Managing contacts

The Contact Hub (in the left-hand nav) is where your team keeps everyone it works with — sellers, buyers, agents, vendors, and anyone else. It has four tabs: My Book (what's waiting on you today), Contacts, Companies, and Lists (the groups you save). It opens on My Book when you own contacts or have something waiting, and on Contacts otherwise.

To search by criteria instead of by name — "cash buyers in Polk County under $200K" — select Find matches in the top right instead of searching the table. See Finding buyers and lenders.

Finding a contact

Along the top of the Contacts tab, pick a view: All, or one view for each of your team's contact types — Buyer, Lender, Agent, Seller, and so on. A view shows only contacts with that type, with the columns that matter for it:

• Buyer — Tier, Buy box (how many states and metros their buy boxes cover, or No box), Last contacted, Last deal sent, and Owner.
• Lender — Lending box, Last contacted, and Owner.
• Agent — Sides (the side they work — listing, buyer's, or both), Brokerage, Last contacted, and Owner.
• Wholesaler — Deals sent (how many of your team's deals list them under Who sent it? on the deal's lead source), phone, email, Companies, and Last contacted.
• All and every other type — Types, phone, email, Companies, and Last contacted (All also keeps the Tier column).

Deals sent counts only deals you can open, so someone who sees only the deals assigned to them may see a smaller number than an admin.

If you can edit contacts, the last view is Archived — contacts your team archived, with Restore on each row. See Archiving and restoring contacts and companies. Admins can also download the list as a spreadsheet with Export CSV — see Exporting contacts and companies to CSV.

Use the search box to find someone by name, by any part of their email, or by a phone number. Phone search ignores formatting, so 813-555, (813) 555, and the last four digits all work.

Narrow the list with the filters next to the search box:

• Type — checkbox list of your team's contact types; pick as many as you need.
• Market — one metro or state a contact is set up to serve, in any type they have now. A contact also matches every market when one of their types is set to Nationwide on its tab. Markets saved under a type that has since been removed from the contact don't count.
• Tier — checkbox list of your team's buyer tiers (VIP, Gold, Silver, Bronze by default, then the built-in Unverified). See Ranking buyers with Buyer Tiers.
• Not contacted in — 30, 60, 90, or 180 days. Contacts you've never been in touch with are included too.
• Owner — anyone, you (Owner: me), or a specific teammate.

The Buyer view has two more:

• Going cold — buyers you haven't texted, called, emailed, or commented on in over 6 months, or whose buy box was last confirmed over 12 months ago. Your admin can change both numbers — see Contact Hub settings.
• Show not-a-buyer — the Buyer view hides anyone marked Not a buyer; turn this on to list them too, each with a Not a buyer badge.

See Verifying buyers for both.

Coverage gaps on the Buyer view

Above the Buyer view's filters, a Coverage gaps strip names every state, county or market you've had a deal in over the last 12 months that has no buyers, or only one or two — for example "Coverage gaps: Hardee County, FL (0), Polk County, FL (2)". The number is how many active buyers cover it: buyers with an active buy box there (a state, county or metro in the box), plus buyers with Nationwide coverage. Archived buyers and buyers marked Not a buyer don't count. Areas with none come first; when there are more than six, select and N more to see them all.

• Select an area with one or two buyers to filter the list to that area's Market (a county uses the metro most of its deals were in, else its state). The Market filter matches the markets a contact is set up to serve, so the list can show a different number of buyers than the strip.
• Select an area with no buyers to see what's missing, with Add a buyer if you can edit contacts. An area with one or two buyers but no market to filter by (a county with no state on its deals, for example) opens the same panel instead of the full list.

When every area with a deal has buyers, the strip reads "No coverage gaps — every market with a deal has buyers". With no deals in the last 12 months there's nothing to check, so the strip doesn't show. The same numbers are in the Coverage gaps report — see Building a report.

The Agent view has a Sides filter — Listing, Buyer's, or Both. See Agents and brokerages.

Last contacted is the newest text, call, email, or comment with that person; it updates on its own. Last deal sent is the last time a deal marketing send went to them. Select the Tier or Last deal sent column header to sort the whole list by it.

A contact who's opted out of deal marketing shows an Opted out badge next to their name. Select a row to open their profile — see Viewing a contact.

The view and filters you pick are kept in the page's web address, so reloading the page — or sending the link to a teammate — opens the same list. Owner: me always means whoever opens the link.

If nothing matches, select Clear filters to start over. If the list can't load, you'll see Couldn't load contacts with a Try again button — select it once your connection is back.

Selecting contacts and sending a deal

Check the box on any row to select it. Your selection stays put while you page through the list, search, change filters, switch views, or move to the Companies tab, so you can build a list from several places — it's only cleared when you select Clear (or once a deal is sent to it).

• The checkbox in the table header selects everyone on the current page.
• Once the whole page is selected, select Select all N matching above the table to add everyone the current view and filters match. It adds up to 5,000 at a time; past that, it tells you it selected the first 5,000. If you then switch views or change a filter, everything you selected stays selected, and the line offers Select all N matching again for what the new view and filters match.

