Email Authentication Real Estate Agents: Protect Deals, Clients, and Your Domain

Key Takeaways

Email is a prime target in real estate because every transaction involves large payments, sensitive documents, and time-pressured closings. When attackers spoof your domain, they can send fraudulent emails that redirect funds, steal personal information, tamper with client contracts, and shatter the trust you’ve spent years building. Email authentication reduces these risks by letting inbox providers verify that messages sent from your domain actually came from you.

Every real estate agent, team, and brokerage should have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC DNS records in place for their domain. These are the primary pillars of email authentication, and they work together: SPF lists your allowed senders, DKIM signs your messages to prove they haven’t been tampered with, and DMARC tells receiving mail servers what to do with mail that fails those checks. Together, they protect your domain while reducing risk.

• Correct email authentication makes it significantly harder for criminals to spoof your real estate domain during critical communication like wire instructions and contract changes.
• Without proper DNS records, your legitimate emails are more likely to land in spam or get rejected entirely by providers like Gmail and Microsoft 365.
• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential email authentication protocols that every domain owner should configure, not optional extras.
• Sure Send guides real estate customers through setting up and checking these DNS records but does not control their DNS or guarantee inbox placement.
• Email authentication is ongoing governance, not a one-time task. Every time you add a new tool that sends email on your behalf, your records need to be reviewed.

Introduction: Why Email Authentication Matters in Real Estate Today

Picture this: your buyer is three days from closing on their first home. They receive an email that looks exactly like it came from your address, complete with your brokerage name, logo, and a familiar subject line. The message contains updated wire instructions and asks them to send $287,000 to a new account “due to a last-minute title company change.” They comply. The money vanishes. In 2025 alone, real estate wire fraud cost Americans $275.1 million across more than 12,000 reported incidents, and scenarios like this one drove the bulk of those losses.

Email authentication is how you “show your ID” on the internet so that inboxes can tell your real emails from fakes. It’s a set of rules and digital signatures published in your domain’s DNS records that help mail servers verify whether a message truly came from an authorized system. Without it, anyone on the internet can impersonate your exact domain, and most recipients would never know the difference.

This matters deeply in real estate. Earnest money deposits, escrow transfers, inspection reports, closing disclosures, and payment instructions all move over email. These are examples of critical communication where a single spoofed message can cost clients hundreds of thousands of dollars. By 2026, major inbox providers like Google and Microsoft 365 expect proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records from senders. Without them, more of your messages land in spam or get rejected outright.

The rest of this article will explain what these tools are, which DNS records you need, and how agents and teams can verify their setup in a way that makes the process easy, even if you’re not an IT expert.

Why Email Is a Prime Target in the Real Estate Industry

Real estate transactions are prime targets for email-based fraud because every deal combines large one-time payments with stressed, time-poor clients who are conditioned to act quickly. A buyer wiring earnest money or a seller expecting proceeds at closing won’t think twice about following instructions from what looks like a trusted address. Real estate emails are high-value targets for cybercriminals precisely because the stakes per message are so high.

Attackers don’t need to break into your CRM or hack your computer. Instead, they create a lookalike domain or directly spoof your address to send messages that appear to come from your real estate company. Email impersonation can undermine client trust in real estate transactions, and it typically happens at the most vulnerable deal stages:

• Offer acceptance – fraudulent emails requesting updated deposit details
• Escrow deposit – fake instructions redirecting funds to an attacker’s account
• Clear-to-close – bogus contract addenda or document requests
• Final signing – last-minute changes to wiring details

Typical phishing subject lines seen in real estate include:

• “UPDATED WIRE DETAILS – URGENT”
• “Re: Closing Documents For 123 Main St – Action Needed”
• “Final Payment Instructions Changed”
• “Title Company Wiring Update”

These messages target buyers, sellers, attorneys, and lenders who already trust you. Spoofed emails can lead to fraudulent payment instructions, and the attacker’s goal is always the same: exploit that trust before anyone picks up the phone to verify.

What Is Email Authentication in Plain Language?

Email authentication is a set of rules and digital signatures that help mail providers verify that an email using your domain really came from you. It’s the digital equivalent of checking someone’s photo ID before letting them into a building. Email authentication verifies the identity of the email sender before delivery, which means inbox providers can separate your real messages from forgeries.

