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By Michele Lerner
When Louise S. and her husband learned they were due to
relocate, Louise startedthe process of searching for a new place to
live just as she has done for dozens of moves in the past. This
time, though, Louise added the Trulia application to her iPhone,
which she says instantly simplified the experience, cutting down
the number of homes to visit in person from 70 to about 20.
While the Internet gives prospective homebuyers the ability to
gather their owninformation and preview homes online, real estate
is again undergoing a revolution in the form of mobile applications
designed for smartphones and tablets.
Mobile apps provide an instant link to photos, videos and
comprehensive detailsabout every home listed that meet the search
criteria set by the user. Real estate companies such as Coldwell
Banker Residential Brokerage, Century 21 and Weichert Realtors have
developed their own apps, while Realtor.com, the consumer portal of
the National Association of Realtors (NAR), competes with Zillow
and Trulia.
Geo-tagging
"Mobile apps have changed everything," says Darrin Friedman,
branch vice president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in
Washington, D.C. "Five years agoyou couldn't imagine standing
somewhere on a street corner seeing a virtual tourof a home a few
blocks away. Now your smartphone tells a satellite where you are
and the software finds all the listed houses nearby. You can also
type in thename of a neighborhood or a zip code to find the
homes."
Friedman is partial to the iPad, which allows you to draw a
circle on the map and instantly see all the listings within that
radius.
Karlton Utter, manager of the Weichert Realtors office in East
Brunswick, N.J.,
says buyers can access information on a home on their
smart-phone or tablet in multiple ways, including a website listed
on a for-sale sign, a QR (quick response) code (if they have an app
that reads QR codes) or simply through proximity tothe listing when
they open the app.
"The difference between mobile apps and using a laptop or
desktop computer is that the information is instant and more
geographically coordinated," says Utter."If you are in a
neighborhood you like, you can find listings more easily, rather
than sitting in front of a computer typing in an address."
Real estate and technology
The NAR 2010 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers shows that 89
percent of buyers used the Internet as a search tool when looking
for a home. The NAR does not havethe data yet to show how many of
these buyers are using mobile apps to access the Internet.
The NAR's 2010 Center for Realtor Technology Smartphone Survey
shows that 87 percent of Realtors who participated in the survey
downloaded apps, including appsfor social media, maps and mortgage
calculators.
Louise S. says the Trulia app allows her to search for homes on
a map and to narrow the choice by her price range and other
parameters. One of her favorite features is the ability to set
alerts for price changes on individual properties.
"The app is both user-friendly and comprehensive," she says.
"One of the best parts about this app besides the photos is the
input from Realtors and from otherbuyers. You can find out if an
area has a lot of traffic or is family-oriented b
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ased on comments on the site."
Neighborhood information
The Fair Housing Act prohibits Realtors from sharing information
such as demographics, crime statistics or opinions about schools
because this could result in steering buyers to a particular
neighborhood. Yet buyers naturally want to know a
bout the safety of an unfamiliar area, the schools and
demographics such as whether there are lots of families with young
children or primarily retirees.
Mobile apps and Google maps can find nearby neighborhood
information. For example, the AroundMe app, free for iPhones,
allows you to search instantly for banks,bars, hospitals,
restaurants and more. The free BAO for iOS apps provides
demographic and market information about your location. In some
cities you can use the free EveryBlock app for news and crime
information.
You can also use mobile apps to find out about crime statistics
and school reports from sites like greatschools.org and
spotcrime.com. The free Walk Score app rates neighborhoods based on
how easily you can walk to shops, parks, restaurants
, public transportation and libraries.
Friedman says mobile apps are available, often for free, for
almost anything a buyer could need to make a decision about buying
a home--from a mortgage calculator to an interior design app that
allows you to upload property photos and use the app to see what it
looks like with various design elements.
About the author:Michele Lerner, author of "HOMEBUYING: Tough
Times, First Time, Any Time", has been writing about personal
finance and real estate for more than two decades fora variety of
publications and websites including Investopedia, Insurance.com,
HSH.com, SavingsAccount.com, National Real Estate Investor
magazine, The Washington Times, Urban Land magazine, NAREIT's REIT
magazine and numerous Realtor assoc
iations.
http://cashmoneyhousebuyers.com
