Real Estate Mobile App Development

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A person looking for a property in a particular city has to go through brokers and property agents to buy a house. They pay a hefty amount to these agents. The real estate mobile apps are likely to reduce the need for these agents and replace them with mobile phones and technology.

Real Estate mobile app development will help you build an app, that not only will reduce the amount paid by people to brokers tremendously, but they will also get a better idea of properties that fit their budget.

People have started showing keen interest in installing these apps on their devices like mobile phones, tablets, iPads, laptops, among others. In this article, we will discuss how real estate agents and companies can benefit from these mobile apps, how the app is developed, the team required to develop a real estate app, and the cost of its development.

How do You Create a Real Estate App For Mobile?
How do I Start Developing Mobile Apps?
Real Estate Mobile App Template
Real Estate Mobile App Design
Custom Real Estate App
Real Estate App Developer
Real Estate App Ideas
Real Estate App Case Study
Effective Use of Screen Real Estate in Mobile Application
Zillow App Developer
How Much Does it Cost to Build an App?

How do You Create a Real Estate App For Mobile?

You can follow the steps below to make a real estate app for free using Appy Pie app maker –

Go to appypie.com and click on “Get Started”
Enter app name and click on Next
Pick a category for your app
Select the color scheme of the app
Finalize the app test device
Login or signup with Appy Pie
In the app customization section, change the visual appeal of your mobile app to suit your needs
Once you are happy with what you see, click on Save and Continue
Take a deep breath while your app is getting built. Once ready, scan the QR code or send the app installation link to your device via email or SMS, and test the demo app
Go to My Apps section
Click on Edit
You will see the Basic plan. You can either go with Try Now or Buy Now option. The ‘Try now’ option comes with a 7-Day Trial so that you are fully satisfied with the app before you make the purchase.

Please note whichever option you choose, you need to provide credit card details. We use credit card details to check the authenticity of the users.
Add the real estate feature to your app and add all the necessary information
Once you are done, click on Save and Continue to finish making your real estate app

How do I Start Developing Mobile Apps?

If you’re curious about the app making process but not sure where to start, this is the guide for you!

How to make an app for beginners in 10 steps

Generate an app idea
Do competitive market research
Write out the features for your app
Make design mockups of your app
Create your app’s graphic design
Put together an app marketing plan
Build the app with one of these options
Submit your app to the App Store
Market your app for maximum exposure
Improve your app with user feedback
Bonus: App making resources

The key to a successful app is continual improvement! Once your app is in the hands of real users, you’ll start getting some feedback. Some good and some bad.

Take the criticism positively and be thankful that someone is willing to tell you how to improve because if someone is speaking up, there’s most likely more users that feel the same but aren’t willing to speak up.

Show your users that you’re not abandoning your app after the launch. Show them that you’re constantly improving the app and releasing bug fixes, new features and app updates. Over time, you’ll beat out the other mobile apps in your niche that aren’t doing this!

Real Estate Mobile App Template

Real Estate Mobile App Design

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel — you can just analyze the experience of existing market players and take the most important lessons. For example, you can develop a real estate app UI design for your own project by looking at your competitors and combining their most successful solutions.

Let’s do it right now!

1 Zillow

When it comes to creating your own real estate app design, this application can definitely be the source of inspiration.

With over 10,000,000 downloads only on Android, the Zillow application is one of the most popular services in the industry. So what are the most memorable Zillow’s real estate app UI design elements?

Full-screen HD-photos and videos. Modern people want to see what they’re going to buy or rent right in the app and only if they are satisfied and have a good overall impression, to visit this house or flat.
Wide filtering options. Despite this screen includes many options to choose from and can be hardly considered minimalistic, this is a necessary sacrifice to provide users with comprehensive info about real estate options in the area.

These are quite basic interface elements that will be useful as you design a real estate app for your own project.

2. Trulia

Trulia is another great application, which is owned by the same corporation as Zillow but still has quite a different real estate app design.

Its most popular feature is interactive map overlays that visualize how life goes in neighbourhoods: for example, where the crime rates are higher; what the average age, family status and education of locals are and so on.

