FindItMore | The real estate domain has created its distinguished place not only on the web but also in the app stores. The progress of the real estate market online is such that there’s loads of speculation that property websites and mobile apps may sooner or later replace agents and brokers fully. It might be a problem if you’re a potential real estate agent but haven’t gone digital yet. So, developing a real estate app is a significant investment for a real estate agent to keep pace with the current times.
US real estate business is at its peak, thanks to the internet. As indicated by the Real Estate in a Digital Age 2018 Report by the National Association of Realtors, 73 percent of homebuyers utilize a telephone, tablet, site, or application in their inquiry. Let us know what exactly led to the rise of apps like Zillow and what exactly you need to do to develop such an app.
What is a Real Estate App
In the past, property vendors and buyers depended exclusively on advertisements for newspapers, generic buying and selling sites, and agents. Then in 2006, former Microsoft and Expedia managers Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink decided there should be a better way to purchase and sell buildings. Zillow revolutionized the sector by sharing publicly the national house listing information that was previously only accessible to real estate professionals.
Since then, Zillow has grown into a gigantic business group that covers the entire estate purchasing cycle: purchasing, renting, selling, and funding. Its brands range from real-estate end-customer marketplaces to agents and brokers marketing software.
With over 196 million users and revenue worth $1.1 billion, Zillow is undoubtedly the most thriving real estate platform in the United States.
What you need To Know AboutBefore Developing an App Like Zillow
- Database
A database is a key element in mobility solutions for real estate, as information must come from somewhere. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system still runs the U.S. real estate sector, and even large portals such as Zillow rely on MLS to discover home data.
When actual property brokers opt to list syndication with the Zillow Group, Zillow gets MLS listing information in a feed. Apps such as SimplyRets, iHomeFinder, and Spark APIs perform this process. These apps normalize MLS data flow because fields in the MLS database of each area need to match the database of Zillow to show the data in the format of Zillow.
The primary concept here is as easy as this: the more appropriate properties are mentioned in your app, the more helpful and successful it will be.
- Complex Search Functionality
This is one of the key characteristics to have in a real estate app. The more your search occurrences are organized and responsive, the better the user experience is. Studying their search features in detail is essential for you.
Involve all essential search parameters such as area, type of property, facilities, and price range, and further break them into efficient search alternatives to allow customers to drill it down to the most appropriate information as per their needs. It is advisable to incorporate analytics into your app or collect server information to find out what the users are most interested in when searching for properties. That way you can pull the attention of the users on this data.
- Graphically Displayed Listings
To achieve more engagement and better quality, try putting listings up with visuals. This is exactly how Zillow does it. The app replaces long listing descriptions with different intuitive and graphical representations. You can choose how you want your graphical representations to look like, on both Android and IOS platforms. This can be done with the use of SDKs for graphs and charts. This will not only enable you to put maps and property images but will also include street views and you will be able to get directions sourced by Google which creates further transparency and adds more value to the app.
For example, one of Zillow’s distinctive characteristics is an estimated market value tool known as Zestimate, which is a starting point to determine the market value of a home or its monthly rental cost. This estimate is based on public information such as market guides for neighborhoods and calculations for forecasts. This function is extremely interactive and useful to consumers, and reviews for Zillow listings over app stores have best preserved this fact.
- Well-appointed Maps and Making Them Look Nice
Neighborhood data plays a major part in a real estate app, particularly now that homebuyers pay more attention to the society, they intend to live in. You can access neighborhood data in the Zillow app by clicking on the map. Markers connected to locations show data filtered according to the criteria you specified. Different values that you can include are affordability, natural disasters, level of crime, traffic, prices of medical sales, schools, commutes, borders, etc.
- Creating a ‘Save Your Search’ Option For Better User Retention
Saving searches or liking properties is not only useful in keeping a list of homes in one place; it also allows a realtor to see what client preferences are and suggest similar options. An app should also send push notifications when an option appears that matches the search criteria of a user. The saved searches even enable users to use auto-suggestions to refer to their last operations and encourage them to continue looking from where they left last.
Conclusion
From the current situation of the market, it does seem like this is the right time to to get your own real-estate app developed. However, when you do plan to develop real estate apps, it is also important to look up for prevailing trends and market competitors who are doing well in this domain. At the same time, you need an expert app developer with a deep understanding of the real estate market.
