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Picture a buyer who calls about a three-bedroom house with a garden, budget capped. The agent writes the request down in a spreadsheet. The next day, the agency signs a listing agreement on a property that matches, and nobody connects the two. That missed match is exactly what a real estate CRM should make impossible. The question is which one: off-the-shelf real estate software built for the trade, or an open CRM you shape around your own business.
This guide is for real estate agencies and networks, teams of 20 to 500 people. It applies our framework for choosing between Twenty, Dolibarr and Odoo to one specific trade. For the objects you will need to create, see how to manage listings and mandates in a CRM.
A word on where we stand: the CRM we have run in production since early 2025 is Twenty, and we contribute to the project; it is also the CRM behind Palmora Property, a property listings portal in Thailand that we operate. We have not deployed any off-the-shelf real estate software: we describe what these tools generally cover without naming any of them, and the checklist below works for judging them too.
In short
Off-the-shelf real estate software is enough when your process is the industry standard and listing portals are your main channel.
An open CRM like Twenty is the better fit when you run your own website, in several languages, with objects of your own, or when your data has to stay with you.
Either way, check six requirements before you sign: the property, the buyer’s search, the website, the forms, data retention and data export.
Real estate software or open CRM: what is the difference?
Both store contacts and track deals. What separates them is who decides the shape of your data: the software vendor, or you.
Off-the-shelf real estate software
The trade is already modelled: properties, mandates, buyers, viewings
Syndication to listing portals is often included
A subscription paid to the vendor for as long as you use it
The process is the one the vendor designed
An open CRM like Twenty
You create your own objects and fields at no extra cost
Your website and tools connect through the API
No per-user licence on your own server
Integrations have to be built, then kept running
Industry software spares you the data modelling. An open CRM leaves it to you, and that is the whole point when your business does not look like the vendor’s model.
What should a real estate CRM handle?
Whatever the tool, six points separate a CRM that serves the agency from one the team works around with a spreadsheet.
The property is an object, not an opportunity
A property has an address, a floor area, a price, photos and a status, and it outlives any single deal: several buyers view it before it sells. Stored as a sales opportunity, it loses its history as soon as that opportunity closes. The right CRM makes it an object of its own, linked to contacts and deals. In Twenty, that is a custom object: its documentation uses listings as its example, and its data model FAQ, checked on 17 October 2026, states that pricing does not change with the number of objects and fields, and that there is no fixed limit on the number of records, although very large volumes can slow down some views.
The buyer’s search has its own record
What a buyer is looking for (property type, area, budget, number of bedrooms) deserves a record linked to their contact, not a free-text note. That record is what makes the match in our opening example possible: when a property comes in, the CRM lists the searches it satisfies, and the agent calls the right buyers the same day. Industry software usually offers this out of the box; in an open CRM, it is one more object plus an automation that cross-checks the criteria, built once.
The website follows the record, removals included
If you publish your properties on your own website, the CRM record should be the only place anyone types them in: the site picks it up in every language and takes it down when the property leaves the catalogue. Removal is the step people forget. Google says so in its guide to crawl errors: a page that says the content no longer exists while returning a 200 status is a soft 404; a page removed with no replacement should return 404 or 410, and a 301 redirect is only justified towards a genuine replacement. We go through the mechanics in our article on programmatic SEO.
No enquiry gets lost
A form that only sends an email loses buyers without anyone noticing: a spam filter, a shared inbox nobody checks, someone on holiday. The rule fits in one sentence: every enquiry is saved to a database before any email goes out, then creates the contact and the deal in the CRM. Ask a vendor and an integrator the same question: where does an enquiry go when the email fails?
Retention periods are respected
Watch out
A prospect cannot be kept forever
According to the French data protection authority’s Q&A on its sales management guidelines, checked on 17 October 2026, a prospect’s data is kept for three years from collection or from the last contact initiated by that person. At the end of that period, you ask whether they still want to hear from you; without a clear, positive answer, you delete or archive. A customer’s data is kept for the duration of the relationship, then three years after it ends. These guidelines are not binding in France, but any departure from them has to be justifiable.