These rules don’t live inside your email app or CRM. They live in your DNS records, the public directory associated with your domain name. Whether your domain is “yourteamhomes.com” or “citynameproperties.com,” your authentication settings travel with that domain wherever it’s used on the internet.

The three core pieces are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Think of them as a simple three-layer check:

• SPF is the guest list. It tells receiving servers which systems are allowed to send email for your domain.
• DKIM is the tamper-proof envelope seal. It attaches a digital signature proving the message wasn’t altered in transit.
• DMARC is the instructions to the bouncer. It tells receiving servers what to do if a message fails the guest list or the seal check.

Email authentication prevents impersonation and spoofing of domains, but it does not read or change your message content. It simply proves where the message came from and whether it was altered along the way.

How Email Authentication Protects Real Estate Deals and Brand Reputation

When your domain is properly authenticated, it becomes significantly harder for criminals to send fake messages using your address during critical communication moments like wire instructions and addenda approvals. Email authentication methods are essential to protect client trust and confidentiality, ensuring messages are really from your domain, especially when buyers and sellers are exchanging sensitive documents and financial details.

DMARC helps maintain brand reputation in the real estate sector because clients blame the name on the email, not the attacker’s IP address. If a buyer loses $400,000 to a spoofed wire instruction that appeared to come from your brokerage, your brand carries that damage regardless of who was actually behind the message. DMARC reduces impersonation risk during real estate transactions by giving receiving servers clear instructions to quarantine or reject unauthorized mail, making it harder for attackers to impersonate your brand in transaction email.

Stronger authentication also feeds better deliverability. When you consistently send authenticated email from verified systems, inbox providers learn to trust your domain over time, which means fewer spam-folder surprises for your listing alerts and market updates.

Consider the operational risk: in 2025, an agent had emails quarantined the week before closing because a new email service added to the team’s tech stack was not authenticated under their domain. The client didn’t receive the final closing disclosure until the agent called to follow up. That kind of delay, during one of the most stressful weeks of a client’s life, erodes the trust that drives referrals and repeat business.

DMARC helps prevent email spoofing in real estate, and one widely circulated fraud story attached to your domain can undo years of local brand building.

DNS Records 101 for Real Estate Agents

DNS stands for Domain Name System, and it’s the foundation that tells the internet where to find your website, email, and other services for your domain. Think of it as a public directory: when someone types your website address into a browser or sends you an email, DNS is what routes them to the right place.

DNS records are simple lines of instruction that live at your domain registrar or DNS host. That could be GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, Squarespace, or a domain panel managed by your brokerage’s IT provider. You don’t need to memorize all record types, but here are the ones that matter most:

Record Type	What It Does	Agent-Friendly Description
A Record	Points your domain to a server IP address	Tells browsers where your website lives by using server IP numbers
MX Record	Directs email to the correct mail server	MX records direct emails to the correct mail server for your domain
TXT Record	Holds text-based instructions	Where SPF, DKIM, and DMARC rules are published

For a domain like homesbycarter.com, DNS records tell the world which server hosts the website and which services are allowed to send email as @homesbycarter.com, and good DNS management gives your team more flexibility when you need to update tools or services.

Real estate companies often have multiple third party tools sending mail on their behalf: a CRM, newsletter platform, e-sign service, showing scheduler, and sometimes a lender’s co-branded system. Each one needs to be listed correctly in your DNS records, or messages from those tools may fail authentication checks.

SPF: Listing Who’s Allowed to Send Email for Your Domain

SPF, which stands for Sender Policy Framework, is the “allowed senders list” for your domain. It’s published as a TXT DNS record that tells the world which mail servers are permitted to send email on your behalf. SPF publishes a list of authorized mail servers for a domain, and SPF protects against spoofing by validating who can send emails from that domain.

Here’s how it works at a high level: when a receiving mail server gets a message claiming to be from your domain, it checks your SPF record in DNS and asks, “Is this sending system on the approved list?” SPF checks if the sending server is authorized for a domain and answers yes or no. If the answer is no, the message may be flagged, quarantined, or rejected.

A typical real estate team needs several systems listed in its SPF record:

• Primary email provider (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365)
• CRM like Sure Send
• Marketing or newsletter platform
• E-signature tool
• Transaction management system
• Possibly mortgage partner systems using your domain

A simple SPF record might look like this:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:suresend.ai -all

In plain language: “Allow Google’s servers and Sure Send’s email systems to send on behalf of our domain. Reject everything else (-all).”

