BEST Real Estate Apps 2018 for Finding a Home - YouTube

How’s it going everyone, Matt Leighton welcome back to another video.

Today is going to be a little different as we dive into my phone and take a look at what

I believe to be are the best real estate mobile apps on the market for finding houses that

are on the market.

Okay I’m here at my desk right now and what I want to do is go through the top 4 apps.

I am currently on the Google Pixel XL so that means that this list is going to cover those

apps that are compatible for both Android and iOS.

There was only 1 app that I wanted to review, but couldn’t because they don’t have an

Android version and that is the Compass Real Estate app.

I’ve heard good things about the app.

And with 1.4 billion people in the world using the Android platform, you would think that

they would have an Android version, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

With that being said let’s take a look at the first app which all of you should be familiar

with, and that is Zillow.

<video>This is one of the most popular if not most popular real estate apps, and with

good reason.

It works and it’s easy to use.

The search aspect is very intuitive and extremely user-friendly.

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And Zillow has been the top dog in terms of mobile and desktop usage in the past few years

so I feel confident that if there’s a home for sale, I can find it on Zillow.

Most people whether they use an agent or not, check to make sure it’s on Zillow, before

it syndicates to other websites.

Or once it hits the market, agents make sure that the listing looks good on Zillow because

that’s where the attention is.

But I think that the attention for Zillow is decreasing.

Zillow got all the attention for the Zestimate where they price homes for sale with varying

degrees of accuracy.

But now that other sites have similar features and consumers are finding out just how inaccurate

these Zestimates can be, and once you get past the Zestimate, there’s really not that

much that sets Zillow apart.

I think Zillow has their work cut out to try to keep the consumer’s attention.

<video>And that’s especially true with the mobile app, because there are some things

that I dislike about the app.

The first is Zillow’s pre-foreclosure search.

What pre-foreclosure sounds like is that a property is about to go into foreclosure.

But even if a homeowner missed one payment 10 years ago, their house will still show

up on this list.

In my opinion it is a complete waste of time and is only there as a bell-and-whistle to

say that they have the list and others don’t, when the list is meaningless anyways.

And this leads to the next thing that I dislike about the app is that you have to sign in.

If you’re a real estate app or website and you want people to leave immediately, ask

them to sign in.

This is a big thumbs down for me.

The next thing I don’t like about the Zillow app is that it can be hard to click the dots.

Especially if units are in the same HOA or same building.

Yes I could technically ZOOM all the way in to make it easier, but then the recent Solds

come up and I have to compete with clicking on them instead of the Active listing I’m

trying to find.

Finally, it’s hard to tell if a listing is Active or if it’s Under Contract.

This listing for a fact is Under Contract but the app doesn’t tell me that and I’m

not sure why not.

At first I thought since it recently went Under Contract that it may take a few days

to update, but that is not the case.

As we see here on the Redfin app, this unit is clearly Under Contract.

To me, that’s a little deceptive on Zillow’s part.

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All in all, I think it’s a good app, but these things like not showing a property has

been taken and showing the pre-foreclsoure units are a big turn-off for me.

The next app we’re going to look at is Redfin.

“Oh Matt you don’t even work for Redfin, that’s not your brokerage, why are you even

using the app?”.

That’s a good question, and hopefully my own broker isn’t watching this.

It’s because it’s a really good app.

That’s why I use it.

I also use it because that’s what my clients use.

And I want to see the same things that my clients are looking at.

<video>The best thing I like about Redfin is when I open up a property on the app, I

have all the information right there.

I don’t have to scroll anywhere, I don’t have to look very far to find what I’m looking

for.

Also, for those units in the same building, they’ve layered it so that there’s just

one button to click that will show all the results, as opposed to multiple buttons next

to each other that all represent the same building.

And from a consumer standpoint, there’s just one real estate agent as an option.

I prefer that better than the Zillow model where agents pay to be one of the top 3 or

4 agents and hope that a customer clicks their profile, with Redfin, the clicks obviously

will all go to the Redfin agent.

The one downside I see, and that others have seen as well is that the Recommended homes

that you get sent are all over the place, and usually they are over-budget.

And that’s really it for the downside.

If Redfin is available in your area, I would definitely recommend it as a solid option,

even if the real estate agent you’re working with is not a Redfin agent.

Next up, we have Realtor.com.

Now I will admit, this is the first app that I had to download for this video because I

don’t use it, while I actively use all the other apps that I have and will mention.

My first impression is that this app seems like a bunch of real estate agents got together

in a room and decided to come up with an app.

And I say that, it’s not really supposed to be a compliment.

Let me show you what I mean.

When you open up a property, you immediately see who the broker is.

