The trend of taking over a global market has reached numerous industries. And technology is helping them achieve this feat with minimal investment. The digital age report for real estate states that around 44% of buyers start their research online before buying a home or property.

Real estate apps like Zillow have made it so easy for consumers to get an idea of the property they wish to buy. Older millennials have made a huge contribution to this increasing online trend. If you own a real estate business or are planning on getting started with this venture, it would be beneficial that you learn the essentials first. This is the perfect read if you wish to create a housing app like Zillow.

Real Estate Market Analysis

As per the National Association of Realtors, if you’re in real estate, you need to have a web or mobile app, a YouTube channel, and a social media page. Here are some of the statistics that best state the current market scenario.

• 20% of home buyers use their smartphones to find an agent.
• 62% of home buyers find online search to be extremely useful.
• 3 out of 4 home buyers find their home using their mobile devices.

Benefits of Developing a Mobile App for your Real Estate Business

There are many challenges that you have to face before you develop a real estate application. It comprises 3 main users: buyers, sellers, and realtors. Online services hold benefits for all three users. Here’s a list of the same.

Widen your Consumer Base

If you’re planning on increasing your consumer base, an app will be the right way to go. Then it can offer a chance to your consumers to view property, plans, prices, videos, and more. Making use of this users can easily browse through thousands of homes without moving an inch. A mobile app can solve many problems for sellers, one of which is reaching potential buyers irrespective of their location.

View Property Remotely

In today’s times, we’re all living time poor lives. Buying a property needs a lot of physical investment, like visiting numerous properties, and more. With a real estate app, one can show videos, photos, guided tours, and more to their clients.

Using the same, users can only visit the property they’re interested in. This will save time, help visit a property remotely, add value to the decision-making process, and increase sales. This not only saves time for buyers but also sellers. As buyers have fewer homes to visit but sellers have to offer equal attention to all the clients.

Get in Touch with Customers Directly

One can increase customer interaction by making use of an app. The same is essential for every business. If you include a communication panel with your app, you can get in touch with them instantly. This inculcates trust as well as reliability in your customers.

Accurate Customer Targeting

As a customer registers on your platform, you will get access to a lot of their personalized information such as demography, geographical location, preferences, budget, and more. This information can help you make sound business decisions as well as suggest homes that fall under the consumer’s budget. Data is the key here. If you use other features you can draw a lot of useful information from the data you collect.

Move Ahead of your Competition

There is cutthroat competition in the real estate world. If you want to stay ahead in the same, you must develop a real estate application as soon as possible. This service will also promote your brand with word-of-mouth publicity and using digital marketing practices. One of the other things that you must be aware of is that your app will only be appealing to your users if it offers an intuitive UI/UX and other distinctive features.

User boarding is one of the most boring processes for a user. But it’s surely responsible for your platform’s first impression. You should make this process simple and quick. If you ask for irrelevant information there is a high chance that a user can quit your app. The best way to go about the same is to integrate social media APIs for quick onboarding.

Advanced Search with Filters

Your app can possess thousands of properties. But a user is always looking for something specific. Therefore your app should include advanced filters based on preferred area, budget, nearby locality, and more. These filters can simplify the development process to a large extent. Hence, you must add as many shortlisting features as possible.

Maps

Proper map integration is a must due to the numerous locations a client has to reach for surveying the property. Maps have become an essential feature for almost all the available on-demand solutions. It would help your clients reach places on time. It would also allow users to examine the nearby vicinity of schools, colleges, malls, banks, and other household stores.

High-Quality Photos and Videos

As this is an online platform, photos and videos are the prime sources for users to observe the property they wish to buy. The sellers who wish to get their property listed can opt for a professional photographer offered by the platform. This way you can click and upload high-quality photos and videos. If your app offers thorough information starting from the plans, and measurements to everything else, users will feel more comfortable and satisfied using your platform.

Property Details

Your app must offer thorough information about every single thing related to the property. If you can help your clients imagine the property they’re looking for using words, it will be a huge achievement for the platform. From locality to per sq. feet area to all the available amenities in the apartment, your descriptions should cover everything.

Push Notifications 

The benefits offered by push notifications are so many and so this feature is difficult to ignore. We are all aware of how every app sends push notifications that encourage a user to participate more with an application. With real estate apps, you can send new property listings, changes in prices for a user’s liked properties, other offers, and more.

Communication Panel

Buying a home isn’t an easy task and for many, it can be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As a user goes through the ‘n’ number of properties on your platform, they’re bound to have doubts and queries. Using a communication panel these queries can be answered rapidly. It also signifies that you care most about your client and are ready to offer instant services. You can also develop an AI Chatbot for your real-estate business.

Virtual Tours

The concept of virtual tours is still new to the market but it can perform wonders as it allows your users to take a tour of the property before they make the actual visit. This feature is different from a video as this offers a tour from a person’s view. Users also like trying new techs that ease their process of home hunt. This feature can fulfill your aim and get you an edge over your competition.

Cost of Developing a Real Estate App

The cost of developing a real estate application is dependent on numerous factors. Hence, it becomes extremely difficult to pinpoint a single price until the scope of the project is decided. When one enters the world of mobile or web app development, one would realize that there are so many variables that have to be factored in before developing a real estate app. 

Some of them include deciding between a web or mobile app, choosing between a native or cross-platform app, narrowing down the features of the app, and more. Once the preceding things are taken care of, a real estate app development company would give you a fixed quotation depending on their hourly development rate multiplied by the total number of development hours.

A real estate website would cost you anywhere between 4,000$ – 25,000$ while a native mobile application would cost you around 6,000 $ – 35,000 $. The same cost using a cross-platform tech can range between 5,000 $ – 30,000 $. The price range offered above is tentative prices based on our experience as a mobile app development company. It can vary with changes in the scope of the project.

Wrapping UP

Here’s a wrap on this road. Apps like Trulia & Zillow are transforming the way we used to search for our dream homes. If you’re inclined on developing other apps like Zillow, you should get in touch with us yesterday. The sole reason behind the same is the ever-increasing competition in this business. Get in touch with us today. Sign up for a free consultation now. Thank you for reading.