Missing or incomplete SPF entries can cause legitimate emails to be marked as suspicious, especially bulk sends like new listing alerts or open house campaigns. If your CRM isn’t in your SPF record, every automated follow-up it sends on your behalf may arrive looking unverified.

DKIM: Signing Your Messages So They Can’t Be Quietly Changed

DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, is a digital signature added to each outgoing message that proves it hasn’t been altered and really came from an authorized system. DKIM adds a cryptographic digital signature to emails for verification, and DKIM protects the integrity of email content during delivery.

Your email provider or CRM generates a pair of cryptographic keys: a private key (kept secret on the sending server) and a public key (published as a TXT DNS record under a specific “selector” for your domain). When a message goes out, the private key signs it. When it arrives, the receiving server uses the public key from DNS to validate that signature. DKIM verifies that email content is cryptographically signed and untouched.

Recipients never see DKIM in the email body itself. Their mail servers read it in the message headers to verify authenticity behind the scenes.

Think of it like a wax seal on an envelope. If someone opens the letter, changes the contents, and reseals it, the original wax seal is cracked. The recipient knows something is wrong. That’s what DKIM does for email: any alteration in transit breaks the signature.

Many major providers, including Gmail, Microsoft 365, and Sure Send’s email infrastructure, now assume you have DKIM in place. Missing DKIM signatures can hurt deliverability over time, and as inbox providers tighten enforcement, unsigned messages increasingly get filtered or flagged.

DMARC: Telling Inboxes How to Treat Suspicious Email

DMARC stands for domain based message authentication, reporting, and conformance. In plain language, it’s a policy you publish in DNS that tells receiving servers what to do if an email using your domain fails SPF and DKIM checks. DMARC provides a policy for handling unauthenticated emails, and DMARC instructs mail servers on how to handle authentication failures.

The three main DMARC policy levels are straightforward:

Policy	DNS Value	What Happens
Monitor only	p=none	Nothing is blocked; you just collect data
Quarantine	p=quarantine	Failing messages are sent to spam
Reject	p=reject	Failing messages are blocked entirely

DMARC also provides reporting capabilities to monitor email impersonation attempts. When you include a reporting tag (rua=) in your DMARC record, inbox providers send you regular DMARC reports showing who is sending mail as your domain and whether it passes authentication. These reports are invaluable for spotting unauthorized senders.

DMARC helps block unauthorized use of your email domain, and this matters enormously for real estate companies. Without a DMARC policy, an attacker can pass basic checks when trying to send fake wire instructions or bogus contract updates using your exact domain. Unauthorized emails can be blocked or quarantined using email authentication, but only if you’ve told receiving servers to enforce that policy.

Implementing DMARC protects sensitive client information in emails, and teams should generally start with p=none to observe their email ecosystem first. Once all legitimate senders are properly authenticated, move toward quarantine and eventually reject. DMARC implementation is a journey, not a single switch flip.

How SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Work Together for Real Estate Teams

These three controls are complementary layers in your defense. SPF verifies sending systems, DKIM verifies message integrity, and DMARC enforces your overall policy. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential email authentication protocols that work best as a unified system.

Consider a typical day: in real estate teams, these checks need to work across fast-moving deal communication when an agent sends a 9 a.m. offer from their CRM, a 1 p.m. inspection update from their transaction management platform, and 4 p.m. wire instructions from their primary email account. For each of those messages, SPF confirms the sending server is authorized, DKIM confirms the message content wasn’t altered, and DMARC tells the receiving server to accept or reject based on whether both checks passed. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC improve email authentication and deliverability across every one of those touchpoints.

Inbox providers increasingly look for all three. Having just SPF or just DKIM is better than nothing, but it leaves gaps in both your protection and your deliverability. These standards do not guarantee inbox placement, but they are now the baseline for being treated as a legitimate sender.

Treat email authentication as ongoing governance. Whenever a new tool starts sending email for your domain, its SPF and DKIM alignment and DMARC impact must be checked fast before it goes live.

Common Email Authentication Problems in Real Estate Organizations

The reality in most brokerages and teams is that five to eight different systems send email using the firm’s domain: CRM, dialer, marketing automation, transaction coordination platform, showing scheduler, e-sign service, and survey tools. Not all of them are included in SPF or properly configured with DKIM.