By using different colours, shades and intensity to show different aspects of life in the neighbourhood, developers managed to make the exploration interesting and exciting on the one hand and extremely useful and informative on the other hand.

3. Homesnap Real Estate & Rentals

Another UI feature that became almost a “must-have” for all apps within the industry is virtual tours. There are plenty of examples of real estate app design that include 3D house tours, and the Homesnap application is one of them.

Unlike photos, a virtual walkthrough allows users to feel like they’re actually inside the house: they can look around, explore how the rooms are connected and check if there’s enough space to cover their needs.

To make this process even more comfortable, ensure an intuitive navigation pattern. It will eliminate all the excessive buttons from the display and provide users with the full-screen experience.

4. Rent.com

The 3D walkthroughs are great but how can you upgrade this feature? Take a look at the Rent.com app!

Along with HD virtual tours, users are offered to check 3D floor plans. It’s a pretty good idea since it helps users to envision the space without wasting time on visits.

Moreover, virtual floor plans aren’t a common feature of other real estate app designs so from the users’ perspective it can be considered as a unique advantage.

5. Owners.com

Don’t forget that you may use colours to navigate users and provide them with some useful information. Let’s see how it’s done in the Owners.com application:

The main colours of the application are white and dark blue — this is a universal combination that doesn’t distract users and looks elegant & stylish.
The green “Request info” button at the bottom of the description screen definitely draws users’ attention, encouraging them to take an action.
Colourful bright tags on the map (green “new”, pink “open” and red “favourite”) are also used to emphasize specific characteristics of the property.

See? The Owners.com application is a perfect example of how you can influence your audience with no words or icons — just by using a specific colour scheme. Feel free to use this approach when you decide to design a real estate app.

6. Realtor.com

Realtor.com is another outstanding application which case you may find useful to design a real estate app of your own.

This app is a great example of you can use a clean and minimalistic design. For example, to replace text, where it’s possible, with icons (just take a look at the tab bar at the bottom of the screen).

Also, Realtor.com includes all the features that we’ve already mentioned: HD-photos and videos, interactive maps and 3D tours. Guys decided not to go the extra mile and it’s something to think over, too. Often it’s quite enough to match users’ expectations and not to exceed them.

7. Redfin Real Estate

If you like stylish products (just like the Stormotion team!), pay attention to the Redfin application. Moreover, do you remember what we’ve just said about matching users’ expectations? Redfin is one of the examples of real estate app design that fits this description!

With red & white minimalistic design, bright HD-photos, colourful tags and modern fonts, the app looks both attractive and convenient to use at the same time.

If your country or region misses this type of real estate application, it may be almost a ready-made solution for you.

8. Xome Real Estate Auctions

Xome’s real estate app UI design is interesting because it greatly relies on icons and images. As an auction app, it lacks such features as virtual tours and interactive map overlays, yet, the filtering feature is better than in many other applications.

By using custom icons (together with short word descriptions), developers improved the overall UX and made it easier to narrow down the search results. That’s something that we would advise you to reuse in your application as well.

9. LoopNet Commercial Real Estate

You should always remember that a good application not only looks nice but also has a clear and understandable structure. That’s exactly when the LoopNet app may become a source of good ideas for you.

Despite it can hardly be called the best real estate app design, it has some advantages:

A mainly grey & white colour scheme that doesn’t distract users.
There’s only 1 photo on the screen at a time, which also helps to concentrate on the offer itself.
Screens are divided into segments, making it easier to perceive the information.

10. Homes.com

Finally, if you check the Homes.com app, you’ll find a feature that we haven’t met so far. In this application, it’s possible to see the property images right on the map after you tap the offer’s price.

It’s a convenient way to show your users how the house looks like without making them open the whole offer first. Thus, it improves the UX and overall impression of the app.

