a branding exercise, lead quality is poor or the portal is free (infinite rate of return!).

2. Number of leads generated
While a precursor to #1, the number of leads generated only looks at what’s incoming, not what’s outgoing. You can achieve a high number of leads by paying top dollar, but is it worth the money? Regardless, it’s still an important factor, given it was voted the most measured factor by the subscribers of Property Portal Watch.

What you need: A tracking mechanism that covers all contact methods (phone, email, walk-in) and a CRM database to manage the leads.

How hard is it to measure?  Reasonably hard. Some portals track this for you, some do not. Go through your process and ensure that at every point of contact you have an accurate means of measurement.

Not relevant if: you have more business than you can handle.

3. Number of unique visitors
This is one of the most contested statistics between portals. It’s commonly thought of as simple math. More visitors equal more leads… right? Normally, yes. But with property portals you want to ensure people are inquiring about the property, not just browsing past them and taking no action. The portal needs to encourage visitors to find out more, look through the photos and to hit submit. While this can be a good statistic to compare portals on the surface, if the numbers are roughly the same, dig a bit deeper.

What you need: Most portals will give this information without you asking.

How hard is it to measure?  Easy. Just ask if they don’t give it to you off the bat.

Not relevant if: You have a niche product (such as a high end developer targeting a small group of people), or if you’re helping a portal get started.

4. SEO Ranking
To determine a portal’s SEO ranking, type in the keywords that you want to be listed under and count how far down the portal appears. Better yet, try typing in the keywords that your customers will enter. SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is a tough, highly competitive market in real estate. Not only do portals fight for obvious keywords such as ‘Dubai Real Estate,’ they also have to fight for communities within the market. Remember that there are two types of rankings when it comes to search engines – natural search and paid advertising. If a portal tops the paid ads section, they may not be there for long. Natural search almost always enjoys a long term result.

What you need: SEO ranking tools. Surprisingly, you can Google (or Bing) such tools. An example would be: Google Rankings.

How hard is it to measure?  Easy. Search your favorite term and evaluate.

Not relevant if: Your website is higher than the portal’s, or online advertising is not interesting to you and you don’t want to be found.

5. Up-to-date and content-rich listings?
Many brokers and agents overlook the importance of having fresh and detailed listings. Customers want real and relevant data on properties BEFORE they enquire. Out-of-date listings and barren, lacklustre listings fall through the cracks.

Your listings should come alive with rich content listings such as interior and exterior images, maps, 360 views and more. The more information available on a property, the more likely visitors are to send an enquiry. This also helps to ensure you are receiving your most qualified leads because users are getting a genuine glimpse of the actually property and registering their interest.

Failing to keep updated listings and ensuring customers have the most up-to-date information is another barrier to success for portals. The real challenge with portals is not really getting listings on the website, but knowing when to take them down. With old, irrelevant and outdated listings a portal can often build traffic temporarily only to lose it again.

What you need: Ask the portal for the number of return visitors. This is a measure for who comes back to the portal more than once and will help determine visitors are leaving in search of other websites. You can also randomly check listings to see if they still exist.

How hard is it to measure?  Easy, but tedious. The hardest but most effective way is to spend time calling a random selection of listings to verify accuracy and status.

Not relevant if: The portal lists properties only from Masterkey (which guarantees accuracy), or has a guaranteed method to remove old listings.

6. Ease of listing a property
It’s important not to overlook the time it takes to list a property on each portal. Sure, you can try listing the property on each portal one by one but you’re going to be there a long time, and that’s a lot of overhead. It’s better and easier to find portals that allow you to upload directly from your property database. This may sound like shameless plug for Masterkey’s portal partners, but the reality is that the ability to list directly using an upload tool, or via XML in some way, will save you a lot of time.

What you need: Tech-savvy people to figure out the integration.

How hard is it to do?  Easy. All you need is a team of experts who make it easy for you, or use Masterkey. We will integrate with any portal that our clients demand.

Not relevant if: You like spending a lot of time in front of the computer and not with your clients.

7. Ease of searching for a listing
How quickly can you find your listing on the portal website? Can you go straight to the listing with a property reference code? Does the portal allow you to use your own reference code? Can you search for the building name and the name auto-completes for you? If this is going to be your main advertising channel, you must ensure it’s accessible.

What you need: A stop watch, mouse and computer.

How hard is it to measure?  Easy.

Not relevant if: You want your customers to spend hours looking for your property. Never underestimate the value of providing a user-friendly and manageable way for your customers to find what they’re looking for.