Common mistakes include:

• SPF records that exceed the 10-lookup DNS limit – adding too many “include:” statements causes SPF evaluation to fail entirely, making your record useless
• Missing DKIM for third party tools – a marketing platform signs with its own domain instead of yours, breaking alignment
• DMARC set to p=reject before all systems are aligned – legitimate mail from an overlooked tool gets blocked during critical deal stages
• Broken links between franchise DNS and local tools – agents using a shared brokerage domain like @bigbrokeragebrand.com assume central IT has everything covered but never confirm

Imagine a brokerage that launches a big spring campaign through a new marketing platform. Nobody added the platform to SPF or set up DKIM under the brokerage domain. Suddenly, emails to a major lender’s entire staff start bouncing or landing in spam. The team doesn’t realize it for days because the error isn’t visible in their outbox.

Maintain a simple inventory of every system that sends email using your firm’s domain. Review it quarterly or whenever you add a new tool. This single habit prevents the majority of authentication headaches.

Step-by-Step: How Agents and Teams Can Check Their Current Setup

You don’t need an IT degree to check whether your domain’s email authentication is in order. Here’s a straightforward self-assessment anyone can run:

Step 1: Identify your domain. This is the part after the “@” in your email address (e.g., carterrealty.com).

Step 2: Look up your SPF record. Go to a free DNS lookup tool like MXToolbox. Enter your domain and select “SPF Record Lookup.” You should see a TXT record starting with v=spf1. If nothing appears, you don’t have SPF set up.

Step 3: Look up your DKIM selectors. This is slightly trickier because you need to know the selector name your email provider uses (e.g., “google” for Google Workspace, “selector1” for Microsoft 365). Search for selector._domainkey.yourdomain.com in a DKIM lookup tool.

Step 4: Look up your DMARC record. In the same DNS lookup tool, search for _dmarc.yourdomain.com. You should see a TXT record starting with v=DMARC1. Check the p= value: is it none, quarantine, or reject?

Step 5: Send a test email. Send a message from your domain to a personal Gmail or Outlook account. Open the message, view the raw headers (in Gmail: three dots → “Show original”), and look for the “Authentication-Results” section. You’ll see pass or fail next to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

What your results mean in plain language:

• SPF exists but evaluation fails → your record may be too long or have a syntax error
• DKIM is missing for your primary sending platform → messages aren’t being signed
• DMARC is absent → receiving servers have no instructions on how to handle failures

Document what you find. Share it with whoever manages your DNS, whether that’s your brokerage IT department, your web vendor, or the Sure Send onboarding team, so you can plan improvements.

Setting Up the Right DNS Records: Who Does What

This is where roles need to be crystal clear. The domain owner, whether that’s the agent, team leader, or brokerage, or their DNS admin is the only party who can change DNS records. Tools like Sure Send provide the correct DNS record values and step-by-step guidance, but they do not log into your registrar or make changes on your behalf.

The common players who may need to be looped in:

• Brokerage IT department
• Website vendor or hosting provider
• Domain registrar support (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare)
• A trusted managed service provider handling DNS changes

The typical process flow looks like this:

1. Sure Send (or another platform) gives you the exact SPF and DKIM values needed
2. You or your DNS admin add the TXT records at your domain registrar
3. You wait for DNS propagation (usually 24–48 hours)
4. You run tests to confirm everything passes
5. You adjust if needed

Plan DNS changes outside critical transaction windows. Don’t update records in the middle of a week with multiple scheduled closings. If something is misconfigured, you don’t want it affecting wire confirmations or closing disclosures.

Keep a simple change log: what records were added or updated, by whom, and on what date. This makes troubleshooting far easier when something breaks six months later and nobody remembers what changed.

How Email Authentication Affects Deliverability (Without Promising Inboxes)

Inbox providers use many signals to decide where your email lands: engagement rates, complaint history, sending consistency, content quality, and authentication status. Authenticated email is less likely to be marked as spam by major email providers, and email deliverability improves with a positive sender reputation built over time.

Proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are necessary for good deliverability but not sufficient by themselves to guarantee inbox placement. Think of authentication as your entry ticket to the venue. Once you’re inside, your behavior (sending relevant content, maintaining clean lists, avoiding sudden volume spikes) determines whether you get a good seat.

Google requires email authentication for Gmail to reduce spam, and as of February 2024, Gmail began requiring bulk email senders to authenticate with both SPF and DKIM. Microsoft 365 similarly penalizes senders whose domains fail authentication checks by rating their messages as higher spam risk.

