Top Mobile Apps for Real Estate: Tried, Tested & True & The New Kids on the Block

It is that time again - time to review the most popular mobile apps for real estate. Those apps that have come out on top as the best for research, time management, marketing, organization or communication. Some of the ones on this list are old faves - faves that seem to make it to the top of the list time and time again. Others are new to the stage, but are full of promise!

Research Apps

1. Google Maps – this is a great app that can be used as a GPS. You can view street view and aerial imagery of different neighbourhoods and use the GPS feature to navigate from property to property. Looking at an overhead view of a neighbourhood can enable you to plan routes where you can pass amenities that your client would be interested in.

2. GeoWarehouse – Access the GeoWarehouse application from your tablet to research a property, generate sales comparables, view sales history, verify legal owners and legal descriptions, financial encumbrances, neighbourhood demographics, request instrument images, condo certificates, surveys and more…

Marketing Apps

3. Mail Chimp – This is a platform that enables you to create your own branded emails and newsletters and market them to your email lists.

4. Social media – Make sure you have downloaded apps for the social media sites you use frequently. This is important because some sites like Facebook require that you download a secondary app to manage your business page.

5. Communication Apps – Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp, and/or Facebook Messenger all offer apps that make it effortless to have free video and telephone calls with your customers.

6. LightTrac – This app enables you to be more aware and have more control over lighting conditions so that you can plan to take your photos at optimal times - not to mention plan showings around the optimal times of day.

7. Majic Plan – This mobile app enables you to create floor plans quickly and easily using the camera on your mobile device.

8. Create your Own Mobile App - Use this service to create your own mobile app: http://www.biznessapps.com/realtor-iphone-app.php.

9. Netfirms – You can use this site to host, create and market your own website affordably.

Apps that Make Calculations

10. Mortgage calculator app – there are tons of them and it is a huge benefit to have one downloaded. Clients may want your help to crunch numbers to see what price points of homes they can afford.

11. Land transfer tax calculator – RateHub has a really great land transfer tax calculator that you can use to quickly estimate municipal and provincial land transfer taxes: https://www.ratehub.ca/land-transfer-tax-ontario .

Organizational/Document Management Apps

12. Dropbox – This a crucial app that makes storing files securely in the cloud easy. Using Dropbox enables you to access documents from anywhere. You can also email your clients links to documents and even the ability for them to upload documents to your Dropbox.

13. Evernote – This is another app that enables you to organize and store documents and notes. They offer a number of industry specific products including real estate.

All-in-one Apps

14. ViMO – this is a real estate specific app that is really an all-in-one app because it does many things under the above categories in the same app. You can: 

• Market your listings – through CRM functionality, market insight reports and through posting your   listings

• Research properties – check sales comps, registered owners, encumbrances, sales history and more

• Research areas – pull demographics, view neighbourhood trends and sales

• Administer documents – create and sign documents electronically

• Communicate – send messages and documents to other ViMO users and more

When it comes to doing things on the go, this list of the top mobile apps for real estate is a great way to have everything in one place, there when you need it. In the competitive industry that is real estate, the only way to compete it to be the best.

These apps help. Visit www.myvimo.ca today. 

The Paperless Acquisition, Interview and New Client Engagement

This is the story of Steve. Steve is a real estate sales professional in Mississauga, Ontario. Steve has gone paperless by transforming his marketing from conventional marketing to 100% digital, and has made the interview and process of engagement completely paperless! Here is Steve’s Story.

Part of Steve’s new digital plan was to create a presence on Facebook and focus on developing that presence including marketing his listings using paid advertising. After starting this marketing, Steve was contacted by a client via Facebook message.

The client was interested in listing their home and buying another one. They asked Steve to come out and meet with them. Steve requested some preliminary information from the client and set up a time to meet.

At the meeting Steve dazzled the client, showing them a selection of properties on his tablet using his ViMO app.

·        The client indicated which properties they wanted to Steve and so Steve sent messages to the real estate sales professionals on the other side to make appointments to see the properties.

·         Next, Steve and the client looked at comparable properties that had sold in the area to come up with a good list price for the client’s home they wanted to sell.

·         Steve did a walk around of the property, snapping photos throughout for the listing.

·         Steve prepared the listing and representation agreement on his tablet and had the client sign using their finger, electronically.

The following day, Steve heard back from all the other real estate sales professionals representing clients who were selling properties that Steve’s client had wanted to see. Steve followed up with his client and took them out to see some homes.

On the road, Steve and his client passed a property that appeared to have just come up for sale. Steve pulled over, and using his tablet and ViMO app again, scanned the property using the camera on his tablet and generated all of the property’s information for the client.

Later that day, the client found a property that they liked and wanted to make an offer on. Steve pulled out his tablet and again checked his ViMO app to see sales comparables in the area relevant to the property his client was interested him and noted that this listing was $30k over value.

At the local Tim Hortons, Steve and his client had lunch and Steve prepared the offer electronically to sign up with the client again, electronically.

And so the story goes….

As you can see by Steve’s story, going paperless is not so difficult and just really depends on what tools you have to get the job done. Steve’s use of his tablet and mobile app made him significantly more efficient and streamlined the process making it more time efficient for him and his client.

Going paperless doesn’t have to mean more work, but it can mean more sales for you. Visit www.myvimo.ca today to find out more.

How to Help Your Client Avoid a Bad Morning After

There are definite reasons why spring is a hot time in the real estate business. The weather is usually nice, it is easy to view properties and you can see everything than may have been hidden for the last few months. Clients may opt to wait out of concern that it can be difficult to see what is under the cover of snow, and not just as it relates to the property your client wants to look at but also as it relates to adjacent properties.

One way to overcome the objection that a client wants to wait until spring to buy is to point out that you can show them what is under the cover of snow.

There are many ways that you can do this but the real estate tools in your arsenal are important.

Google Street View – You can Google the address, click maps and then drop the little man icon onto the street to do a virtual walk down the street and look at the property in question from the street and also adjacent properties.

Another thing you can do on Google is just perform a general search of the property address. 

The beauty of social media is that the owners may have posted photos of the property in different seasons. Additionally, it may have been listed in the past and if the other real estate sales professionals didn’t delete the listings everywhere they listed, there may still be photos available online – photos you don’t have. A quick check can sometimes yield a goldmine.

Skip a step - Online tools like GeoWarehouse and mobile apps like ViMO enable you to instantly generate exterior imagery of the subject property and also aerial imagery. Some of this imagery comes from Google so you can actually skip the step of looking at the property on Google because you can access the same imagery here.

Aesthetic issues such as landscaping aren’t as concerning because they can be changed by the new homeowner. However, issues such as what the deck looks like and things/structures that may exist that are below the snow may be more concerning.

The last thing you want your client to do is purchase a home, take possession and once the snow melts, discover some unsightly attribute of the property which is costly to resolve. Or worse, something that exists on an adjacent property that presents major issues.

On the sell side, you can show your client things they may not be able to see, such as a ravine or golf course that a property backs onto, which may just look like a wall of white in the winter. Or maybe a driveway is larger than it looks because some of it is under snow.

The more you can do for/show your customer, the more value you provide. Being able to access imagery and show your clients everything they need to know about a potential property, sets the stage for a buying decision!

Don’t let concerns about snow coverage convince a buyer they need to wait. Give them the info they want and need to make a purchase no matter the season. For more information, visit www.myvimo.ca today.