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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Review: Real Estate Mobile App

Sponsored by Nuffnang and REA

Lately I have been looking at property in Sydney. I don’t have an immediate intention to buy but I love to browse to see what is available and get a feel for the market.

realestate.com.au released their mobile app in December 2010 and set me with the task to find three of my top dream homes using the app.

Read on to see the houses I found and my review of the app…

The Real Estate app was fairly easy to use and download from the App store or you can download from realestate.com.au.

I like that you can search using the map which gives you a good view of where the property is located. You can share the homes you find on Twitter or email to a friend and contact the agent to find out more – all the functionality you would anticipate from a real estate website.

It is good that you can also view more properties in the area using the map or search for properties in your current location and you can also refine your search by price, number of rooms, property type and land size.

Properties can be saved to a list that is handy to refer back to and also view the open times however I found when I added a number of properties to my list I wasn’t able to see the available open times.

I used the app to search for what I consider dream homes and here is what I found:

Dream Home #1 – “The Palm Beach Paradise”


What I like about the property: The high ceilings, checkerboard parquet floor, stainless steel kitchen, freestanding bath, crystal chandeliers and the view!

+ Link: http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-palm+beach-112212199

Dream Home #2 – “The Gissing House”


What I like about the property: Harry Seidler designed property with original features, location, inground pool, owning a piece of Australian history.

+ Link: http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-wahroonga-111553447

Dream Home #3 - "The Byron Bay Beauty"


What I like about the property: Large land size, historic home, renovations maintain period features, fun kids room. Interesting to note this home has been featured in Vogue Living December issue.

+ Link: http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-byron+bay-111823295

My suggestions to further improve the app would be to allow for keyword searches. I have a keen interest in mid century property and it would be great to be able to search by related keywords or search by the age of the property.

Another suggestion would be to show summaries for all properties from the search listings page. I noticed some properties were missing the short summary although there was a further description when viewing the property details.

Overall I rate the app 3.5 out of 5 and I feel the suggested improvements would greatly enhance the app. The Saved Properties list and Open Times would be handy to refer to when planning weekend house hunting and I would love to see this working. In the meantime the app is handy to search for properties by suburb or your current location when you are out and about.

Please note: I reviewed the app using iPhone 4. I also briefly reviewed the app using an Android phone and found the Open Times functionality was not available. You can download the app via http://www.mobile.realestate.com.au


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