The best and most used apps in the real estate space are those that are designed to help users search for properties. The big 3 real estate search sites are www.realtor.com , www.zillow.com, and www.trulia.com. I recommend all 3 of these sites for searching for properties on your computer but as far as their “apps” go they each have unique features.
The key benefit to using these real estate investing apps is the location services built into your mobile device which lets your phone & apps know where you are currently located. This enables you to see what is for sale around you when you are out in the field looking at houses. However in order for this to work you must have your location services enabled under “Settings” > ”General ”> Privacy”.
Realtor Mobile App For Investors
As a real estate investor or real estate agent you are looking for a good deal on a house meaning a house that is priced to sell for you or your client. I find that searching using an online site like www.realtor.com is a great tool to look for potential properties to buy or invest in. When I go out to look at the house, I use the realtor.com app when I am in front of the house which allows me to see everything available for sale in the area around the subject property.
You can refine your search to show sold properties, properties for sale, properties for rent and you can also search by number of bedrooms and bathrooms. You can also sort by price, distance, open houses and how new an MLS listing is. I use this app the most frequently out of all the property search apps when I am out in the field. Here is a link to the Realtor.com app for the iPhone: http://www.realtor.com/mobile/iphone
One very useful tip when using this app is that when you click on a property and you click on the contact info for the real estate agent then with your iPhone or iPad you can click on the “add to contacts” button and add the real estate agent info to your Contacts on your iPhone or Ipad. This is especially useful if you call a lot of real estate agents like I do since the information about the agent as well as the address of the property, a link to the listing, the date and even the MLS ID is stored in your contacts.
If you have an iPad and an iPhone or Mac and you backup your contacts using iCloud then this is a very useful feature since it is a great way to keep track of real estate agents that you have called and sync between your iPad and iPhone. When the real estate agent returns your call you will know exactly which property they are calling about. This is a very useful tool for investors and agents.
If you only call real estate agents occasionally then you might not see the huge benefit to that. But if you speak to hundreds of real estate agents like we do then it can be very useful to have this contact info saved in your contacts. And it will save you a lot of time. And as we all know time is money. And using apps effectively is a great way to save time.
Trulia Mobile App For Investors
Trulia real estate is another great real estate web site which can be found at www.trulia.com. We use the Trulia site and Trulia app very frequently in our office. This app is also using the location services built in to your mobile device to show you houses for sale around your location. One useful feature that I use often is the “draw” feature which allows you to set the perimeters for your search. This is especially useful if you are limiting your search for houses to an area that is very specific and do not want to search for houses past a certain street, bridge, main road etc. As you utilize the draw feature the app shows you how many homes are listed for sale within the perimeter that you drew.
Another great feature with the Trulia app is the “layers” feature which can be used to show heatmaps for crime, average listing price, average sales price, median sales price and average price per square foot. Another useful tool is the “boundaries” feature which shows the boundaries to neighborhoods and zip codes. You can download the Trulia app for your iPhone at this link: http://www.trulia.com/mobile/iphone/
Zillow Mobile App For Investors
Zillow is currently the most visited real estate site on the planet recently overtaking the # 2 site Realtor.com in traffic (according to Zillow). Zillow is very user friendly web site for real estate investors and can be found at www.zillow.com The Zillow app is also very user friendly and what I like most about it is that it uses different colors to show houses for sale, houses that sold and houses that owners want to sell. It also shows houses for rent which can be useful for investors that want to be landlords and know how much cash flow they will get on a property.
One key difference between Zillow and the other sites mentioned above is that Zillow is not the MLS. Many real estate agents do not even know this and are not aware that Zillow shows all properties not just the ones that are listed on the MLS. Zillow does not have any relationship with the MLS and simply gives information on every property (available for sale and not for sale). Zillow even allows users to indicate a price that they would be willing to sell their property for with a feature called “Make Me Move”.
Many investors use Zillow as a tool to calculate what a home is worth and Zillow gives what is known as a “Zestimate”. This is a useful tool but keep in mind that users can edit home facts and that the “Zestimate” is just a ballpark estimate and the actual value of the property can sometimes vary substantially to the Zestimate. Another useful feature on Zillow is the “Rent Zestimate” which shows you what your subject property might rent for. Other useful features with the Zillow app are the ability to add notes and photos to any property that you are interested in and save them. You can find the Zillow app and other Zillow Mobile apps at this link: http://www.zillow.com/mobile/
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