Nowadays, people do not resort to the traditional way of searching the properties through real estate agents. On the contrary, they often resort to smarter ways of searching for properties which means using apps for searching for homes or other properties.

According to the National Association Of Realtors report, 73 % of home buyers use a tablet, app, or website for searching homes. Moreover, 76 % of all buyers found a home on mobile devices. One more interesting fact is 17% of all the buyers found an agent through mobile devices.

Out of the various reasons for which the real estate companies resort to developing an app, one of the primary reasons is earning a higher profit. And all this is ensured due to the apps for brand recognition and enhanced traffic.

Let us now find the benefits of using real estate apps.

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What are the Benefits of a Real Estate App?

Here are some of the benefits of such an app for your business:

Quickly Search Properties

The property listing forms a significant part of the real estate websites. The users search for a property based on their choice and preference. The app makes easy the life of the users, to find properties in various categories – rentals or commercials, that too, with just a few clicks on their mobile apps. The apps also enclose property images and find other details like description, floor type, and size, etc.

Enhanced Brand Loyalty

As found by Adobe, in a survey conducted on mobile app usage for almost 600 brands, the users spend more time on the apps rather than the websites. The loyalty of the customers can be earned better through mobile apps or websites. The mobile apps increase the visibility of the users and engage better.

Better User Experience

If you are using the website information to the mobile devices, then it results in cluttering too much information in smaller screen sizes. So, the app designer must use the best practices of responsive design while designing a mobile website. The successful real-estate apps only have core features and limited functions to start the app.

Today, user experience matters a lot for the customers using mobile apps. The app differentiates from the websites as there is much information that is unnecessary for them, such as a newsletter subscription box or even home buyer’s guides. A search feature is more than enough, to create a smooth, and simple user experience through real estate apps.

Increase Traffic with Real Estate Portal

We have already stated the importance of real estate apps over mobile websites. Moreover, there are more prominent players in the market of the likes of Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor. The users find the experience with these apps better than the others. So, these apps get all the loyalty of their clients.

The only way out is to outwit these fierce competitors is to create a mobile app for the real estate agency. It helps to put you at par with these competitors, getting increased traffic for your website. Next, we deal with some of the must-have features of a real estate app.

Must-have Features of a Real-Estate App

Here are some of the must-have features of the real-estate mobile app:

Register/Login

The user can register to the mobile app with the email address or the social networking credentials.

Property Lists

Each of the apps must have this feature. It helps to organize the properties and put them into the lists, based on the quality and budget of the properties. It enables the user to search and find properties, matching their requirements.

Property Images

One of the reasons for which the users download the mobile apps are the images of properties. On the other hand, many apps provide videos on the features.

Filters and Search

The user finds the right property with the Search option based on the location and the name of the property. Advanced search using filters on size, location, budget, type, parking plots, terrace, etc. enables the users to search properties according to their matching requirements.

Map and Location

The Map feature provides the exact location of the app. It allows the clients to easily and quickly locate the property. It applies more for the clients searching for properties –  in a different city.

Other than the above features, the real-estate apps also have some of the advanced features.

Some Advanced features of Real-estate Apps

Here are some of the advanced features:

Push Notifications

Push notifications on special offers, news, properties, and events always help to fetch highly engaged users. The users are more likely to use the apps with such special offers.

Mortgage Calculator

It is an easy-to-use feature, available within the app. It allows the user to get an estimate of the monthly installment payment for a mortgage. It enables payments for refinancing and new house purchase.

Geo-location Tagging

It allows users with location-based house-hunting by leveraging the GPS location of a smartphone. The nearby properties on a map can be found, real-time on a map.

Heat Map

It is an easy and unique way of searching for properties. It comes with different colors and icons for various aspects of the property.

The cost of the real-estate apps depends on the features and the advanced features mentioned above.

Cost for Developing a Real-estate App

The factors which calculate the cost of a real estate app are:

• UI/UX Interfaces
• Complexity
• Technicalities
• Testing
• Dedicated resources of project managers, engineers, developers, and designers.

Activity	Appx. Man Hours
Requirement gathering and Analysis	120
Design	240
Development	700
Testing	250
Deployment	200
Total Hours	1500

The total cost can be estimated after calculating the total man powers, depending upon the geographic location as stated by Accelerance Inc. in their Software outsourcing rates 2018 report.

Conclusion

The real estate app development market has tremendous growth, and there is not much competition in developing a real-estate. It is difficult to predict the cost of the real-estate app. It entirely depends on the features of the app.