Even before the increase in safety concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the real estate industry has seen a significant increase in the adoption of new technologies that have made buying, selling, renting, and financing both safer and easier. More than ever, real estate professionals and consumers are demanding a digital-first experience that allows for instant access and flexibility throughout the real estate transaction.
Best Apps For Realtors
Gone are the days of real estate agents being tied to their desktop computers to manage projects, opportunities, and contacts. Now, there’s an app for that. Actually, there are a lot of apps for that!
Nowadays, nearly every aspect of running a real estate business can be managed from your phone. There are more apps than we could ever identify, but here is just a sampling of the variety of platforms available to make running your real estate business that much easier:
- Relationship management – IXACT Contact and CINC
- Lead generation – Zillow Premier Agent
- Marketing – Lightroom and LCA Marketing Center
- Graphic design – Canva and Adobe Spark
- Market research – RPR and Homesnap
- Transaction management – DocuSign and Dotloop
- Social media management – Buffer
Best Apps for Homebuyers
If you don’t spend your free time scrolling through Zillow or Trulia, you may be in the minority. There’s a reason that a skit on SNL featuring Zillow is still being talked about – the fact is that a large number of people, and especially millennials in their late 30s, spend a lot of time either earnestly or leisurely looking at homes for sale.
But can you really embark on the homebuying process, relying heavily on apps? The short answer is, yes. At the very least, homebuying apps can streamline your search for home, allowing you to search within the long list of what’s for sale so that you only see the listings that fit your criteria. From there, you start ruling out the ones you don’t like until you have your shortlist. Then you can drive to visit just those homes.
While Zillow and Trulia may be among the most popular homebuying apps, there are a number of others, including Homesnap, Redfin, and Realtor.com. Flying under the radar is a new app by the US. Census Department, Dwellr, that is a hub for city and neighborhood statistics. It matches its data with your location preferences to give you a list of potential relocation towns that best fit your lifestyle—especially when you’re making a big move.
In addition to showing homes on the market, many of these homebuying apps provide community and neighborhood information, purchase history for the home, listing agent and contact information, and much more. While you will always want to confirm the information provided on the app before making a buying decision, these are a great place to start your home search.
At Ohio Real Title, we have always prided ourselves on using the latest tools and resources available and we are relying on these technologies now more than ever. By utilizing the latest technologies, we have been able to continue providing incomparable customer service even during these uncertain times. And we are just getting started.
We provide calm where sometimes it doesn’t exist. Contact us today to learn more about our service offerings or our home closing technology.