Unauthenticated or poorly authenticated real estate emails are more likely to be throttled, delayed, or marked as suspicious, particularly when they include links, attachments, or financial instructions. This matters most for large list sends. Listing alerts, market updates, and newsletter campaigns hit many recipients at once, magnifying any deliverability issues.

Healthy sending practices that complement authentication include:

• Gradually warming new sending domains before high-volume campaigns
• Avoiding sudden volume spikes before important sends
• Pruning disengaged contacts regularly
• Monitoring bounce rates and adjusting accordingly

Protecting Clients’ PII and Financial Data With Authentication

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC do not encrypt email content. What they do is significantly reduce successful domain spoofing, which is a common path to PII theft and wire diversion. Email spoofing can expose sensitive client information when attackers use your domain to request sensitive documents from unsuspecting buyers or sellers.

Consider the sensitive data that moves through real estate email every day:

• Driver’s license scans
• Bank verification letters
• Pre-approval letters
• Closing disclosures
• Voided checks for ACH setup
• Invoices and settlement statements

Authentication helps clients trust that update emails about document requests or secure portal links are really from their agent or title company. When your domain is protected, recipients and their mail servers can validate that you are a legitimate sender.

Agents should combine proper email authentication with other protections:

• Use secure portals for document uploads instead of email attachments
• Verbally verify any changes to payment instructions, every single time
• Educate clients at the listing or buyer consultation stage about how your firm communicates
• Enable MFA, which adds a layer of security for email accounts used in financial transactions

Demonstrating strong email security practices can be a genuine differentiator, especially when working with sophisticated buyers, sellers, and institutional partners who evaluate vendors on security posture.

Where Sure Send Fits in Your Email Authentication Strategy

Sure Send is an AI-native CRM with a proprietary email intelligence layer that depends on solid authentication to deliver follow-ups, newsletters, listing alerts, and automation for real estate and mortgage professionals. When your domain’s DNS records are properly configured, the campaigns you build in Sure Send, from nurture drips to “Win the Day” follow-ups, have a much better chance of reaching the people who need to see them.

During onboarding, the Sure Send team helps customers identify which SPF, DKIM, and DMARC DNS records are required for Sure Send-related sending. The team provides step-by-step guidance to add them correctly, helps you connect with the right DNS admin or IT contact when changes need to be made, walks you through verification, and checks results after propagation.

Sure Send does not own or control the customer’s DNS and does not change DNS records on the customer’s behalf. The domain owner or their admin always makes the final changes. This is an important distinction: Sure Send tells you exactly what to add, but you or your IT provider press the buttons at your registrar.

Sure Send’s email intelligence and reporting can also help customers spot authentication issues early. Unexpected bounce patterns, alignment problems with new sending sources, or spikes in delivery failures can all surface in the platform’s dashboards, giving you a signal before it becomes a crisis.

Better-aligned DNS records mean more of your Sure Send-powered campaigns reach clients, which means more conversations, more showings, and more closed deals.

Aligning All Your Real Estate Tools With Your Domain

Real estate teams typically use a stack of third party tools that send messages on their behalf:

• Transaction management platforms
• E-signature services
• Appointment and showing schedulers
• Review generation tools
• Online course or training platforms
• Lender referral and co-marketing systems

Each of these tools may send email from your domain or from its own. The first step is to inventory each tool and determine which ones use your domain in the “From” address. For those that do, gather the vendor’s SPF and DKIM setup instructions.

Domain alignment for DMARC means the visible “From” address and the domains used by SPF and DKIM should match or closely align. If your CRM sends as @yourbrokerage.com but signs with its own domain key, DMARC alignment fails even though DKIM itself passes.

The risk of quickly adding new tools during busy seasons, like spring and early summer, without updating DNS records is real. A new showing scheduler goes live in March, nobody adds its SPF include, and by April your confirmation emails are landing in spam for half your clients.

Establish an internal rule: no new system is allowed to send email from your firm’s domain in production until its SPF and DKIM requirements are understood and built into DNS.

Practical Policies and Playbooks for Teams and Brokerages

Brokerages should publish a short, plain-language internal policy about email domains. It doesn’t need to be a legal document. It should cover:

• Who can authorize new senders for the firm’s domain
• How to request DNS changes
• Acceptable use of personal email accounts for business communication

Create a simple checklist for adding any new tool that wants to send email as @yourbrand.com:

1. Does the tool need to send from our domain, or can it use its own?
2. What SPF include or IP address does the vendor require?
3. Does the vendor support DKIM signing under our domain?
4. Has the DMARC policy impact been reviewed?
5. Has a test send been verified before going live?

