Software Program : B.O.S.S. Has Lots of Help for Agent
What ambitious young broker wouldn’t leap at the chance to better manage his work day, increase his commissions and start acting and feeling like his own boss?
That’s precisely what 22-year-old Edward Lorin, already a top producing agent with the Jon Douglas commercial brokerage division, was hoping for when he asked softball teammates David Faye and Grant Rosove, computer consultants and programmers, to help him design a software program that would completely automate his daily brokerage activity.
With input on Lorin’s brokerage needs and his friends’ computer expertise, the three started the EDGe (Ed, David and Grant) Development partnership last March, and have spent several months refining Lorin’s program concept. The result is an innovative software program titled B.O.S.S., which stands for Broker Organization Support System. It is being marketed by David Grant Inc., in Encino.
Not So Many Papers
Several of Lorin’s colleagues have begun to use his system, among them Dirk Huybrechts, a commercial broker for the Douglas firm.
“The program is great,” Huybrechts said. “One of the more frustrating things about our business is in dealing with bits and pieces of information. The B.O.S.S. organizes all of this, and I like having a daily to-do list printout to go by. Now I don’t have to juggle so many property-related papers any more.”
In his highly competitive field, it is important to have these competitive edges, according to Blake Mirkin, another aggressive young real estate agent. “It’s a great time- management tool for organizing my client list, for following up leads and inputting far-off date tracers,” he said.
Lorin’s software program is geared to a real estate agent’s tasks, while most existing programs in real estate offices are written primarily to track productivity and office accounting. “The B.O.S.S. program functions are personalized to the individual agent’s business and personal activity,” said Lorin, a 1987 UCLA graduate.
Other B.O.S.S. features include an unlimited people file, with automatic follow-up, a listings activity file, a daily, weekly and monthly calendar.
The multi-function software package has a built-in word processor, mail merger, mailing labels, mailing lists and, most importantly, a to-do list and a personal and financial goal section.
“The word processing system is simple and designed for IBM PC/XT/AT or compatibles, accommodates business form letters and general business communication and has the ability to print mass mailings, labels, lists and reports generated from a desk-top printer,” Faye said.
The basic package includes an IBM PC/XT compatible computer with modem and hard disk, and the “advanced” package version provides the same with an IBM PC/AT compatible computer.
With additional software, the broker can have easy access to multiple listing services, an on-line data base of property listings, as well as other real estate data, such as tax assessor information on property owners, zoning, title companies and even access to home shopping clubs.
