IXACT Contact is a software company that offers CRM and email marketing products to real estate professionals. It’s hosting a webinar on Tuesday, May 22, at 1 p.m., Eastern time, on using its CRM product to grow your business. Shannon McGee, a company business development executive, is the host.

From IXACT:

Wondering exactly how a real estate CRM can help you better manage and grow your business? Join this information-packed webinar and see specific real-world examples of how a robust real estate CRM can make it easy to keep in touch and stay on task with all your clients, prospects, and important referral sources.

In this webinar, IXACT Contact executive Shannon McGee will show you how IXACT Contact’s real estate CRM can help you to:

1. Keep in touch effortlessly with everyone in your database so you stay top of mind.
2. Ensure that you never miss another client birthday or move-in anniversary – both excellent relationship building opportunities.
3. Nurture and stay top of mind with all your prospects so you get the listing and not your competition.
4. Identify high quality leads – hiding in your database!
5. Stay organized and in control of all your listings, closings, and active buyers.
6. [BONUS!] Create a professional online presence and generate leads with your own customizable, mobile friendly, agent website.
7. [DOUBLE BONUS] Double your social media lead generation with automated social media content posting!

Register.

This is a sponsor webinar. REALTOR® Magazine is promoting it, but it isn’t participating in it, hasn’t reviewed the content, and is not endorsing it.

While the Fair Housing Act’s purpose—barring discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of residential property—may be easy to understand, navigating the many intricacies of the landmark statute can be tricky even for experienced real estate professionals, said experts on the 1968 law who spoke during a recent event in Fairfax, Va.

The event served as a commemoration of the 50-year anniversary of the signing of the Fair Housing Act, and was organized by the Fairfax County of Human Rights and Equity Programs and sponsored by the Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS®, Legal Services of Northern Virginia, and the Prince William County Human Rights Commission.

Panelists talk about the Fair Housing Act during a training session in Fairfax, Virginia.

The challenges stem from the fact that the law requires real estate professionals to ensure their clients not only have equal access to properties, but also that they drive the selection of the neighborhood or home they want to live in. Even a well-meaning effort to match a client with property you think they would like can have legal consequences.

For example, if you are working with a Korean family that is looking for a home to purchase, taking them to neighborhoods where you know other Asian-Americans live could run afoul of the law if the clients did not specifically ask to go to those neighborhoods. That’s according to attorneys from the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division and Legal Services of Northern Virginia who served on the panel.

Panelists also advised caution when taking steps aimed at ensuring the safety of your clients. While it might seem reasonable to steer a family with young children away from a home they are looking to buy or rent that has lead-based paint, for instance, doing so would violate the law if the family was aware of the presence of the paint and still wanted to live there. It’s not against the law to market homes with lead-based paint to families with children and let them live there as long as they have been made aware that the hazardous paint is present.