The Drive-By House Hunt: 5 Ways to Find Your Dream Home – from Your Phone

Vast portions of the house hunting experience have moved online, but some of the most urgent needs to get the dirt on a home for sale arise when you are nowhere near a computer. A lot of inspired house hunting actually comes up while you're in the car - here are a few secrets on how you can app your way to your dream home, right from your phone.

1. Find properties for sale near your current location - wherever you are. Have you ever visited a friend for dinner or passed through an unfamiliar area, and fallen in love with the neighborhood's boutiques and tree-lined streets (or pubs and tattoo parlors)? If you find yourself in a neighborhood you love, and you want to see homes for sale nearby, don't write the street names down! Use GPS location-based search to find nearby homes for sale. Go to Realtor.ca to view homes near you.

2. Scope out chic shops, restaurants and other must-haves near a home you're viewing. So, you found a home you like. You went to see it at an open house, or with your agent. But maybe you don't know the neighborhood well, and before you make an offer, you'd like to see where you would be doing your grocery shopping and where the neighborhood hot spots are. You guessed it – you can do that on your phone. Just use the Poynt app.

3. Take your house hunt from virtual real life: get inside the actual homes! House hunting online is so fun it occasionally becomes compulsive. But sooner or later, every house hunter gets the itch to get into some actual homes. If you get that itch on a Sunday morning or you find yourself in an awesome part of town on a Sunday afternoon, use your Realtor app to run a quick search for nearby open houses, and go right in. Or, if you've found a home you like and want to drive by and do a neighbor-check (you know, that check to make sure your dream home isn't surrounded by a junk yard on one side and nuclear waste depot on the other), one tap on the property's detail page gets you driving directions. Any time you're reviewing a property from the Realtor app, you're literally a single tap away from calling or emailing the agent to make an appointment for a private viewing.

4. Take your saved homes with you, without a single piece of paper. Printing out listings you like so you can drive by them? Shuffling papers with one hand while you steer with the other? With your free Realtor account, you can save homes you like and want to drive by while you're house hunting at work, I mean, on your lunch break. Then, when you get in the car to drive by the homes or visit the open house, just log into your My Realtor account from the app, and all your desired digs will be right at hand. Pick one, tap, and get driving directions from wherever you are to there.

5. Find a nearby rental for yourself, your kid or your mother-in law. If you have found *the* neighborhood of your dreams, but need to save up a little longer, or you've found your dream home and have a loved one you want to keep close (but not too close), use your phone to search for rentals. The Rental apps allows you to use all the same GPS and amenities searches available for properties for sale to search homes for rent, too. Just tap Homes for Rent, and you're off to the races. I mean, you're off to the rentals.

Happy House Haunting.

Randy BettInvestment Realtor/Author/Investor

Real Estate Professionals Inc.Better Group Real Estate 202-5403 Crowchild Trail NWCalgary, AB T3B 4Z1

Phone:403-774-7464 Ext:1Fax:403-208-0082Toll Free fax:888-711-6801

Randy Bett www.BetterGroupRealEstate.ca