Mobile Mob
The secret to finding your next home may be as close as your pocket – thanks to a new breed of powerful mobile apps that are making it easier than ever to locate and research residences nationwide using your smartphone or portable tablet device, like an iPad.
“Apps allow buyers to see what is available to them and to develop a greater sense of what they want and need in a new home,” says Bev Thorne, chief marketing officer Century 21 Real Estate in Parsippany, N.J. “Apps also allow sellers to enable easy viewing by potential buyers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
According to the National Association of Realtors, 94 percent of homebuyers between 25 and 44 begin their search on the Internet. In addition, one in four adults who has a cell phone owns a smartphone, according to the Nielsen Co.’s “The State of Mobile Apps” report, issued last June.
This ever-increasing online dependency, combined with the surge in the popularity of mobile devices, has led to a rise in real estate-geared mobile apps that enable homebuyers, sellers and agents to be more productive while out and about. After all, mobile apps allow people to search for homes and real estate professionals while waiting in line at the store, sitting on the train or virtually anywhere.
The National Association of Realtors/Realtor.com now has a free mobile app for the iPhone, Windows 7 Phone and Android-powered phones that provides anyone instant access to info and pricing on more than 4 million homes for sale. Users can take advantage of search and mapping capabilities, learn of open houses, create private notes and ratings for preferred residences, view multiple photos and property details and more.
Zillow.com offers a free app for the iPhone/iPad and Windows and Android phones that yields data on all U.S. homes – not just homes for sale – allowing users to determine home values, check prices on properties for sale or rent, enjoy a curbside view of a home via Google Street View and more.
Popular real estate websites like Trulia.com, Hotpads.com, BHGexecutive.com (Better Homes and Gardens), SmarterAgent.com, MyNewPlace.com, and Homes.com offer free mobile apps with tools like mortgage calculators, that help simplify a home hunt.
“The most helpful apps focus on simplifying the home-search process, but there are a plethora of special interest apps that cater to special activities that relate to stages of the homebuying process,” Thorne says.
Apps from WalkScore.com and UrbanSpoon.com help users see how easy it is to get around by foot in the area of interest and check out local restaurants.
“A buyer or seller along with their broker or agent can now spend quality time doing up-front research at home or in the broker’s office. They can enjoy photos or virtual tours before jumping in the car,” says Joseph Benevides, CEO of HouseSavvy, a real estate consultancy based in Norwell, Mass.
Benevides cautions, however, that even the best mobile app can’t compete with a real world visit to a property of interest or the aid of a flesh-and-blood agent/broker/Realtor.
“These programs are great tools, but they can never replace a professional trained in understanding market conditions,” he says. “Apps can make statistical estimates or show photos of houses, but they cannot tell if a home is next to a toxic-waste dump, for example. And a buyer or seller cannot interact conversationally with an app or computer program.”