Lastly, we invite you find out more about the Masterkey Portal Partner Advantage here.

2009 has come and gone, and it was an interesting 12 months to say the least.  Looking back on a year most of us would just as soon forget, there are some valuable lessons that we can take with us into 2010.  While we may still be riding this economic roller coaster, the general consensus is that the forecast looks good.  It’s a new year and with it comes a new start.  It’s time to start thinking about our New Year’s Resolutions.

No doubt at some point in your life you’ve committed to ‘get fit’.  Physically, you feel better, look better, and have more energy to do the things you enjoy.  But what about your Real Estate business?  Here are a few other resolutions to help your business get fit in the New Year. 

Get Organized
At home or at work, when the things around you are in order, you tend to be more productive.  When it comes to Real Estate activities, this idea is even more relevant.  Whether it’s your property listings, client details, leads or payment plans, keeping track of your information is as vital as the information itself.  Let’s face it:  In the Real Estate world, your data is your business.  When you can’t find what you’re looking for or if your data is located in too many different places, deals can slip through the cracks.  In today’s environment, you can’t afford to lose any business.  In 2010, why not commit to keeping your most valuable asset—your data—in one location, safe and sound?  Let Masterkey help you get organized with a secure, centralized and online database of all of your vital information.

Save Money
With competition increasing and profit margins decreasing, it has never been more important to minimize expenses and maximize your return on investment. Companies around the world are looking at ways to cut costs, increase the bottom line and operate at maximum efficiency. Given the global climate and the dynamic Real Estate industry, this has never been more important. In 2010, plan on spending less money on your marketing efforts, yet maximizing your exposure to your audience. Through Masterkey’s direct e-mail campaigns, broad reaching network of listing portals and creative e-marketing solutions, your business will enjoy maximum reach by the most efficient and cost-effective means.

Do More Business
Once your information is neatly organized and your marketing efforts maximized, it’s time to start closing deals. Real Estate is about relationships, not paperwork. It’s about meeting people, not sitting in the office doing administrative tasks. The more time you’re able to spend with your potential clients, the more opportunities you have to do more business. Make 2010 the year you resolve to maximize your income. Get more leads, close more deals. Execute transactions and generate contracts in minutes, not hours or days. Whether you’re selling, leasing, or managing properties, Masterkey will make you more efficient. It’s a new year—a fresh start. It’s time to make the most of it. Give yourself the tools you need to be successful in 2010.

Google is at it again. They continue to shape the environment and circumstances that dictate how we as businesses exist on the web. It is essential as real estate professionals to stay informed about the advancements in technology as they pertain to your customers shopping and selection experience. We all know that the web has supplanted the more traditional forms of search and selection when it comes to consumers finding what they want. What's more important than acknowledging this, is involving yourself with the new methods and game-changers as they occur.

Knowledge breeds preparation breeds action.

On that note, take a look at this article on how Google is changing how people use the web.

Google Gets Real-Time, Personalized Search

If you have any thoughts on the article, we'd love to hear them. Just post a reply to this thread.

Best Regards,


The Masterkey Team 

Communication through Google and social media has significantly influenced how people make decisions and find information. Today, interactive information sharing on the World Wide Web, better known as Web 2.0, has changed the way users communicate around the world. According to Mashable, the world's largest blog dedicated exclusively to Web 2.0 and Social Media news, business professionals who aren't actively involved in social media will be left behind, and catching up won't be easy. We're here to give you some valuable tips and ideas to get you started in social media.  

Become a Butterfly on Social-Networking Sites:

Social-networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin rank in the top four most visited websites. According to Mashable, more than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos) are shared on social-networking sites daily. Individuals who get involved are taking over their businesses and building incredible audiences around the world. In one instance, Starbucks updated their status on Twitter about a promotion for free coffee all day. The effect was tremendous, making it the #1 Rank on Google for that day. A separate initiative by Dell offering expensive-to-sell refurbished computers on Facebook generated approximately $2 million in revenue. Pretty serious.

Get Started: Set up Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn company accounts and plan a social media strategy. There are a number of webinars and whitepapers out there to help you facilitate your strategy, just Google it. Your best bet is to get out there and start meeting people like it's your business. Don't alienate your audience though, avoid one way- targeted marketing and focus on building a strong brand presence through interaction. Become part of the community and strive to learn, share and meet. In the end, it really is like going to a social gathering, the more friends and connections you make, the more popular you'll be at the party. So, get out there and meet some people.