The detail matters for a real estate CRM: the clock restarts when the buyer gets in touch, not when the agency calls. So the CRM has to date the former, not only the latter. The clean-up that goes with it is in our method for cleaning up CRM data.
Your data leaves with you
The day you change tools, your properties, mandates and history must come out in full, in a readable format, without waiting on the vendor’s goodwill. Ask for it before you sign: a complete test export, and the list of what the API does not return. In Twenty, everything you see on screen is also available through the API, in REST and GraphQL, custom objects included: we explain what that changes in Twenty beyond the CRM, as the back office for your business data.
When off-the-shelf real estate software is enough
If your agency lives on listing portals, follows the classic path from mandate to sale and has no in-house tool to connect, industry software saves you from building what already exists: the model is ready, the team learns it quickly, and the vendor keeps up with changes in the trade. Before you sign, check three things: what the subscription really includes, how your data gets out, and how much room is left for your own website.
When an open CRM is the better fit
An open CRM takes the lead as soon as your business steps outside the vendor’s model: a portal you run yourself, several languages, rentals alongside sales, objects specific to your market, or data that has to stay on your server. The price no longer grows with the team: you pay for the setup and, if you want, for ongoing operations.
Its limits are real. Integrations, from portal syndication to e-signature, have to be built and kept running. And Twenty is not an ERP: accounting and rent tracking live elsewhere, or in Dolibarr and Odoo when the business needs a full management system.
From the field
Palmora Property, a portal run from Twenty
Palmora Property is a property listings portal in Thailand that we work with. At the start, listings lived in a spreadsheet and were copied by hand to the website, and callback requests only arrived by email. In May 2026, Twenty became the single source for properties, contacts and deals. A property is approved in the CRM, then a sync publishes the approved catalogue every morning to a six-language site with more than 3,000 URLs; a “Publish to site” button avoids waiting until the next day. Since July 2026, every enquiry is saved to a database before any email goes out, then creates the contact and the deal in the CRM. And the URL of a withdrawn listing returns 410, with similar properties in the same area and at a comparable budget.
The full story is on the Palmora Property project page, and our review of Twenty in production, limits included also covers what took work.
Our CRM offer, at a fixed price
When an open CRM is the right choice, our CRM and ERP offer sets it up for you at a fixed price: Twenty for €4,500, Dolibarr from €6,500, Odoo in three tiers from €15,000. Twenty and Dolibarr require no per-user licence. The first step compares all three against your processes and the tools you are keeping, properties and buyer searches included, and we recommend the smallest tool that genuinely covers the need.
Frequently asked questions
What is a real estate CRM?
It is the tool where an agency keeps its properties, mandates, buyers and owners, and tracks each deal from the first enquiry to signature. It can be software built for the trade and sold by subscription, or an open CRM like Twenty in which you create the objects of the trade. Either way, it must link each property to the buyer searches it satisfies.
Is there an open source real estate CRM?
Yes, in the sense of an open source CRM adapted to the trade. Twenty, Dolibarr and the Community edition of Odoo install on your server with no licence to pay. In Twenty, which we operate, real estate is something you build: properties, mandates and buyer searches are created as objects linked to contacts, and integrations with portals or e-signature are developed separately.
Can Twenty replace real estate software?
For customer relationships and the catalogue, yes: the website connects to the API, and a single record is the reference from the CRM all the way to the published pages. For portal syndication, e-signature or rent management, you need to build and run integrations, or keep another tool alongside. That cost is what you weigh against the subscription.
How much does a real estate CRM cost?
Industry software is paid by subscription, at a price that depends on the vendor, the number of users and the options. An open CRM is mostly paid at setup, then for operations: with us, Twenty is set up for €4,500, Dolibarr from €6,500 and Odoo from €15,000. Compare the two over three years, integrations included.
Sources
- Create custom objects, Twenty documentation (new tab)docs.twenty.com
- Data model FAQ, Twenty documentation (new tab)docs.twenty.com
- Troubleshoot crawling errors, Google Search Central (new tab)developers.google.com
- Q&A on the sales management guidelines, CNIL (in French) (new tab)cnil.fr
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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