Creating a real estate app involves a detailed understanding of the industry’s specific needs and the latest technological advancements. A well-designed app can streamline property searches, enhance user experience, and facilitate seamless transactions. 

Therefore, helping you to understand all about real estate apps, this guide will cover the essential steps for its development, from market research and feature selection to design, development, and deployment.

It explores key features that make a real estate mobile app successful. How do you ensure the app meets the needs of both buyers and sellers? What are the best practices for integrating advanced technologies like AI and AR into your app? Read on to find out.

What is a mobile app for real estate?

Software created especially for mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, to support many facets of the real estate business is known as a real estate mobile app.

Real estate mobile applications are becoming more and more popular, and many people are utilizing them to find properties, contact brokers, and speed up the buying or selling process.  

These apps have increased dramatically due to change in customer behavior as companies try to adapt to their client’s changing needs.

Benefits of real estate app

These apps bring various benefits for customers, real estate developers and builders alike. Let’s discuss these advantages solely. 

For buyer

Using applications for real estate can be beneficial for the buyer because it provide them with 

Direct Contact Communication

In order to satisfy your clients there is always a need for an app that provides prompt answers to their questions. So, having this app will assist them in gaining devoted users and purchasers. Customers can easily comprehend how interactive software functions and the property they search for.

Simple Search

The app’s consumer experience is valuable because of the filters and specifics of every offered property. It allows you to view photos of a home, take a virtual tour, and obtain all the information in one place.

Assistance for Customers

The app’s customer support allows customers to stay current on the information that is available to them.

Sales Pace

A seller might quicken the transaction by sharing information about his home on one of these applications. The ideal platform for the sellers to list the available properties is to assist the buyers in connecting with the sellers.

For property dealer

For property dealers, leveraging real estate apps can provide numerous advantages, such as 

Wider Scope

The agents or dealers can list their homes on these apps for a better and broader audience. It provides significant exposure to dealers because many buyers are searching for properties on real estate applications.

More Equitable Commission Distribution

Due to the MLS integration in these mobile apps, customers may search for the homes that meet their needs and specifications. They won’t have to waste time looking at properties that don’t meet their needs. Therefore, the dealers may pique their curiosity by displaying the properties that consumers are interested in.

Making Decisions

This software assists them in making speedy judgments because it serves as a platform that links dealers and customers. 

For builders and real estate developers

The benefits of using real estate application for builders include 

Increase Deal Conversion

Real estate applications have a high conversion rate since people use them to save time and effort while searching for a desired property.

Deliver Exceptional Experience

It provides the customers with a better property presentation along with sharper photos for high-quality experience. 

Types of real estate app

Since the app industry makes it possible for everybody to connect from anywhere in the world, these businesses ought to be noticeable. The increased demand for real estate properties has allowed businesses of various sizes to launch their apps. Here  are a few instances of apps that fall into the real estate niche.

Property Search Apps

These applications offer various search options, including area, price range, number of bedrooms, and more, to assist buyers in finding their ideal house. A decent property search app should also have tools like a map view, 3D tours, and a saved search option to aid users in staying organized.

Here are some possible concepts for property search apps:

• Personalized Recommendations: Based on a user’s previous searches and interests, properties are recommended using AI and machine learning techniques.
• Social Integration: Enable users to exchange listings or receive recommendations by establishing connections with friends or real estate agents.
• Automated Listings: Use automation techniques to make it simple for real estate agents to list their properties swiftly and effectively.
• Customizable Templates: Make available templates that enable real estate brokers to produce distinctive real estate listings that distinguish themselves from other listings.
• Use chatbots to assist in automating the sales process as it helps to respond to inquiries from prospective tenants or buyers.

Apps for Mortgage Calculators:

A mortgage calculator app is the second category of real estate apps. Using the price of the home, the down payment, and the interest rate, these apps assist prospective purchasers in calculating their monthly mortgage payments.

Here are some possible concepts for mortgage calculator apps:

• Refinancing Calculators that assist consumers in figuring out how much money they can save by refinancing their current mortgage.
• Use an affordability calculator to determine how much a prospective buyer can afford to spend on a property after considering their income, loans, and other expenses.
• Amortization Schedules that inform users of the proportion of their monthly payments towards principal repayment and interest.

Apps for Home Improvement

An app for home improvement is the third category. These applications assist landlords and tenants with organizing and carrying out renovations and small-scale repairs around the house. These apps provide step-by-step directions for accomplishing various home renovation tasks.

• Virtual Room Design: Use augmented reality technology to let customers see how furniture and décor will appear in their homes before purchasing.
• Contractor Finder: Assists consumers in finding vetted and licenced contractors for their remodeling projects.

Apps for Property Management

An app for property management is the fourth category of real estate apps. These apps help landlords and property managers oversee their properties, assisting with tenant relations, maintenance requests, and rent collection.

