It would be interesting to hear from real estate agents who are using Daylite. What custom fields, reports, forms do you use? Have you switched from Top Producer (or similar real estate specialty software)? Has the road been smooth?

I know several realtors that would like to switch from Windows to the Mac and want a know about others that have good experience using DayLite. I'll be watching your posts to see how things are working for you.

I am in the mortgage business and my wife is in the real estate business. I have been using DL since 1.6 and will be bringing my wife over to DL soon. She has been using AddressBook and several Excel spreadsheets on both the Mac and PC. It has been cumbersome.

We are looking forward to contributing.

I am currently using Entourage but plan to switch to Daylite in the next week or two. I just need to find a good chunk of time to convert my data. I'm looking forward to it. Once I'm done I'll come back and post my results.

I am a commercial real estate broker/owner specializing in shopping centers in Southern California. I recently switched everything over from PC to Mac. I started on the PC using ACT!. Very good program but terrible for email. I finally switched everything to Outlook about 10 months ago (had to deal with some data staying behind) but Outlook is just as good for contact management with way better email integration (obviously). When I switched to the Mac, I started with Entourage which is a very simplified version of Outlook and is not very user friendly (limited views & setup, etc.). My new IT guy suggested Daylite a couple of days ago and I moved everything over 2 days ago. This program is way better than anything I have used so far, although I am hopeful that some simple features will be integrated to make it a bit more user-customizable. I can do everything I need to do but I don't like having to add a step here or a step there to get to the information I need. Small price to pay though.

I am interested to hear your experiences with Daylite.

Chris -- Thanks for your post. What info did you track in Outlook when you used it as a contact manager? (What extra fields do you set up?)

I realize you just started using Daylite... what reports do you want to be able to use?

Do you work with other real estate folks using Macintosh... do you see them transitioning to Daylite?

I work for a Macintosh reseller and we're trying to get real estate agents to let go of their tree-hugging habits (they are afraid to leave their PCs) and give the Mac a try. One of the hurdles is a contact manager... many use Top Producer, a Windows-only web-based contact manager for real estate.

I've been using Daylite for about a year and a half for my real estate business. It's a fantastic product. I used to have a transaction cooridinator manage all of my closings but am saving money now that I've switched my closing process into Daylite. Of course if I do get a bit busier I'll need an assistant to help me manage multiple closings but they way I've set up Daylite, it should be a no-brainer. I've set up multiple Activity sets to manage each project: Escrow (Buyer), Escrow (Seller), Listings, For Sale By Owner. Each activity set has its lists of events, tasks, due dates, that helps me keep in track and in contact with all approrpriate persons. I'm excited about Boot
Camp and Parallels now too (need to get a new macbook!) because I used to have to switch to a pc to access all our mls functions.

David - In Outlook I used notes and user fields 1-4, referred by and categories. Not to complicated. I used the advanced find feature (mounted on the toolbar) to search the field of my choice. Spotlight and Global Find in Daylite are way better though because you don't need to specify where to look for the info. As for reports, I have not gotten to that point yet but I just saw a pretty cool example of some custom reports created by a Marketcircle partner. The reports I would be interested in would be similar in nature to what I was able to get from ACT!. Outlook was terrible at this.

Beau - I am hopeful to be able to accomplish what you are doing with Daylite, although an assistant is invaluable to me and will never be replaced by my computer. I am interested to know how you set up your transaction magnagement (open escrwo date, contingency release date, inspections, environmental, etc.). I have Parallels on my new MacBook Pro and it is great. I also have some industry-specific website accounts that don not render properly with Safari, Firefox or Opera. Other than the website rendering problem, I really don't see any reason to make my way over to Windows XP via Parallels. I am hopefull to be able to remove the program completely from my computer in a year or so. We will see....

