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9 Futuristic Real Estate Apps That Already Exist
Posted under: General Area, Quality of Life,
Home Buying |
January 16, 2013 5:32 PM | 61,577 views | 40 comments
Remember the Jetsons? When you think back on it, it’s uncanny how many of the so-called
space age technologies that George, Jane, Judy, Elroy (and the inimitable Rosie)
had in their 2062-era home exist right now - 40 years ahead of schedule! Video
phone calls, mobile devices with video and phone capabilities, flatscreen
“televiewers” with scrolling news updates (à
la
the internet), digital diaries, even robotic cleaners like Roomba: all Jetson
gadgetry, and all of it exists as
we speak.
The
light-speed at which web and mobile applications, or apps, are being developed
and launched today means that it’s easy to find yourself pining away for an app
that could work a particular sort of futuristic wizardry in your house hunt or
home sale - when, in fact, that app already exists! Don’t get stuck in a real
estate time warp - instead, tap into this list of 9 futuristic real estate apps
that already exist.
1. Trulia. I’m obviously partial, but I’m not the only one that loves the Trulia
mobile app suite. Here’s why: wherever you find yourself - at your pal’s baby
shower or lost in a strange town - you can pull out your phone or tablet, open
the Trulia app and it will instantly detect your location and serve you up
everything you’d ever need to know about the homes for sale in that area. How’s that
for futuristic?
But
there’s more! As the New York Times raved, “Trulia
includes
a well-designed search feature, where users can find homes for sale or rent
according to a specified price and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or
homes that have recently posted price reductions, for instance. Trulia
users
can also contact a home’s real estate agent from each listing, and scan a list
of nearby amenities and institutions, like gas stations or schools." The
app also allows you to send listings to your agent and save favorites to the
same My Trulia dashboard you can access from your laptop, desktop, or other
device from home or work. Plus, you can use the Trulia Mortgage Calculator app
for iPhone and iPad to help see how much you can afford and compare personalized
loan quotes.
Available
for: iOS
and Android
Price:
Free
2.
Home
Snap.
HomeSnap is an augmented reality app that gives you access
to all sorts of information about a home, by just taking a photo of the
property. In fact, some folks have deemed it the ultimate form of tech-empowered
voyeurism, but what’s cool about it is that taking a photo is the key that
unlocks the information from public records or listing websites.
Available
for iOS.
Android version coming soon.
Price: Free
3.
House
Hunter.
I have a practice of asking my home buyer clients to track what’s good, bad and
ugly about individual properties as we tour them, and to select/rank their top
couple from every tour. The House Hunter App represents a high-tech upgrade to
that useful, but old-school, exercise of tracking homes’ attributes and
comparing properties against each other. Because it’s a digital experience, it’s
quicker; it’s easier to share with your co-buyer, your parents or your agent;
and it’s simpler to execute, as the app actually provides a list of over 80
property attributes you can choose from to describe any given home you see on
tour.
Available
for: iOS
Price: $3.99
4. Houzz.
My friends and colleagues have raved about this app - on iPhone, iPad, Android
and on the web - since it first came out a couple of years back. But not until I
was actually embarking upon a home remodeling project of my own, could I fully
appreciate its value in terms of delivering a seemingly endless number of photos
of well-designed rooms, and the ability to favorite and track them to help
organize your own redesign plans and, even better, to communicate them vividly
to your designer or contractor. What’s more, house hunters can (and should) tap
into the app to compile images that depict their stylistic leanings and
aesthetic preferences better than they can do verbally, for the purpose of
helping their agent understand their vision.
Availble
for: iOS
and Android
Price:
Free
5. Photo
Measures
and My
Measures. If
I have one tape measure I have a dozen - yet I never seem to have one handy when
I need them the most. Whether you’re the type of house hunter who wants to
account for the precise dimensions of an heirloom dining table or a seller who
is trying to do as much DIY property preparation as you can, both of these apps
equip you with the high-tech capability to simply take a pictue of a wall, room,
floor or door and use your fingers to get an accurate measure of any given
distance on the image.
Photo
Measures available for
iOS
Price:
$4.99
My
Measures available for Android
Price:
$4.99
6. DocuSign
Ink.
Sign any contract document, disclosure, offer or counteroffer - in a moment’s
time - with your mobile device. This app is also integrated with the basic
boilerplate contract forms used by agents in most areas. DocuSign Ink is so
convenient and makes signing so easy you’ll have to exercise some serious
discipline to actually read through things before you sign them.
Available
for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
7. Color
Capture/ColorSmart/ColorClix/Wall
Painter.
All of these paint apps are brought to you by individual paint brands, and
they’re all great - I say, use the one that maps to your favorite paint brand.
They all empower you to snap a photo of anything in the world around you and
find the company’s matching paint color. And for those with futuristic design
desires, you can use any of these apps to virtually “paint” the walls of your
house and preview the results before you even buy a single bucket of paint,
using computer
vision and intelligent object detection.
Color
Capture available for: iOS
and Android
Price: Free
ColorSmart
available for: iOS
and Android
Price: Free
ColorClix
available for: iOS
and Android
Price:
Free
Wall
Painter available for: iOS
Price: $.99
8.
Airbnb
Neighborhoods.
With functionality provided by the site NabeWise, the web-based application
Airbnb Neighborhoods is a program that futuristic house hunters can use to power the
ultimate decision-making experience: trying a neighborhood on for size, whether
for a night, a weekend or a couple of weeks. Though it’s currently limited to
major world cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C., Airbnb Neighborhoods allows
you to click on a city, click on the area “flavor” you want in your future
neighborhood (options include “Nightlife” “Loved by Washtonians” “Stunning
Views” and more) and it will not only surface the neighborhoods that have been
tagged with these characteristics by the folks who live there, it will also pull
up available Airbnb homes you can rent on a very short-term basis in those
areas, if you want to give the area a whirl before you launch your house hunt in
earnest.
Available
for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
9. Karl’s
Mortgage Calculator.
When I think of futuristic gadgetry, I envision things that are simple and
uncomplicated, yet flexible and powerful when you put them to use. This is
precisely how I’d describe Karl’s Mortgage Calculator. Not only does it
calculate payments from a purchase price and interest rate, it also will
calculate any one of those items from the other two - uber-helpful for buyers
who know how much they can spend, but not how much that will buy them, and for
folks who are trying to evaluate the different payment scenarios of loan
programs with several different interest rate levels. Karl’s Mortgage
Calculator instantly produces very easy-to-understand graphs and charts, and is
really helpful for folks considering various scenarios for paying their home
loan(s) off early.
Available
for: Android
ALL: What
are your favorite real estate apps?
ALL:
You
should follow Trulia
and
Tara
on Facebook!
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