Although the iPhone isn’t the best thing since sliced bread (just don’t tell iPhone users that), it is a super useful tool that people are relying more and more upon. Available applications have become more sophisticated over time and there is no way to fit all of those useful apps in one post, but we’d like to show you just a few that you should know about.
Today, we bring to you a variety of apps ranging from brokerage and real estate search apps to apps you can show your buyers or sellers to impress them and even a few that could help your business.
Apps to help your business:
- Speak4it: for agents who are in the car a lot, Speak4it is a speech to text app that allows you to keep on working while driving without hitting deer, trucks or innocent children in the road.
- ESIGNControl: manage documents and get signatures with this app which is DocuSign’s iPhone app for those of you on the go. Esignatures are more accepted now in the industry than ever, don’t limit yourself to a computer or laptop, use your iPhone! Go ahead and start practicing now by saying, “oh you like this home? Sign here please!”
- TourNarrator: manage your listings and clients better with your notes and feedback from clients.
- Agent Feedback: the iTunes description is pretty cool for this app, “permits the agent to select only those questions they think relate to the specific property and to have visitor comments, linked with visitor contact details, sent to a file server, for review and emailing to the seller.” Cool!
Apps to help your clients:
- Where: this app is super useful to agents who are showing buyers around and need to quickly answer that “where is [insert day care, car wash, obscure religious location, arbitrary retailer, etc]?” when inside a listing. Be prepared!
- RulerPhone: while on a show and a client says, “I don’t know if my six foot couch will fit here,” just whip out your iPhone, pull up RulerPhone and a credit card and take a picture of the space with a credit card in the shot and RulerPhone will tell you the measurements based on the credit card. How cool is that?!?
- Home Tracker: this consumer facing app allows home buyers to keep track of the homes they see and take notes so they can remember them later. Encourage your buyers to use it because their efficiency is your efficiency… prevent those, “wait, which house did I like, the pink one or the blue one? Are you sure it wasn’t the blue one?”
- Mortgage Calculator: if we have to tell you what this app does, you’re fired. But what you should know about it is that it has a cool interface whereas most calculators are SUPER boring.
- Dictionary of Real Estate Terms: for clients that like to know everything about everything or frequently have that deer in the headlights look, both can benefit from a dictionary. I haven’t played with it so I don’t know how thorough or accurate it is, but the concept is great!
- Houzz: this app has tons of pictures and “ideabooks” that let users browse style and clip them like a design scrapbook. Then, they can check out contractors to implement those very ideas. Agents can use it to get an idea of the style a buyer likes when people are having a tough time describing their dream home (interior design can give you a great insight into their wants).
- Offender Locator: when you’re in a listing and someone asks you about safety, Fair Housing prohibits your opining, but you can at least offer their taking a look at where sex offenders live and save them a step. Parents will appreciate this app.
- Color Snap: this Sherwin Williams app lets you take a picture from a magazine or real life and select up to three colors from the image, producing the paint code. Real world example: you’re in a model home and the buyer loves the color of the walls and adores the couch. Snap a shot and immediately email them the paint code numbers. That’ll impress ’em!
Brokerage and real estate search apps:
Whether or not you’re affiliated with any of these brokerages or search sites, you should at least be aware of what their offerings are. And who knows, dare I say that you might just like one better than your own?
- Realtor.com is one of the top rated real estate apps on many user lists and is one of the most downloaded RE app in iTunes.
Century 21: I’ve been talking with the C21 folks and they just released their app that has the ability to geolocate wiki information and users can pull pics, school data, demographics, area history and more based on what zip code they’re in.- Zip Realty: ZipRealty’s iPhone app also has some augmented reality options built in which is pretty cool!
- Zillow: love or hate Zillow, their app is well liked by users and you should know what your clients are seeing, so check this one out for sure.
- Trulia: this app offers a pretty neat Open House planner, so it’s a great idea to have your Open Houses listed appropriately.
- NearBuy real estate search: created by four students, this app is highly acclaimed by industry insiders.
- NearBuy apartment search: sometimes when you’re in a pinch and a home isn’t completely built in time or clients arrive early from out of town and their short sale hasn’t been approved yet, you may need to do a quick apartment search when you’re on the go. It’s good to have just in case.
- Homes.com: has fully interactive maps which is different than some other apps, so buyers dig this one.
What apps are you or your clients using frequently? Let us know in comments!
Jason Sandquist
July 7, 2010 at 12:18 am
I’ll add Dropbox for iPhone or iPad. One of the best apps ever created!
Lani Rosales
July 7, 2010 at 12:21 am
OOOH, good call! For anyone interested, here it is: http://www.dropbox.com/iphoneapp
Bryan Thompson
July 7, 2010 at 9:47 am
As an avid iPhone user myself, it frustrates me that so few of our agents in Southwest Missouri use them. This is primarily because our lockboxes and keys are from Supra, and they still haven’t gone live for the iPhone. Is anyone else dealing with this issue?