Apps for Real Estate Investing

Apps for real estate investing comprise the fifth category. Using these apps, users can locate and invest in rental and commercial real estate properties.

Some concepts for real estate investment applications are as follows:

• Real estate crowdfunding: Establish a platform that enables several investors to combine their funds to purchase a property.
• Real estate analytics: Provide consumers with information on market trends and potential investments by using data analytics.
• Integration with Property Management: Users can use the app to handle all aspects of their investment properties, including maintenance requests and rent collection.

Apps for Real Estate Education 

Apps for real estate education comprise the sixth category. These applications offer consumers instructional materials on various fundamental estate-related topics, such as purchasing, selling, and investment.

The following are some possible concepts for real estate education apps: 

• Real Estate Courses: Provide online courses that walk customers through real estate fundamentals, including financing alternatives and vocabulary.
• Real Estate News: To help consumers stay informed and make smarter decisions, give them the most recent information on trends and events in the real estate sector.
• Real Estate Dictionary: To assist users in understanding the industry jargon, compile a thorough dictionary of real estate words.

Apps for Real Estate Agents

A real estate agent app is the seventh category of these apps. Real estate agents can use these apps to handle many aspects of their business, such as commission monitoring, client information management, and appointment scheduling.

Here are some possible concepts for real estate agent apps:

• CRM Integration: To enable agents to manage client information centrally, integrate the app with a customer relationship management (CRM) system.
• Appointment Scheduling: Provide a function that enables agents to book meetings with clients and get alerts when they are about to happen.
• Commission Tracking: Give agents the resources they need to monitor their profits over time and keep track of their commissions.

How to create a real Estate app 

A real estate app’s development involves a wide range of people, including developers, UX designers, and stakeholders. 

Understanding the intricacy involved and providing specialized app and web development solutions are key components in creating successful real estate apps that provide a seamless experience for buyers, sellers, and real estate agents in the ever-changing real estate industry.

So, let’s start with a step-by-step tutorial on developing a mobile app for real estate, from research to launch.

Understanding the market

You already have an idea for a mobile real estate app, even though the process of producing one is still somewhat far. First, we must conduct a thorough analysis of the real estate market, taking the environment, supply, and demand into account. So, examining these points helps to ascertain the following:

• Market trends for real estate
• Competitors and their tactics
• Rules pertaining to the technological know-how of the real estate industry
• Trends in ROI calculations in statistics

Choosing the real estate app development features

Creating mobile applications for real estate is a complex process that calls for knowledge of technology and real estate. 

A deep comprehension of the market and industry can give you a plethora of information about what your target audience requires when it comes to feature selection for your app. 

Here’s a simple steps to help you choose features:

• Create a clear concept drawing of your app so you can choose the right features.
• List the essential features, which often include contact forms, real estate listings, search parameters, high-resolution images, and stored items.
• Incorporate other features like alarms, virtual property tours, user reviews and ratings, mortgage calculators, and more. These added features can make your real estate app stand out. 
• Consider future developments and scalability to make your app stand out. 

Selecting the technology

Once you approve the concept, you can select the technology for your real estate application development. 

Use third-party APIs to access external databases instead of operating on a separate server that holds all the data you want. 

Moreover, partnering with seasoned real estate mobile app developers who are aware of the particular prospects and difficulties present in the sector is crucial when starting a real estate application development project.

The following features necessitate various technological stacks for creating online housing platforms:

• Sign up or log in: Permit users to access your site via a social network or browser. Based on the specifics of the audience, you can ascertain their list.
• Lists and directories: IDX is an acronym for particular rules, guidelines, and infrastructure that marketers adhere to. Use this technology to keep an eye on the information transferred between the app and the database. 
• 3D tours: Create virtual tours of the house using EyeSpy360.
• Data storage: Incorporate MySQL and other mobile app databases.
• Choose between the Firebase SDK and APN for push notifications.
• Language: iOS or Android development. 
• Filter-based advanced search

UI/UX Design

Although the app’s functioning is crucial, users can choose whether to keep or delete it based on its appearance.

Therefore, to give your clients a distinctive experience, consider incorporating the following trends and real estate app mobile development solutions into your work.

• A straightforward UI: The app must be straightforward, easy to use, and open to anyone.
• Simple to navigate: Don’t use clumsy menus to make navigation too complicated. Don’t completely dismiss it, though. The menu should be well-planned and as brief as feasible.
• Simple backgrounds: Mobile designers produce monochromatic or hazy experiences that enhance the expressiveness of the app’s features and navigation. Additionally, this speeds up loading times and improves user comfort.
• Feature that crosses pages: The cross-page capability increased user interest and engagement. The impact of this solution on additional SEO optimization is more significant. Analytics tool integration is another option. This makes it possible to continue refining pages and information through analysis.
• In dark mode: For users, this paradigm is now the new norm. According to studies, 87% of smartphone users check their phones one hour before bed every night. Thus, selecting a dark mode for the UI must be feasible.
• Design enhancement: Search inquiries account for 70% of app installs. The popularity of an app is mainly determined by how it appears in searches. Therefore, a launch screen, navigation mode, color palette, header style, and other standard design components should all be carefully chosen.
• Swipes: Swiping movements are every day among smartphone users. You’ll find it helpful to analyze the data when developing your real estate mobile app. Swiping movements are frequently included in UX designs.

