How to Switch Real Estate CRMs Without Losing Leads, Notes or Follow-Ups

Switching CRMs is one of the riskiest weeks in an agent's year. Not because the new software is hard, but because leads fall into the gap between two systems. A buyer who was due a call on Thursday gets forgotten because the reminder lived in the old tool. A seller's number arrives in the new CRM as 9.19E+11. Notes from three site visits stay behind in an app you no longer open.

This guide is a step-by-step plan to switch real estate CRMs without losing leads, whether you are moving from a spreadsheet, a notebook, your phone's contacts or another CRM. It works the same in any market and with any CRM that can import a CSV file.

First, check that the CRM is the problem

Many agents switch because "follow-ups are not working". Before you move, ask honestly why. If reminders fire and get ignored, or leads are never given a next date, a new app will have the same problem within a month.

Good reasons to switch include:

• The tool is too slow or too complicated to update between calls, so you stop updating it.
• It does not work well on your phone, or not without a good internet connection.
• The price no longer makes sense for how you work.
• It is missing something you use daily, such as WhatsApp templates, site visit reminders or quotations.
• You are leaving a brokerage and the old system belongs to them.

If the real issue is habit, fix the habit alongside the switch: every open lead gets a next follow-up date, every day. Our guide on never missing a follow-up covers that routine. When you are choosing the new tool, the CRM evaluation framework helps you avoid swapping one bad fit for another.

Know what usually moves, and what doesn't

Almost every CRM can import contacts from a CSV file. Far fewer can carry over everything else. Plan for this from the start so nothing surprises you.

The lesson: contact details are easy to move; context is not. Your plan should spend most of its effort on the leads that are active right now.

Step 1: Export everything before you cancel

Do this before your subscription ends or your access is removed. Some tools limit exports to account owners, admins or paid plans, and some delete data a set time after cancellation. Check your plan's export option early.

Step 2: Clean your list on a copy

A messy import creates duplicates and broken numbers that take weeks to untangle. Fifteen minutes of cleaning saves that. Our post on organising real estate contacts explains the structure in more depth; for a migration, focus on these:

• One person per row. Split rows that hold two people or two phone numbers.
• Separate columns for name, mobile, email, status, project and source.
• Phone numbers with country codes, especially for overseas clients, and no stray spaces or dashes.
• Remove duplicates by sorting on the phone column and merging repeats.
• One spelling per value. "FB", "facebook" and "Facebook Ads" should become a single source name.
• Delete the dead weight. Wrong numbers and people who asked you to stop contacting them don't need to come with you.

A simple column layout like this imports cleanly into most CRMs:

The spreadsheet trap: phone numbers

This is the most common way migrations go wrong. Spreadsheet programs treat a long phone number as a number, not text. When you open or save a CSV, they can:

• drop the leading plus sign or zero,
• show the number in scientific notation, such as 9.19E+11, and save it that way, which loses the last digits.

Google Sheets can do similar things. To avoid it, format the phone column as text before you paste or type numbers (Text in Excel, Plain text in Google Sheets). Then open the final CSV in a plain text editor or your phone's file viewer and spot-check ten numbers against the original export before importing.

Also save the file as CSV with UTF-8 encoding if your spreadsheet offers that option. It keeps names with accents or non-English letters intact.

Step 3: Map your stages, projects and sources

Your old system's stage names rarely match the new one. Decide the mapping on paper before importing. For example, a hypothetical agent named Aisha might map her old spreadsheet's statuses like this:

Fewer, clearer stages are better than copying every old label across. Our guide to real estate pipeline management suggests stage templates and the rule each stage should follow.

Step 4: Import a test batch first

Step 5: Re-create follow-ups for active leads

This is the step most people skip, and the one that loses deals. Imported leads usually arrive with no reminders attached. Go through every lead you were actively working and give each one a next follow-up date in the new CRM.

• Start with hot leads and anyone with a site visit or meeting booked.
• Copy the one or two notes that matter: budget, preferred area, last conversation, objections.
• Set long-term and cold leads on a slower, repeating schedule instead of leaving them without a date.

