The Real Estate Apps You Need in Home-Buying Season

Whether you’re a first-time or seasoned homebuyer, locating quality property and navigating the purchasing process can be challenging especially during the home-buying season. However, there are helpful apps that can make finding and purchasing a home that fits your needs easier.

According to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, Freddie Mac, the real estate deals that happen in April, May and June account for 40 percent of the total home sales for the year.

For those in the market to sell their home, listing it before April is key to achieve success. For those who are buying, the strategy changes. From April to June, given the high competition from other buyers, houses often sell above their list price making it less than an ideal time for buyers who are willing to wait. Instead, house hunters should wait until the fall. October has been identified as the best month to purchase a home.

Millennials now comprise 68 percent of first-time home buyers and 32 percent of the total home buying market. As digital natives, creating real estate apps to help the process of purchasing a home has been a growing opportunity for app developers. Here are a few of the tools that will help home buyers and sellers make it through the process.

Zillow
Zillow is one of the most well known real estate apps because of its robust inventory of homes and its various filters and sorting features that many apps lack. Zillow goes a step further to offer state-specific mortgage rate and transaction histories per property, both critical pieces of information.

Homes.com 
With an interface close to that of Airbnb, this app allows you to search a specific geographic location for homes for sale, showing a map with price tags scattered across it. There are filtering options for price and home details like number of bathrooms or bedrooms. You can also set up email alerts to get notified when a new house is listed in a specific area.

HomeKeepr
HomeKeepr has developed two interfaces: one for homeowners and one for real estate agents.

For homeowners, this app is most useful after you’ve completed the purchase of a new home. It provides a directory of local home maintenance service providers, which can traditionally be stressful when you’re in a new area without friends or family to make recommendations.

For real estate agents, one of the key skills real estate agents master is keeping in contact with people they have done business with, so they’re top of mind for the next time clients have to buy or sell. The app allows you to keep in touch with past clients and find new clients.

Dwellr
Dwellr is unique because it is backed by the Census Bureau. The information it provides is rich in neighborhood information – there are 40 different categories of information provided for each neighborhood. This app is best used when paired with another real estate app that excels in the specific property information.

WalkScore
For those who are looking to purchase homes or apartments in urban areas, WalkScore is helpful by placing not only homes for sale on the map, but also frequently used amenities like grocery stores, schools and entertainment areas.

Given the wide variety of apps offered for the real estate market, regardless of what side of the market you’re on, it can be beneficial to double check information with multiple apps to verify that you’re finding not only the home that you want, but also the area and environment that fits for your lifestyle.

Happy shopping!

 

 

 

 

Sarah Graham
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