Best IPhone/IPod Real Estate Tools

Full disclosure:  I still think a full PC is the best way to begin a real estate search on the net.  But if you're just perusing listings on your iPhone, these are worth a look.

 

Trulia.com Iphone Real Estate App

Trulia can do GPS based searches, as can all the products listed here, and it's picture loading was fast enough for me.  It's default is also looking at a map, which I find especially useful.  It will also do time on market searches, and will allow you search in list mode, instead of map mode.  That's just about everything I would need it to do.  In general, the interface is useful, although they have a newer feature set on a map for gas stations, restaurants, schools, etc.  But I couldn't get any of those features to work in my area. Overall, I felt this was the fastest and most intuitive product.

 

	Realtor.com	Zip Realty	Zillow	Trulia
Ease of Use	Poor	Average	Very Good.	Very Good.
Best Features	Large Photos	Robust Filtering	Make me Move Houses	Large Photos that load very quickly
Information Quality	Very Good	Good	Good	Good - except the gasoline and shopping icons don't seem to work at all, which would be really cool.
Overall	Poor	Average	Good	Very Good

 

 

Realtor.com Iphone Real Estate App

 

Those of us familiar with Realtor.com technology products are usually dissappointed, and there's no exception here. It can do GPS based searches, has fast and useful lists and picture loading.  However, it won't let me search by days on market, and most of the map functionality that I looked at wasn't working, as it hid the exact addresses.  Just gives this message that the owner of the listing doesn't want it displayed on a map (which is totally not true, I'm sure).

 

 

Zip Realty Iphone Real Estate App

The map functionality has a good idea - showing the prices of each home - but they've clearly forgotten that the screen size is a problem on a mobile app.  The prices take up way to much room, and it's hard to see the trees through the forest of push pins. It does show us past sales, which is nice, but really, you can't do a real analysis of what those past prices mean on a mobile device, so what's the point of that?  It has foreclosure listings, but only shows addresses for homes that are listed on the MLS already, so that's not really a big deal (and just like their site).

 

Zillow Iphone Real Estate App

Zillow surprised me a bit with my quick test of their accuracy.  In general, I find their on-line product to have lots of homes listed for sale that are not for sale, or already sold, but the mobile app tested out OK.  There's a lot of focus here on the key Zillow features, including pricing trends, pushing their "premier agents" also known as those who pay money to Zillow, and recent comparables sales.  My problem with those features is:

1) The assumption that you're doing research mobile, I think, is erroneous.

2) Pricing trends has some relevance, but no importance here.

3) The recent sales usually have no relevance to what they should be, unless they get lucky.  Computers still can't pick comparable houses in New England.  Not yet anyway.

At any rate, their focus on replicating the on-line website instead of focusing on an on-line product is what hurts them here.

 

 

Do Good Things Today!

 

 Matt Heisler