A bar above the tabs shows how many contacts and companies you've selected, with Clear, Text, Email, Add to list, Change owner, Export (admins), and Send a deal. Text, Email and Add to list are covered in Contact lists and acting on a group at once. Send a deal opens the Send this deal to buyers dialog for everyone selected — it names your selection, for example "40 selected contacts and 1 selected company from Contact Hub." Anyone without an email on file, or who has opted out of deal marketing, can be selected, but they won't be emailed — the dialog tells you up front, for example "3 of 41 have no email and will be skipped." and "2 have opted out and will be skipped." See Ranking buyers and setting up deal marketing for the rest of the dialog.

Saving your filters as a smart list

Once a view or filter narrows the list, Save as smart list shows at the end of the filter bar. It saves the current view and filters as a list on the Lists tab that re-runs them every time you open it. See Contact lists and acting on a group at once.

Changing the owner of your selection

Select Change owner in the bar (you need edit access to contacts), pick a teammate under New owner, and select Change Owner. Every contact and company you selected now belongs to that teammate, the selection is cleared, and a message confirms how many moved — for example "Carol Rep now owns 12 contacts and 1 company." Anything they already owned isn't counted. Each record's history shows the owner change.

Bonus credit for Deals sold from their book stays with whoever owned the buyer when each deal closed. See Bonus plans.

To hand over everything one teammate owns at once, an admin can use Transferring a teammate's book instead.

Adding a contact

Select Add Contact in the top right, fill in at least a First Name, and save. The form also lets you set a Last Name, one or more Types, Coverage Type (Nationwide, Regional, or Specialty), Service Markets, phone/email/fax numbers, and notes — all optional, and all editable later from the contact's profile. The coverage type and markets you pick here apply to every type you picked for the contact; afterwards each type keeps its own, and you change them on that type's tab of the profile rather than in Edit Contact. If the contact saves but its markets don't, you'll see "Contact created — markets weren't saved. Add them on the tab." — the contact is there; don't create it again. A Person section holds what's true of them regardless of role: birthday, mailing address, how you met, preferred channel (call, text, or email) and how often they like to hear from you, do-not-contact switches, and a text-consent record.

In the Companies section, use Link to a company to search your team's existing companies by name and attach one — add an optional Role / title (e.g. "Escrow Officer") and, if the contact is linked to more than one company, pick which one is their Primary company. If the company doesn't exist yet, type its name and select Create "[name]" — the company is created right away and linked to this contact when you save (or scroll to Add New Company below to create one with a type). Every company you link becomes a removable chip, and the whole set — links, role titles, and which one is primary — stays editable later from the contact's profile.

If you only have view-only access to this section, you won't see Add Contact, and a banner explains you'll need an admin to grant edit permissions. View-only also means you can't change a contact's phones, emails, types, companies, or markets, and the contact pickers on a deal don't offer Create new contact.

When a phone or email is already on your team

TED checks each phone number and email as you finish typing it. If a contact or company on your team already has it, an amber note appears under that line — for example, "Dana Lopez already has this phone" — so you don't end up with two records for the same person.

• Open existing takes you to that record instead. The note says "Opening it discards what you've typed here" — anything you'd typed into the new contact is gone.
• Create anyway (Save anyway when you're editing) hides the note and lets you carry on. Two records can share a number — a front-desk line or a shared inbox is normal — so TED never stops you from saving for good.
• Merge into existing shows when a team admin is editing a contact (or a company) and the match is another contact (or company): it opens the merge window to fold the two into one. See Merging duplicate contacts and companies.

The check ignores formatting: (512) 555-0142, 512.555.0142, and +1 512 555 0142 are the same number, and email capitalization doesn't matter. It looks at companies too, so adding a contact with a title company's main line names the company. If someone has the number through a company they work at, the note shows both — "Dana Lopez (Acme Title) already has this phone". When several records match, the note lists them, each with its own Open button.

If the match is an archived contact or company, the note adds (archived) after the name and offers Restore instead of Open existing — restoring brings the original back and takes you to it, so you don't end up with a duplicate.

TED checks again when you select Create Contact or Save Changes. If one of the phones or emails you typed now matches someone the note wasn't showing — a teammate added them a moment ago, or you saved before the check finished — TED holds the save once and says "Someone on your team already has this phone or email — check the note under it, then save again to keep both". Look at the note, then save again to go ahead. A phone or email the contact already had before you started editing isn't re-checked.

The same check runs when you add or edit a company, when you fill in a new company under Add New Company while adding a contact, and when you create a contact or company on the spot while assigning a vendor to a deal. When you edit a contact or company, its own phones and emails never count as a match. It only ever looks at your own team's contacts and companies, and only at phone numbers and emails — not names, fax numbers, or other contact methods.

Automatic type tagging

You don't have to remember to tag a contact by hand when they take on a seller or buyer role: TED adds the matching Seller or Buyer type automatically the moment a contact is linked as a deal's seller or buyer (including a seller pushed in from InvestorFuse), named the buyer on an offer, or set as the buyer on a showing. This only ever adds a type — it never removes or overwrites a type you set yourself, and it's a no-op if your team doesn't have an active Seller or Buyer type.

The same goes for the other roles on a deal. A contact set as the deal's Lender gets the Lender type; a contact set as the Listing agent (purchase), Our agent (purchase), or the Dispo tab's Listing Agent gets the Agent type. Companies are tagged too: the deal's Title Company gets the Title Company company type, and a company set as the lender gets Lender.

For these, TED adds the type once — when the person or company is put in that field. If you remove the type from their profile afterward, saving the deal again won't put it back.