Custom Real Estate App

Gone are the days of agents being tied to their desktop computers just to use their customer relationship management (CRM) tool. With the advanced CRM apps on offer today, agents are using pretty much all the features of their CRM apps on property showings, in the car, or in the coffee shop. Here are some CRMs will killer apps agents love:

1. Propertybase

Let’s face it, in order to get ahead in real estate in 2021, drip campaigns, text messaging, a mobile app, call logging, pipelines, a dialer, and so on are no longer optional in a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Luckily, Propertybase is up to the challenge, ticking pretty much every box that today’s real estate agents, teams, and brokerages need out of an app.

Combining a rock solid Salesforce-based CRM with MLS integration, and killer IDX lead-generating websites that work together seamlessly, Propertybase is a true all-in-one platform that won’t let you down.

Throw in an available transaction management platform and you may not need to buy any more software—ever.

2. IXACT Contact

If you asked the average agent what they wanted out of a CRM app in 2021, you’d probably get two answers: affordability and social media features. Well, IXACT Contact was listening to what agents wanted, and they responded.

IXACT’s CRM is affordable for almost any agent at $33 per month, and includes advanced features for social media marketing along with all the usual contact management features agents demand from their CRMs today.

3. CINC

CINC monitors your incoming leads and acts as your own personal concierge, getting them on the phone, qualifying them, and then connecting them straight to your phone without all the email or text messaging back and forth, saving you a ton of time and upping your conversion rate.

4. Freshchat

In 2021, your leads are a little spoiled. They expect (and very often get) nearly instant responses to their online inquiries. That’s why chatbots like Freshchat are so crucial for your website. You can give your leads an instant response and answer their questions with a programmed bot, or better yet, respond to their chat on your phone just like you would a text message.

5. Buffer

Even though the competition in the real estate software industry is fierce, it’s nothing compared to the competition in social media management platforms. Take the investment and user base for your average real estate software, and triple it. That means better deals for end users.

If you’re a busy agent or team leader trying to manage multiple social media accounts, Buffer is a godsend. It allows you to preschedule posts across multiple accounts so you can knock out a few weeks’ worth of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and even Pinterest posts in a few hours.

Real Estate App Developer

1. Cubix

Cubix is a leading mobile app, games and enterprise software development company! – expert in development, customization and integration of complex enterprise-level solutions, business intelligence analytics, advanced web and mobile app.

2. Codal

Codal helps businesses transform into streamlined, supportive and proactive operations through software development. Their data-driven, market-tested Agile process is a testament to one of Codal’s core beliefs: a solution that doesn’t address the exact needs of its users is no solution at all

3. Cogniteq

Cogniteq is a professional software agency delivering custom solutions for SMBs and enterprises based in Europe, USA, Canada and Asia. More than 90 Cogniteq software engineers have been contributing to the success of the clients’ products since 2005.

4. Digital Silk

Digital Silk is an agency focused on Creating Superior Digital Experiences for their clients. They create cutting-edge brand strategies, websites, apps and results-driven marketing campaigns for mid-size to large companies that demand results and best-in-class service.

5. Jelvix

Jelvix is a technology partner that provides custom software development services for different businesses worldwide. Our ambition is demonstrated by numerous cases of successful digital transformation, unique enterprise engineering, design, and high-quality technology consulting services.

Real Estate App Ideas

Let’s delve into some creative real estate app ideas if you want to start investing in your real estate business!

1. Locality Review App

For different reasons, an app development agency utilizes the convenience of location services. In terms of real estate, a good locality is similarly necessitous as a good property.

Using a locality review app, anyone can rate a locality and the locality can get scores on different factors like education, weather, and distance from the main town, living, amenities, and more.

A combination of these factors will create a star rating or a basic score of localities. Moreover, this app helps clients simply find out which area is perfect for them. It helps them easily decide which real estate property they should invest in.

2. House Buying and Renting Information App

Renting or purchasing a home is sometimes a tough procedure as it needs lots of studies and paperwork filing. Making this feasible and simple for your clients and helping them decide the best option are offering them a positive and memorable client experience. Apps help you by incorporating basic data regarding purchasing and renting procedures.

This answers all questions of your clients, giving them a seamless experience. So, offer this application to your clients as an extra service. You can use it for consulting in their feasible time or during meetings to showcase them the procedure.