If your old tool can show a list of upcoming tasks, export or screenshot it before access ends and work through it line by line.

Step 6: Reconnect where new leads come from

Leads keep arriving during a switch. Make a list of every place new enquiries come from and point each one at the new system:

• Facebook or Instagram lead forms and any other ad integrations.
• Property portal enquiry emails or exports.
• Your website contact form, WhatsApp number and phone calls.
• Referrals from colleagues, developers or past clients.

Some sources connect directly to a CRM; others are added by hand or by a regular CSV import. Whatever the method, decide it now so leads don't keep landing in the old tool.

Step 7: Pick a cut-over day and stop using the old system

Running two CRMs side by side for long is how leads get lost: half the team updates one, half the other, and nobody trusts either. Choose a date, tell anyone who works with you, and after that day every new lead, note and follow-up goes into the new CRM only.

Keep a short overlap of a week or two only to catch stragglers. Then archive the old export somewhere safe, because it may be the only record of past conversations.

Respect your clients' data during the move

A migration copies personal information about buyers and sellers. Handle it carefully:

• Don't email CSV files around or leave them in shared chat groups. Delete working copies you no longer need.
• Check what your agency agreement says about client data if you are leaving a brokerage.
• If you are moving data to a service run by another company, check your local data-protection rules, such as GDPR in the EU and UK, and read the new provider's privacy policy.

Our guide on whether your leads are safe in a cloud CRM covers the questions worth asking any provider.

Switching to Boring CRM

If you are moving to Boring CRM, the plan above applies as written. A few specifics:

• It is a free real estate CRM app for Android, with no sign-up and no lead limit, and it works offline.
• CSV import is offered when you first set up the app, with column matching and a sample file to compare against, so clean your file before you start adding leads by hand.
• Excel and Google Sheets files need to be saved or downloaded as CSV first.
• Duplicate mobile numbers are blocked, and numbers from any country are accepted, with or without the country code.
• Statuses, projects and sources are your own editable lists, so set them up to match your mapping before importing.
• Notes, follow-ups and attachments are not part of the CSV import. Add them for your active leads after importing, as in Step 5.
• Facebook Lead Ads can be connected directly, with the choice to import past leads or start fresh.

Every lead stays on your phone. Once you have moved, set up automatic daily or weekly backups and keep a copy somewhere safe, because there is no automatic cloud backup.

Your switching checklist

1. Confirm why you are switching and fix the follow-up habit too.
2. Export everything from the old system and keep the original untouched.
3. Clean a copy: one person per row, country codes, no duplicates, one spelling per value.
4. Protect phone numbers from spreadsheet formatting.
5. Map old stages, projects and sources to the new lists.
6. Import a test batch, check it, then import the rest.
7. Re-create follow-ups and key notes for every active lead.
8. Point every lead source at the new CRM.
9. Pick a cut-over day and stop using the old system.
10. Store the old export safely and delete loose copies.

Done this way, a switch takes an afternoon of preparation and a week of discipline, and every lead you were working on is still there when it's over.

Frequently asked questions

How do I move my leads from one CRM to another?

Export your contacts from the old CRM as a CSV file, keep an untouched copy, then clean a second copy so there is one person per row with consistent column names. Import a small test batch into the new CRM, check that names, numbers and statuses look right, then import the rest and re-create upcoming follow-ups.

Will my notes and call history move to the new CRM?

Often not completely. Contact details usually transfer cleanly through CSV, but activity history such as notes, call logs, reminders and attachments may not export, or may not import into another tool. Keep the old export as an archive, and copy the important notes for your active leads by hand.

Why do phone numbers break when I open a CSV in Excel?

Excel treats long numbers as numbers, not text, so it can remove the plus sign and leading zeros or show the number in scientific notation such as 9.19E+11. Google Sheets can do the same. Format the phone column as text before typing or pasting, and check a few numbers in the saved file before you import.

How long should I use both CRMs at the same time?

Keep it short, ideally a week or two. Use the overlap only to check that nothing is missing and to catch leads still arriving in the old system. Pick a cut-over date in advance; after that day every new lead and follow-up goes into the new CRM only.