And if I’m a consumer, I don’t really care at this point.

Then you see ‘Schedule a showing’, and at all times at the bottom is ‘Contact Agent’.

I get it, you want me to reach out to the agent, but instead of providing valuable information,

it seems like at any given time the goal is to include more ‘Contact Us’ buttons.

Another thing that I noticed was that even though the Realtor.com app pulls the same

property data as the other apps, it seems to be suggesting schools, rather than taking

them from the MLS record.

These 2 schools are private schools.

That are in D.C.

These schools are not even in Virginia.

How are they being recommended?

It’s little things like that, they’re not necessarily errors, as they are ideas

that maybe seemed good in theory, but are not so good in execution.

One thing I do like about the app is that it is very easy to see a property that has

lowered it’s price.

You see the little arrow that points down and yes, looks like they reduced their price.

It makes me want to click on the property to learn more, as opposed to one without an

arrow.

However, when I do click on the property, it’s very difficult to learn about the property

history.

This shows what appears to be the previous times the home was sold, even though it doesn’t

say so.

But there’s only one spot that shows the price drop.

And it doesn’t show the historical price drop.

This property for example has been on the market for 172 days, oh boy hope this isn’t

my listing, and it shows the price drop, but have there been multiple price drops, when

was the property actually listed?

I could subtract 172 days from today but that’s too much math for me.

And has the property been listed before without being sold?

This is the type of information I wish I was getting but I’m just not seeing.

If it’s in a different part of the app and I’m just not seeing it, let me know, but

the app just feels very basic.

It feels like an app for people that hate apps.

It’s almost overly-simplistic but it doesn’t go that extra level to provide more in-depth

knowledge.

To me, both Zillow and Redfin provided a better experience than the Realtor.com app.

The two things that stand out is that it feels more like a mobile website than an actual

app and it seems to be to be emphasizing and promoting the brokerage more than the property.

And if I’m a consumer, I want the property and app experience to blow me away, rather

than seeing the ‘Contact Agent’ button so many times that I finally accidentally

click it.

The final app that we’re going to look at and my personal favorite app is Homesnap.

For those of you that don’t know, Homesnap is a newer app.

To give you an idea, Zillow has been, according to the Google Play store, downloaded between

10 million and 50 million times.

Homesnap has been downloaded less than 1 million times.

So why should you give the little guy a chance?

Quite simply, it’s better than Zillow.

Zillow lost all their steam when the Redfin app came out and the homebuying search moved

from desktop to mobile.

Yes, Zillow still has a large market share but I think in the next few years, Redfin

and other companies will eat into that.

And compared to Redfin, Homesnap has an easier user experience.

When I open up the Redfin app, I see properties in green, properties in blue, and stars next

to properties.

I don’t know what the stars mean, I don’t know what the blue means.

The blue says that the property is not for sale…so I’m not sure why those properties

are included in the default search.

Homesnap’s app is cleaner.

It immediately tells me that the green are for sale and the purple are open houses.

The other apps have the price listed on the map page.

I don’t need price right now.

And if I do, I just go into the search function and the search makes it very easy to narrow

down my price range.

And when you open up a property listing, you immediately see the property’s history.

This is the most important information that I want to see.

How long has the property been on the market, any price changes, and it will even tell you

if the property has gone under contract before.

Other apps just simply don’t include this information or they make it incredibly difficult

to find.

The app also has a ‘News’ function which is kind of interesting where it shows recent

properties that have hit the market, recent homes that have gone under contract and price

drops.

In future versions, I would like to see a way to edit this feed so I get more relevant

news.

Just like you can edit your Facebook feed to block out your Uncle’s political hot

takes, I’d like to do that in Homesnap so I only see the news that is important to me.

Finally another really important feature that I like is that if you zoom in close enough

on homes in a neighborhood, it will show them each individually, even if they’re not for

sale.

Other apps do this as well, but to me Homesnap has the most complete and accurate information.

Especially for homes that haven’t sold in a while you can go in, see when the home was

last sold and even get an idea of rental value, home value, and comparable properties.

Homensnap wins for me because

the app all ways emphasizes what it thinks the consumer wants to see.

I do have the Pro version, so I may be getting more features than the regular version, but

that being said, I still truly believe that it is the best real estate app on the market

right now that you can download for free on your iPhone or Android.

I think Redfin is a close second.

Followed by Zillow, and then Realtor.com rounds out the top 4 real estate apps.

If you’ve never heard of Homesnap or haven’t downloaded it yet, go head to your app store

and download and I would love to hear what you think about the app and I certainly highly

recommend it to anyone out there.

Thanks for watching.

Until next time, create a productive day.

Take care.