Moreover, this app can incorporate a communication channel between you and customers so they can contact you whenever they need it.

3. Real Estate AR/VR App

Displaying the properties using AR/VR technology is one of the booming real estate business ideas in 2020. It is anticipated that the AR/VR technology in the real estate sector is going to reach $2.6 billion by 2025. AR and VR technologies help save money and time that people spend on checking different properties.

These technologies virtually help people visit properties at any time and from anywhere. Real estate companies that utilize these technologies can close a deal earlier compared to conventional property displays. With AR/VR technology, you don’t require doing a property staging to display the property.

Since AR/VR can virtually display all interior elements of properties, buyers can visualize a property with its interior designs. Moreover, they can purchase the interiors while seeing a property’s virtual tour.

4. Calculator App

Mortgage Calculator

Maximum property sales come with mortgages, which can make the procedure slow because of the mortgage calculations’ complicated nature. To avoid losing momentum with clients or wasting time, you must have a mortgage calculator app. This can immediately provide you with an idea of how much clients will require paying as per different parameters.

Repair Estimates

Additionally, buying a property may come with extra expenses like repairs and this can make the procedure slow as it is hard to come up with expense estimates in a meeting only. So, here also a calculator app can help you by enabling you to assess fast how much total repair will cost as per some benchmarks.

With a calculator app, you can export both of these calculations easily into a report and email that to clients for their convenience.

5. Property Investment App

You can create an application that will offer info to the promising investor or help associate with every investment decision in the property market. A real estate app must feature a chat box where app users can put all questions about any hardship they are experiencing during a real estate investment.

Moreover, the app must have an in-house specialist who is experienced and knowledgeable about the real estate market and can answer all user queries, giving them solutions to their issues and good investment choices. The specialist must explain the areas where investors will receive the utmost return in case they purchase property there.

The property market is not static and it keeps on transforming in association with demand and supply. Your real estate app’s expert section must offer data about what is going on in the real estate property market. This will help you know when investors must invest in or liquidate their properties to receive the utmost returns.

A smart real estate app offers a property’s detailed assessment on the small screen. You just require tapping on the screen and you will receive the comprehensive analysis of the property’s appropriate info in the question. This data may incorporate the price trend in a specific market, the property’s mortgage value in that locality, the demand-supply situations during that time, and more.

So, this comprehensive assessment will give users a complete overview of the property market that they will require having for making the best decision about investing in real estate properties.

Real Estate App Case Study

Key Challenges

The idea behind developing this app was to have an application that allows users to view the list of available rental estates.

It is a comprehensive solution for your regular/daily needs that cover the requirements in the most economical way possible with ratings. Users can take a plan up to 30 days in advance. Users can also opt for Premium subscriptions directly from nearby places.

When they hired ValueCoders, we had to address the following tasks:

Creating different data sets and connecting them with servers
Making it a dynamic platform with auto updates
Fetching all the data from the database when needed.

Our Solutions

Using this app, if the users find some property to be of their interest, they can view the complete details of that property and go ahead and contact the agent via email or phone. The users can also be guided to the location of that property via Google maps.

One of the exciting features of this app is Augmented Reality takes the users through a virtual tour of the properties over the iPhone screen.

ValueCoders team accepted the challenge of work complexity and started their effort on the application. Few discussions were held among the iOS developers and as a result, planned to build a location-based application for its users. The application works well and provides the following solutions:

Mortgage calculator helps the users to the core
Enhances your brand worth and thereby increasing your customer-base
Mobile app has made buying and selling plain sailing
People can search property quickly
Promotion of new listings and staff profiles
View the properties for sale as well as rental

Results

The end product is a high performance, easy-to-use, feature-rich app that allows users to find the best properties in the city for their food and goods requirement. Not only it has been appreciated by our client but it has been recognized by end-users. The application is one of the best applications with a score of 4.9 in the iOS application store. The application consists of the following features:

Delivery/ booking only after telephonic confirmation
SMS updates & Notifications with OTP facilities
Hologram sealed boxes
Separate wallet to manage your payments, cancellations & keep a check on transactions
Delivery/ booking slots chosen as per requirement
Easy cancellations & amount refund to wallet for further use
Free Home Delivery of foods & No minimum order value
Detailed durable packaging to keep contents safe

