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| Photo from www.kikaenterprises.com |
When it comes to staying organized and efficient during the home-buying process your best tool might already be in your pocket: your smartphone. If you are in the market for a new home, technology can help make your search a little easier. There are mobile apps that allow you to search listings, calculate mortgage costs, find out which businesses and attractions are nearby, and design what your new home could look like. Below are some of the best real estate apps for homebuyers.
Find the Home
Platform: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
AroundMe
Platform: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
The AroundMe app quickly identifies where you are to show you a complete list of nearby businesses and attractions, including the distance from your current location. This can be helpful when looking for a house in an area that is unfamiliar to you. You can search for the nearest bank/ATM, bar, coffee shop, gas station, hospital, hotel, movie theater, restaurant, supermarket, theater and taxi company. You can view every listing on a map, view GPS directions to your chosen destination, add the information to your contact list and email the details to a friend.
Homesnap
Platform: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
Homesnap is another MLS app with an added feature: Snap a photo of any home across the nation to get instant property details, including home values, when it last sold, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, taxes, lot boundaries, local school ratings, similar listings, and nearby sales. If a home is currently on the market, you may be able to see interior photos. When you are ready to buy a home (or put yours on the market), you can use the app to contact a real estate agent to schedule a showing or to add your home to the MLS. This app draws on the same listing information used by realtors to provide timely, accurate real estate information. Or if you're looking for a quick and easy way to find information on any property for investment purposes, do it with a single photo via Homesnap.
House Hunter
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
It’s hard to keep track of all the details when house hunting, but House Hunter does all the hard work for you by providing a scorecard that organizes notes and photos of potential homes. You can choose from more than 80 different home features to score potential homes and access a quick note feature to enter information about the homes.
Fund the Home
Platform: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
If you are like most homebuyers, you will need a mortgage to purchase your new property. Mortgage apps, such as Trulia's Mortgage Calculator, Home Loan Rates and Zillow Mortgages, help you determine how much house you can afford, calculate your monthly payment and shop for real-time rates. You can also see side-by-side customized loan quotes from a number of lenders, compare lender ratings and reviews, and directly contact a lender from your mobile device to learn more about a specific quote. These apps also include refinancing calculators so you can see if/how much you'll save monthly and in total by refinancing.
Credit Karma
Platform: iOS, Android, CreditKarma.com
Cost: Free
Before searching for a home, it's important to be sure you can get financing (unless you're paying cash). A lot of realtors will even ask for a pre-approval letter from a bank before they will begin showing you homes. Credit Karma is a great tool that's available for free and can give you an estimated score that's provided by TransUnion, as well as an overview of how your score was calculated. What a bank sees may be a little different but the general consensus has been that Credit Karma is fairly accurate and generally within a few points. I pulled my own credit and then checked with my bank and both were within 10 points of each other.
If you need financing, you need Credit Karma.
The Dictionary of Real Estate Terms
Platform: iOS
Cost: $2.99
Buying a home can be confusing, especially if you aren’t familiar with real estate jargon. The app, which costs $2.99, has more than 3,000 real-estate specific terms to help navigate conversations with brokers and real estate agents.
Fix-Up the Home
Houzz
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
It’s hard to picture a fixer-upper in its final state, but Houzz will do all the imagining for you. Claiming to be the largest database of home design ideas on the Web, the Houzz app has more 500,000 high-resolution photos to give you remodeling ideas for out-dated homes. You can browse by style, room and location and save them to a virtual idea book.
Handy Man DIY
Platform: iOS
Cost: $1.99
For many home buyers, a new home comes with a list of required improvement projects. If you don’t want to hire a contractor you can get your own virtual one with Handy Man DIY and it’s only going to cost you $1.99. This app lets calculate and store room dimensions, figure out floor and wall square footage and create shopping lists for projects. The app also has how to videos and instructions to guide you through various projects.
Sherwin Williams Color Snap app
Platform: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
Picking out paint colors can be tough but the free Color Snap app makes it a little bit easier. See a color you like in a photo, someone’s house or in a flower, all you have to do is snap a picture and the app will show you colors of Sherwin Williams paints that match. You can also browse hundreds of colors and adjust them to get the shade you want.
For Sellers!
If you are preparing to sell your home there are also some great apps available to help! Check out the one below and stay tuned for more ideas in the future!
Home Value Pro
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
Eager to sell your home but not sure where to price it? This app lets you view property values, foreclosure information and housing trends in neighborhoods across the country. The app lets you analyze housing data by ZIP code, provides 12 month median home price trends, foreclosure rates and home sales trend activity that can help you properly price your home.
Article compiled from articles on investopedia.com, imore.com, and foxbusiness.com
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