Developing Your Own Real Estate App for the iPhone, Is Easy?

By Kristen Belschner • March 17th, 2010
In a quick search for real estate apps in iTunes, you get a menu of about 135 available applications.  Still surprisingly few.  By far the most interesting trend comes from enterprising agents racing to the real estate app scene with mobile access to their online IDX property search portals.  Simple applications that funnel the “downloader” of the app to those personalized online real estate searches in various geographical regions.  Not a bad idea, in fact – why not?  A branded presence in the iphone App Store?  Pretty darn smart.
So how are they doing it?  It seems many are using a service called MobileAppLoader.  I have no personal experience with this company so can’t give it a thorough review but it seems about 80% of the companies listed in the iphone App store have used it.  This might not mean much other than that the process is easy and attainable.  It seems most of the apps they build follow a simple format: Contact page with one touch calling, Info Page with active web links, About Page with active web links, Social networking profile pages (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), Notifications which send alerts to customers, a Property Feedback function and loan calculator.  Maybe a little clunky but a way to quickly and easily get in the game while not only branding your company but grabbing your main geographic target phrases for the name of your app – Maui Real Estate Search, Chicago Home Finder, Las Vegas Foreclosures.
http://mobileapploader.com/myapp/default.aspx
I installed one of these real estate applications on my iphone just to check out the interface.  Not bad.  You will want to make sure that your existing IDX search website works well with mobile browsing before you jump on board.  All the app does is provide a web link to your existing IDX search page.  You will also benefit from having Facebook, Twitter, A YouTube page and a blog setup before you jump into real estate iphone app development.  This app provides the exposure so you’ll need to be prepared.
Another real estate app developer noted is IDX, inc.  These applications seem more robust with potentially better connections to an IDX search interface:  http://www.appstorehq.com/idx-inc–20687/developer  They appear to really just be an IDX website search provider and serving the following MLSs http://www.idxbroker.com/idx_mls_coverage.php.  Not too pricey, if you also need an MLS search website tool – might be worth a look.

Did I just find a little known real estate technology secret?  Perhaps, read on…

In a quick search for real estate apps in iTunes, you get a menu of about 135 available applications (to do this you must have itunes installed locally).  Still surprisingly few.  By far the most interesting trend comes from enterprising agents racing to the real estate app scene with mobile access to their online IDX property search portals. Simple applications that funnel the “downloader” of the app to those personalized online real estate searches in various geographical regions.  Not a bad idea, in fact – why not?  A branded presence in the iPhone App Store – pretty darn smart.

So how are they doing it?  It seems many are using a service called MobileAppLoader.  I have no personal experience with this company so can’t give it a thorough review but a large percentage of the real estate companies listed in the iPhone App Store have used it.  This might not mean much other than that the process is easy and attainable.  It seems most of the apps they build follow a simple format:

  • Contact page with one touch calling
  • Info Page with active web links
  • About Page with active web links
  • Social networking profile pages (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
  • Notifications which send alerts to customers
  • Property Feedback function
  • Loan calculator

Maybe a little clunky but a way to quickly and easily get in the game while not only branding your company but grabbing your main geographic target phrases for the name of your app – Maui Real Estate Search, Chicago Home Finder, Las Vegas Foreclosures.  There are a few different price levels for real estate as well as a fixed cost versus a monthly subscription.

I installed one of these real estate applications on my iphone just to check out the interface.  Not bad (nice graphics are important to the overall feel).  You will want to make sure that your existing IDX search website works well with mobile browsing before you jump on board.  All the app does for real estate search is provide a web link to your existing website’s IDX search page.  You will also benefit from having Facebook, Twitter, a YouTube page and a business blog setup before you jump into real estate iPhone app development.  This real estate app provides exposure to those mediums so be prepared!

Another real estate app developer visible in the app store is IDX, Inc.  These real estate applications seem more robust with potentially better connections to an IDX search interface.  They appear to really just be an IDX website search provider and serve the following MLSs.  Not too pricey; if you also need an MLS search website tool – might be worth a look.

I started this post with the intention of reviewing a few useful iPhone apps for real estate and ended up with a much different result.  Guess we’ll save that one for next time.  Perhaps this information can get you started developing your own iphone application for your real estate business, good luck!

If you need help developing your business social networks or creating a branded real estate blog, we can help – call or email us today.

Contributed by Kristen Belschner
kristen@kineticknowledge.com


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