Apps that put simplicity and ease of use are highly beneficial in a crowded real estate market. Consider the user when designing to ensure simple navigation and intuitive functionality for a smooth experience. Not only does intuitive software draw in users, but it also increases engagement and loyalty. 

Features to Use in Your Real Estate ap

One of the most critical phases in product development is figuring out the features of the upcoming real estate mobile app.

Based on our understanding of the market and expertise, fundamental aspects apply to different types of real estate mobile application development.

Let’s examine the features of the most widely used ones, which include real estate apps for buying, selling, and renting.

Orientation

The process of introducing individuals to your application is called onboarding. It aids in educating consumers about the key attributes and benefits of the real estate app.

After completing onboarding, people keep registering or logging in to social media. Allowing customers to bypass the registration procedure at this point can be an intelligent move if all they want to do is check out your app.

Signing up

People can register or log in more easily with the help of this function. Users can only book, purchase, or sell real estate after registering, depending on the app’s intended usage.

A typical registration calls for the user’s password, email address, and name. This data is sufficient to log into an application. Allowing users to sign in using their social media credentials is also an excellent feature—for instance, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and so forth.

Listings

An essential component of the real estate mobile app is listings. They include details about the features your software offers. To put it another way, real estate listings can be used as a database of properties.

The more extensive the database of listings, the better it will be for the users.

Lookup and Sorting

Finding the ideal house could be difficult. However, it can be turned into a cordial encounter. As an illustration, by providing many advanced categories, services, and filters.

Every real estate app has a search function to help customers begin their property hunt. Nevertheless, different kinds of real estate apps could have different filtering.

Filters would also be helpful for the users to easily navigate their property . For instance, the number of beds, the sort of home, reviews, features, dates, and location of the house.

Landmark Pages

Real estate agents should be able to communicate detailed information about the homes they are building, renting, or selling on a property website.

Consequently, it must be feasible to upload images of the property, include a description, include details regarding the cost and availability, enumerate the features and services, and so forth.

The construction of property pages is typical for real estate app categories such as home value, buying/selling, and renting.

Preferences

People are more likely to select the property that best suits their needs when narrowing down their options. 

For this reason, a wishlist option in a mobile real estate app is crucial so that users can spend less time looking for lodging they have previously enjoyed.

Schedule

A real estate mobile application’s calendar benefits both brokers and purchasers.  Therefore, selecting a good time and date for offline appointments is helpful.

Request Icon

It is crucial to incorporate the features that facilitate the introduction of individuals to real estate brokers.

Business features like a call button, request a callback button, online chat, or a form for an agent consultation are famous for enabling users to speak with agents.

Apps for renting, buying/selling real estate, and house value are examples of apps that frequently add new features.

Alerts

Don’t forget to incorporate push notification services into your mobile real estate app. This functionality is crucial when you need to keep people around and inform them of significant happenings.

Users of the real estate app typically receive notifications regarding price adjustments, new listings, agent services, and new properties. Notifications are, therefore, frequently used for renting and purchasing/selling apps.

Estimator of Property Value

Several calculator kinds exist based on the user’s intention to purchase or sell.

Real estate brokers and sellers use these calculators to estimate a home’s worth based on several factors. The calculator considers the estimated market worth of the user’s home or the house they are interested in.

To calculate their expected monthly mortgage payments, buyers utilize mortgage calculator services. 

An ideal pricing calculator for purchasers ought to be a device that displays the ultimate cost. The cost of the mortgage determines the down payment, the interest rate, and the length of the loan.

Final Crux

Creating a real estate smartphone app requires time and precision. Therefore, at Onyxtec we advocate employing a competent team to ensure successful real estate software development.

Our staff begins with a preliminary estimate of the client’s return on investment and accompanies you through to the end. 

So, keep up with the competition. Contact us immediately, and your solution will be available in the AppStore or Google Play within a few months. 

FAQ

Is it better to develop a mobile or online application for a real estate company?

The distinction between a web app and a mobile app is that web applications establish an online presence for your business that visitors can browse and explore, whilst mobile apps are designed for a specific target demographic and cater to their demands.

As a result, the decision is primarily driven by your business objectives. However, creating both online and mobile apps makes the most sense in reaching a larger audience and maximizing impact. 

Can I incorporate third-party services such as MLS data and mortgage calculators?

Yes, absolutely. MLS data and a mortgage calculator are two of the most critical real estate mobile app components that are executed with robust API and integration capabilities.