Benn Rosales
July 7, 2010 at 11:53 am
The trend of being chained to the lockbox is coming to an end. Big changes on the horizon, and the great thing is, although it may seem as though agents aren’t leaving behind the lockbox chain, they are, and it’s driving demand to new box solutions.
Barbara
July 7, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Another really cool one I have used quite a bit with my clients is the “Open Houses by HomeFinder” app. They have partnerships with well over 100 newspapers across the country too. My clients love it too!
Jason Improta
July 7, 2010 at 1:47 pm
I have a DROID because Verizon in my area is far superior but we moved to a new office and company where 90% of the agents have iPhones. They say that despite AT&T not being as good or even bad the iPhone compensates plenty. Thoughts or comments??
Jim Herrera
July 7, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Thanks, Linda, for the informative article. At MLSListings, we reviewed all the iPhone apps and decided to use the Smarter Agent iPhone app. As a former Apple employee, I can tell you how important the “user experience” is for a successful implementation. Smarter Agent’s app is “iPhone awesome”. And, it also works on other smartphone platforms. So, we can support all of our subscribers from a single source without incurring additional development, integration or support costs.
Nick Nymark
July 7, 2010 at 9:30 pm
I have a Motorola Droid with Verizon, AT&T is currently not in the area I am at. Anyone have any great apps they have tried out for the Motorola Droid?
Sam
July 8, 2010 at 12:04 am
realestatetools.com -> Property Evaluator app = the sweetness.
I am not a rep from this company, but seriously if you do a search for real estate on the iphone, this is a top app, I dont know how you missed it. It was the first app I purchased, and a no-brainer. It kills all the other apps you have listed for investors. I personally find zillow, and to be honest, all the real estate type apps, etc. much easier to read online. The mortgage one is nice I guess, but I have a 15 in one app that includes a mortgage calculator + mortgage comparison built in, plus 14 other apps that are helpful.
The app I use is the “Property Evaluator” one for “commercial” properties, but really this is for anyone who invests in buy and hold multifamilies and bigger properties. I keep a DB of over 30-40 properties, and enter every property I see in it (though I delete ones that arent interesting).
It allows me to compare the numbers on properties as I look at them & make a decision before I leave.
I used to have to enter all my info into excel google docs (a home-made excel spreadsheet) that calculated all the numbers.
This app has saved me weeks of time. I can share info with other investors in a click, it is siiiiiiiiick.
They have some other apps for flippers (I am not into that so whatever), but every serious investor should own it, even if you have to BUY a itouch or whatever. Even if you are buying a normal property, it is still an investment, and this would help you understand the numbers at least.
Anyone who doesnt run the numbers on the house they are buying is taking a needless gamble.
Thanks for bringing up the topic, this one app paid for my iphone many times over, so I agree it is important.
David Crandall
July 8, 2010 at 11:00 am
Looks like a few of us would be interested in a follow up article aimed at Android users. 🙂
HTC EVO here.
Joe Nim
March 25, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Thank you for a great list of real estate apps!
There is another useful real estate and mortgage app that you might want to check out, iQualify Pro. It is a new mortgage calculator on the App Store. Has a power feature that allows real estate or loan professionals to pre-qualify their clients in seconds based on their income and other factors such as debt ratios. Great app, but need UI improvement.
Don Shurts
February 19, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Thank you for the information about these great apps. I grabbed several of them from the App store. Does anyone know of an app that a realtor can put their list of address of showings for a day into an app that will allow a friend or two to know when the agent is showing a property? As a safety for the agent, with an app the agent could enter the address of their showings and times. The app would allow a friend or two to know where and when an agent was. Then the agent could check a property on the app after they have shown the house…alerting their friend that they are safely moving to the next property on the list.
Vic Anand
March 29, 2012 at 3:01 pm
I think this is a great list, but nothing specifically addresses client management. I found a great app called RealProspects, which I have been using to store all my prospect’s information on my iPhone. It is very simple to use with a clean layout.
mlee3680
July 2, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Perfect post. Here’s another post which shows a tool that helps you create any type of real estate app with calculations for web or mobile. Just point and click. Templates are available to use or create your app from scratch https://blog.caspio.com/case_studies/homazoomas-suite-of-real-estate-apps-offer-home-buyers-a-unique-advantage/
kellyj481
July 3, 2012 at 12:51 am
Fantastic post. Here’s another post which shows a tool that helps you create any type of real estate app with calculations for web or mobile. Just point and click. Templates are available to use or create your app from scratch https://blog.caspio.com/case_studies/homazoomas-suite-of-real-estate-apps-offer-home-buyers-a-unique-advantage/
JoeNim
August 25, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Thank you for the great list of useful apps for Realtors.
There is another new iPhone app, iTransaction, I started using to help coordinate my real estate transactions on the go. A very useful app for real estate agents, brokers, and coordinator. I highly recommend this app for real estate professionals.