Train agents and staff at least once a year on email security basics. Explain what SPF, DKIM, and DMARC do in nontechnical terms and how to talk about them with clients. Cybersecurity protocols like email authentication are crucial for small business success, and a twenty-minute annual refresher can prevent costly mistakes.

Consider a “wire safety” script that agents share with buyers and sellers at the start of every transaction:

“Our company uses authenticated email to protect your transactions. We will never change wiring instructions by email alone. If you receive any email requesting a change to payment instructions, call us directly at the number on your contract before taking any action.”

Finally, appoint an internal “email owner” or small committee who works with vendors like Sure Send, web hosts, and IT providers to keep DNS records and authentication current. This person doesn’t need to be a technical expert. They just need to own the process.

Conclusion: Make Email Authentication Part of How You Run Your Real Estate Business

In a real estate business where email remains the primary way you reach clients, share documents, and coordinate closings, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are no longer optional. They are part of basic operational hygiene. Email authentication is crucial for industries handling sensitive transactions, and real estate sits squarely at the top of that list.

Proper DNS records protect brand reputation, improve the odds that your messages reach inboxes instead of spam folders, and reduce the risk of devastating wire fraud during critical communication windows. The cost of getting it wrong, whether measured in lost funds, damaged relationships, or broken links in your deal pipeline, far outweighs the effort of getting it right.

Run a quick self-assessment this week. Involve whoever manages your DNS. Map out a 30- to 60-day plan to shore up authentication across all your tools. If you’re evaluating or already using Sure Send, lean on the Sure Send team for guidance on which DNS records are needed and how to confirm that your CRM-driven email is properly authenticated.

As inbox and security standards tighten through 2026 and beyond, teams that treat email authentication as a living part of their tech stack will be better positioned to win and protect more deals.

FAQ: Email Authentication for Real Estate Agents and Teams

Do I need email authentication if I’m a solo agent using Gmail or Outlook?

If you use a free @gmail.com or @outlook.com address, Google or Microsoft handle SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for that domain automatically. However, using a free address looks less professional and gives you no control over your domain identity. If you send from a custom domain like @janesmithhomes.com through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, you absolutely need to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your own domain. Solo agents planning to grow into a team or build a personal brand should treat authentication as a “day one” task when they register a new domain.

Will SPF, DKIM, and DMARC stop all phishing and wire fraud attempts?

No. While these standards significantly reduce spoofing of your exact domain, they cannot stop criminals from using lookalike domains (such as “yourbrokeragc.com” instead of “yourbrokerage.com”) or sending messages from compromised accounts. Domain impersonation through typosquatting remains a threat that authentication alone doesn’t address. Email authentication must be paired with strong internal processes: verbal verification of wiring changes, client education, and suspicious-activity reporting. Even authenticated emails should never be treated as the only source of truth for financial instructions during a transaction.

How often should my team review our SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup?

A light review at least twice a year is good practice, and you should always review whenever you add or remove a major sending system such as a CRM, marketing platform, e-sign tool, or transaction coordination service. Build this into existing tech-review or vendor-renewal cycles that many brokerages already run annually. If you have DMARC reporting enabled, check those DMARC reports monthly to spot new or unexpected senders using your domain.

What if my brokerage controls the main domain and I’m just an agent under that brand?

In many franchise or large-brokerage models, central IT or marketing controls DNS and email authentication policies for the shared domain. Ask your brokerage whether SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are enforced and whether third party tools like Sure Send can be authorized to send from the brokerage domain on your behalf. When central policies are strict or unresponsive, some agents choose to register and control their own domain where they have full authority over DNS and the tools they use.

Can Sure Send fix my DNS records for me?

Sure Send cannot log into your domain registrar or DNS provider to make changes on your behalf. That responsibility belongs to you or your IT provider. What Sure Send does is provide the exact SPF and DKIM values you need for Sure Send sending, along with clear, step-by-step guidance that you or your DNS admin can follow. After changes are made, the Sure Send team can help you verify that records are visible and working correctly by reviewing test sends and authentication results. The users who create and maintain DNS records are always the domain owners themselves.