A lead doesn't go cold because an agent stopped caring. It goes cold because the agent couldn't reconstruct, three weeks later, what the prospect actually asked about or who they were.
The Inquiry as the Unit of Record
In real estate, the inquiry is the event that matters — not the contact. A single person might inquire about three different projects across two years. The projectinquired and date inquired fields make the inquiry itself the primary data point, so a returning prospect doesn't disappear into a generic contact card.
Agent assignment at the record level prevents leads from floating in shared systems without clear ownership. When a prospect calls back, the assigned agent's name is already on the record.
Who the Prospect Is
Job title and company aren't vanity fields in real estate. An inquiry from a regional director of a logistics firm carries different buyer context than one from an individual investor. The potinc (potential income) field attaches a deal-value estimate to each lead — rough, but enough to support prioritization decisions when the pipeline is full.
Priority as an integer allows sorting rather than categorical labeling. A prospect at priority 1 floats to the top regardless of inquiry date; priority 7 stays visible but doesn't crowd the working pipeline.
Status is deliberately free text. Every agency uses different stage vocabulary — "site visit scheduled," "under offer," "waiting on financing," "cold" — and a rigid dropdown forces agents to choose the least-wrong option rather than the accurate one.
The Contact Layer
Multiple phone fields (mobile, business, home) and fax reflect real estate's client mix: buyers range from first-time purchasers on their mobiles to corporate procurement contacts who communicate exclusively through business lines.
Full address capture — street, city, state, postal code, country — supports geographic segmentation. Filter by city or state and you can identify which markets are generating inquiries for a given project, or flag out-of-region buyers who may need additional coordination for site visits.
Notes hold what the fields can't. The specific objection a prospect raised. The referral source. The follow-up timing they requested. That context is what turns a name in a database back into a person in a conversation.