Mobile Apps Make Home Searching Easy on the Go!
Friday, May 4th, 2012Apps are a great way to dial into real estate listings on the go: you can have innumerable home data at your fingertips! Additionally, many apps offer a much more user-friendly, interactive experience than searching for homes from your home laptop or PC.
From geo locating you to find properties in your area and slick swiping functionality through high-res imagery, to historical home values and saved searches, these apps really can serve as a helpful mobile resource during the house hunting process. Or, if you’re like us, you enjoy browsing through properties even when you’re not on the market just to see how homes and neighborhoods are trending.
For searching for real estate on the go in Atlanta (whether it’s from your car, the waiting room at the doctor’s office or otherwise), we’ve found the following apps to be great.
Redfin app (download here)
What we love about this app:
- It’s free!
- Search by zip code (not all houses in the same city name are created equal!)
- Run a saved search
- Take your own photos to add to listings
- Add your own freehand listing notes
- E-mail a friend a property
- Search results shown by map (OR by list)
Official Realtor.com app (download here): Calls itself “the most accurate and up to date” real estate app.
What we love:
- It’s free!
- Quick location finder (comes in handy if you’re, say, driving around in Brookhaven and want to find nearby home listings ASAP)
- Shows open houses nearby
- Includes rental properties
- Add your own notes – either freehand or by choosing details from the drop-down menu (e.g., “remodeled kitchen”)
- Includes nearby recently sold (additional data is always good for understanding comps)
- Area highlighter – create a custom area by drawing on the map (even more specific than zip code search)
- Shows price reductions
Custom search area using “search highlighter” tool
Trulia app (download here)
What we love:
- It’s free!
- Shares property record historic data
- Shows price reductions
- Shares median home values related to local market pricing
- Allows you to find open houses nearby
- Shows rental properties
- Sign up to receive alerts when something changes related to a home you’ve “favorited”
- Details nearby amenities so you can understand a home’s proximity to shops, grocery stores, your bank, etc.
Most all apps we explored seemed to have the following in common
- Multiple high-res images
- Android and iOS versions
- Saved/custom searches
For more great apps and special features, review this “Best Real Estate Apps for House Hunters” article on CBS.com.
When you’re ready to go from casually looking to wanting to visit listings, consider The Peters Company for your real estate needs. Contact us at wecare@thepeterscompany.com or 404-419-3619.
As you’re perusing mobile apps and their inventory, please note that what’s searchable is consumer based and not agent-based. In other words, while these apps are a great place to start and search on the go, what you find may not be an entirely accurate reflection of the market. For example, we’ve heard on good faith that Trulia doesn’t reflect all active inventory.
One more accurate way to scope out listings with your desired square footage, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, amenities and neighborhood(s) is to meet with us and set up a Listingbook account (entirely agent-based and more up to date).