Be Viral and Be Interesting:

Viral marketing can be an extremely effective marketing tool, but it's not easy. Being Viral is all about communicating interesting and creative content to your audience via newsletters, emails, text messages, etc. The key to successful Viral marketing is creating content that your audience finds so rewarding that they want to share it with others. Think about a really funny email that you receive in your inbox and immediately forward on to a friend because it was just that good. That is the essence of being Viral. Viral marketing isn't for everything though, and is best used as a technique to increase brand awareness. By nature your content should not usually generate a specific commercial action from your audience other than for them to spread it around. Viral marketing relies heavily on word-of-mouth delivery via the network effects of the Internet, you must keep that in mind.

Get Started: Create a monthly newsletter that provides value and/or entertainment to your target audience. Publish interesting stories that directly affect or relate to your audience and industry to a blog or your social media accounts. Create a company Wikipedia page that dishes the details about your organization and your members. If you think your concept is good enough, you can even take a stab at a publishing content onto YouTube. Whatever you do remember that with Viral, content is king. If what you're posting is interesting and relevant to your intended audience, it can spread like a wild fire.

Blog with the Best of Them:

If you don't know what a blog is by now, there may be no hope for you. But just in case, a blog is basically a website where individuals post commentary, opinions and/or news on a number of subjects. Blogs serve as a digital soapbox for anyone, and in today's world literally everyone, to express themselves. Blogs come together to create a vast social network called the Blogosphere. The Blogosphere consists of all blogs and their interconnections. Strong blog involvement in the Blogosphere essentially creates a large discussion group for like-minded people to meet, receive feedback on ideas, share business ideas and bring out the personality of their company. C-suite business executives, celebrities, authors and every day people are gaining popularity around the world for sharing their opinions online. Drop by your favorite company or celebrity's website and you are almost guaranteed to find a blog.

Get Started: This one is simple. Start a company blog and start publishing. Find a niche topic for your business, write about yourself, what you think, what you believe. Start sourcing other interesting articles and publishing them on your blog. Promote yourself by promoting others. Seek out the blogs of your peers and respected professionals and listen. Well don't just listen, talk back as well. Create a web of dialogue surrounding what you find interesting and helpful and others will engage. Think of it like going to the gym, if you just take the steps to get started, it's all downhill from there. Pretty soon, you'll even start enjoying yourself.

These are just a few tips to help you get the ball rolling. The truth is that the world's biggest and most powerful businesses are involved in social media and benefit greatly from it. With so many involved businesses, catching up won't be easy, but if you communicate in the right way and reward your audience with great material, you're heading in the right direction.

Stay tuned to the Masterkey Blog for updates with marketing tips, real estate industry news and loads of other interesting stuff coming soon.

Masterkey, the leading provider of web-based real estate software in the UAE has partnered with regional property portal, www.justrentalsdubai.com. This partnership gives clients the opportunity to take advantage of the current market conditions by listing rental properties with Just Rentals Dubai directly via Masterkey.

This partnership comes at a critical time for the UAE market, given the recent shift from a purchase focused environment to a market now dominated by rental transactions. “While Dubai has seen a sharp decline in purchase transactions over the last ten months, rental transactions continue to climb. As real estate professionals, we can’t ignore that,” says Daniel Hart, Masterkey’s Director of Business Development. 

The Masterkey integration with Just Rentals Dubai gives users the ability to reach their most qualified audience through cost effective and targeted advertising. Just Rentals Dubai is the Emirate’s only web portal dedicated solely to property rentals, offering a complete and extensive range of up- to-date rental properties including apartments, villas and offices across Dubai. As a result, companies will not only increase exposure and receive more qualified leads, but they will be able to benefit from the current market trends at a much lower cost as compared to traditional advertising mediums.

Masterkey sees this partnership as a key component of their Portal Partner Program, which launched in January of this year. Masterkey is constantly working to expand its network of portal partners with which clients can integrate directly through Masterkey. For more information on Masterkey and its Portal Partner Program, visit the Masterkey website at www.gomasterkey.com.

About Just Rentals Dubai
Just Rentals Dubai offers a one-stop rentals portal for all prospective tenants looking to rent in Dubai. It offers a complete and extensive range of up-to-date properties to rent including apartments, villas and offices across Dubai from leading real estate agents. For more information on Just Rentals Dubai, visit their website at www.justrentalsdubai.com.