Effective Use of Screen Real Estate in Mobile Application

To go about developing software within your chosen app niche, you should understand and be able to apply the basic principles of screen usage. So, let’s start with the easy part:

Customer panel

Signup and login. Not only registration as such is an important step; also, new users should be verified, ideally both online and offline (e.g. a government-issued ID, last four of your SSN or national ID number), in order to create more trust.
Map view for housing listings. An interactive map allows visualizing all the essential information for users to be able to find what they are looking for in the most convenient and rather informative way. If paired with Map APIs, an application can provide its users with some extra information about public transit in the area, schools, entertainment and more.
Property search. Given some basic parameters like location or property type, an app displays currently available property to customers.
Property feature filtering. Choosing the basic parameters, you are still likely to have a huge listing left. A more detailed search may help, namely filtering by price, amenities, and facilities.
Push notifications
Information on the property: its history, photos, videos, 360 virtual tour, and full details.
Contact broker for additional information or an appointment.
Property submission for sale, rent, or lease

Admin panel

Property management. It can be submitted or removed using the admin panel.
User management. It refers to both brokers and tenants (or customers.) The admin blacklists, adds, edits, and updates users relying on their activities in the app.
Revenue management. The admin monitors and controls the total revenue that is received as a result of property deals.
Customer support management. Admins are oftentimes responsible for delivering quality support for the users to feel comfortable and secure while in an app.
Subscription package management
Reporting & analytics. The admin manages reports or various requests.

Zillow App Developer

Today, Zillow is one of the top-rated real estate app solutions available in the market. As per the Report by Zillow enjoys the support of 195 million users and has revenue of more than $1.3 billion through different revenue generation modes. It is used as the first solution when it comes to finding rented apartments and buying homes.

What a real estate broker does for you is clearly done by Zillow and that too free of cost. This also helps people to stay away from brokers who are more prone to cheat people of their time and money. When you are using this app, this issue gets automatically resolved as the users will not find such fraudsters there.

Zillow possesses the largest database that comes with home listings in the US for the buyers. Moreover, if you are planning to go ahead with home shopping, it has the right tools available for free to use.

When we talk about the buyers, they have got the largest audience they could have asked for to market their house. While for industry people, they can make use of this app as an advertising network platform to get to more business interests.

The cost to develop an app like Zillow will depend on the kind of features you plan to include in the project. The development process, as well as the team you will choose to carry out the project development, will all add up to the costs.

Based on the charge per hour for the members of the development team and the timeline, it will become possible for you to get a rough idea about how much you will need to spend. You need to keep in mind that the charges of the developer will change based on the location too.

Read Also: Top 10 US Software Developers Jobs

It will be around $100 to $250 per hour if the developer is from the US; if from Europe, it will be about $80 to $180 per hour and if you are choosing developer from India, it will be around $25 to $50 per hour.

How Much Does it Cost to Build an App?

No universally applicable answer can be given to a question like that. An array of parameters must be taken into account. The total cost will also depend on the project complexity and the hourly rate is calculated based on where software engineers and other specialists working on your app reside.

Supposing that $30 is an average hourly rate, let’s find out how much real estate mobile application development may cost you:

Web development: Custom and admin panels	300 hours	$9,000
Native development: iOS and Android apps	900 hours	$27,000
UX/UI Design	200 hours	$6,000
Testing and Quality Assurance	450 hours	$13,500
Project Management (10-15% of the total budget)	–	$5,500
Total Cost		$61,050

Yet, keep in mind that the estimate is approximate and always has to be discussed and further specified.

Conclusion

Purchasing a new home or taking property on lease became easier after the mobile app development for real estate had been introduced.

Mobile applications for real estate agents and customers will benefit all those involved in finding and deciding on a perfect place to call home. If taken seriously, the process of creating such an app will become a success and your product will eventually contribute to making people happier.

So, go for it — improve property management (i.e. its buying, renting, and selling), do not hesitate and start your journey!