I am a former IT Manager turned Realtor® and have been struggling to outfit myself with the right technology for a while now. The roadblocks to Nirvana are everywhere. Whether it is real estate web sites like the MLS or Toolkit CMA or WINFORMS requiring Windows and MS Java or Active X controls, or PDA software requiring particular models, OS's, carriers, contract changes, data packages, dialup networking etc., I just can't seem to have what I want. I have tried desperately since leaving IT to reside in the Apple OS X world. Unfortunately, there are two major problems. The first being the afore mentioned and very important Real Estate tools REQUIRING obsolete and defective Microsoft products. I can get around that with Parallels, but I'd have to mainatin knowledge bases in both camps, and frankly, I want to escape from Microsoft. The second issue is I REALLY want to use a Tablet PC. The fact that Apple has no Tablet, AND the tools of the Realtor trade reside in Microsoft Land only is a double whammy. In the end, I have to spend my time doing the things I get paid to do, not working out an elaborate plan to "make technology work" the way I want it to. I fought that battle too many times as an IT Manager. It sickens me to be painted into a corner like this. I just can't seem to avoid that old saw about how Windows is for Business and Mac is for Publishing. Failure to make Mac compatible versions of the software, and to use Internet Standards on Real Estate web sites, makes this difficult. What is everyone else experiencing in these areas? Has anyone found the Holy Grail of Real Estate Practice Management on a Mac yet? I'd settle for something close, as long as it didn't interefere with showing and listing property, writing contracts, and negotiating, which are my money making activities. By the way, there are a couple neat products for Act and Outlook that help automate marketing and action plans (Activator! for Act! and Active Agent for Outlook). I haven't seen anything like this in the OS X world. I haven't recently reviewed the Daylite product in a while. It sounds like many of you are encouraged by it. I will take a look again. Sorry about the rambling. I'm frustrated by the ball and chain on my ankle that says Microsoft on it, and the insistence of Real Estate products in using Microsoft only.

I bumped into the same ol' "you gotta have MicroSoft and ActiveX to do anything in real estate" syndrome. I have been a mac user since 1984 and am not really willing to make the change. So far, the only thing I found I really need Windows for is my local board's MLS. I'm not a real fan of Toolkit CMA, so I tend to not use it much - it's not real user friendly. Therefore, the MLS issue is easily solved by parallels, freeing me up to use DayLite, which I love.

DayLite, with its Palm Conduit and my new Treo 650 phone have helped to revolutionize our business. My wife and I are a team. The multiuser features of DayLite provide a place for all our information to reside, while seperately serving each of our needs. Of course, the day when we decide to take on an assistant, we will be able to easily integrate that person into our business.

Stephen -- Thanks for your post. What sort of real estate specific things are you doing with Daylite? How are you using the standard fields? Are you tracking any additional info other than the standard fields? How do you use Opportunities and Tasks and Projects? Have you created any special reports? Are you using it for both sellers and buyers? Looking forward to hearing more from you.

BTW, I've found that not all MLS websites require Windows. Some will work with plain ol' Safari.

I use Daylite for several purposes including Real Estate activities. This has limited some options - for example if I was Real Estate dedicated in my use of Daylite - I could use the optional fields in CONTACT mode more effectively. Notwithstanding this I used Daylite initially being focussed on contacts - using campaigns & opportunities & then Projects. In the end I found this too unweildy. Now I am Listing focussed - at least in terms of using Daylite. A listing is a Project & I do not use Opportunities at all. Its working much better for me. However I need to do more to filter/identify certain buyers - I would like to do this via Forms - but not sure how at this stage - but now Global Find will search Forms thats a big step forward.

And remember that you can use keywords too.

Gary -- On what factors (keywords, etc.) do you want to filter contacts? How do you wish to search for them?
Dave

Im a business broker (ie similar business / transaction model ), and have struggled to get Daylite to handle the "brokerage" aspect of dealing with a large number of transactions. Currently we use Opportunities to track our "sell side" clients, and a Project populated by an activity set for each potenial buyer.

The main issue we have is the disconnect between Projects and Opps - ie because there is no ability to link them we cannot 'drill down' on one client (Opportunity) and see each buyer (Project) linked to each.

We get around this via filtering / naming conventions in Projects, but it is still lacking.