Real Estate App Development: How We Can Digitalize the Industry

What should real estate apps do to keep up with the times?
Read about in-app home tours, messaging features, and other functionality not to miss: https://yalantis.com/blog/on-demand-showings-in-the-real-estate-app-development-how-we-can-uberize-real-estate/

For the last two years, investors have poured billions into property companies that are using technology. According to the Real Estate Technology Sector Summary 2018 Year-End Review by GCA Altium, overall growth equity funding in the real estate sector was up 84 percent year-over-year in 2018. This jump in investment has led to radical changes in the US real estate industry. This makes real estate one of such thriving industries as e-commerce and transportation.

According to the 2019 edition of Inman Disconnect, homebuyers and real estate agents will swap roles over the next five years. In the future, agents will seek clients as opposed to homebuyers seeking agents. The number of real estate agents will shrink, and only the most competitive will remain.

The ubiquitous Uberization backs up this shift. Uberizing implies hiding the intermediary – that is, the party in charge of connecting clients and service providers. Uber for real estate implies that the intermediary is the real estate platform. It facilitates communication, but its presence is imperceptible.

In this post, we outline how buyers and real estate agents interact and discuss how these interactions can be improved. Real estate platforms aim to seamlessly connect agents with sellers and buyers. Let’s find out how to do this in the rapidly changing market.

Matching customers and agents
Before buyers and sellers are matched to each other, they have to be matched to real estate agents. This matching has to be done after an agent lists real property on multiple listing services. Agents with higher ratings have a competitive advantage in the real estate marketplace, as sellers can choose the best-rated agents.

The following three brands have already built their real estate businesses around the principle of matching.

Nobul.com is an online Canadian real estate marketplace that allows agents to compete for clients. The service enables buyers and sellers to compare agents’ services and decide on the agent they prefer. On Nobul.com, a buyer/seller describes the type of real estate they want to buy/sell. Interested agents can then reach out with their offerings. Nobul charges agents a 20 basis point referral fee – $2,000 per $1 million of real estate value – for closed deals.

Property Whispers is an Australian matching platform that covers the residential marketplace, including real estate that’s advertised for sale and that’s for sale off-market. The platform is appreciated by agents, brokers, and vendors since it helps them get the contact information of matched buyers. In a world where traditional advertising campaigns cost thousands of dollars, the platform charges agents only $99 plus GST per listing (with a free trial provided). Private vendors, in turn, pay only $139 plus GST to list their properties.

Homes.com is also built around the matching principle. With the platform’s Snap & Search feature, buyers just take a photo of a home they like and the service helps them find similar ones. In addition, the platform provides a kind of conversational search. It navigates a buyer to their ideal location providing average area pricing by helping buyers choose criteria that matter to them the most. Filters such as “must-have” and “around” (for approximate pricing) enable users to find relevant listings. All property results have a match score on a scale of 0 to 100, showing how closely a property matches the user’s preferences.

Online matchmaking in the real estate industry is expected to grow. But the key to success is not just matchmaking but improving all other interactions between demand and supply – including property viewings.