People are shopping on their phones more than ever before. Furthermore, they aren’t just buying the latest tech or new pairs of shoes. Many people are searching for their next homes with their phones. Others are looking for real estate investment opportunities. In other words, to compete in the real estate business, every realtor needs their own mobile app.

Realtor apps are designed for the mobile experience and are more engaging than websites. Additionally, major players such as Zillow and Redfin already have mobile apps they offer to agents. If you want to effectively market your business, you need the right real estate app developer as a partner. However, this begs the question: do you need something completely custom? Or is there a better option?

What are Real Estate Apps for Agents?

Apps for real estate agents aren’t the same as real estate apps like Zillow and Realtor.com. These types of apps are focused on the needs of realtors: branding, marketing, real estate lead generation, and client relationship management. These apps specifically for agents and brokers take marketing for real estate to the next level by utilizing data from the MLS or IDX and pairing that with the functionality to communicate with leads and clients, making it the ultimate marketing tool for realtors. These types of apps are commonly seen in high-end or luxury brokerages as the traditional way to develop them is very expensive. However, with advances in real estate tech, these types of real estate tools are becoming more accessible. Let’s dive into the details.

What Is HomeStack?

HomeStack is a solution that makes mobile app development for real estate simpler. Most real estate businesses need similar features from their apps. HomeStack’s solution is to use these similarities to streamline the development process. Rather than repeatedly creating similar apps from scratch, HomeStack customizes a real estate app builder to meet the requirements of each client.

For example, every real estate business needs to create listings and upload photos of those properties. Rather than repeatedly reinventing the wheel, HomeStack customizes its beautiful and clean user experience to match your needs. It is mobile app development for real estate streamlined.

Reasons To Choose HomeStack

Choosing HomeStack lets you build an app that will fuel your business’ growth. These are a few of the reasons to choose HomeStack rather than creating an app from the ground up.

• High-Quality Experience: The HomeStack user experience is finely tuned. It offers buyers, sellers and investors an easy-to-use and clean user interface. They can easily check out listings and interact with your team. Everything is laid out to be as straightforward as possible.
• Branded, Custom Solution: The end result is customized to your specific needs. The app is branded for your business. Unlike portal apps like Zillow, there are no competitors popping up next to your listings. This is your app, and your business is the only point of contact.
• Affordable: HomeStack is designed to be more affordable than creating something from the ground up. By streamlining this realtor app builder, HomeStack is able to cut development costs and pass on those savings.
• Full Sales Funnel Support: Your app won’t just be a few listings on a map. HomeStack supports every stage of the real estate sales funnel. Bring in new leads, keep leads organized, communicate with potential clients and much more.
• Strong Back-End Office: This is especially useful for large teams and brokerages. You’ll have full access to the backend of the app and all user behavior analytics. You can also control the lead funnel amongst your agents.

When you choose HomeStack, you will get to name your very own app, select your design preferences and request various features. The team then creates your app and brings it live on the Apple and Google app stores. HomeStack even offers support and resources for marketing your app out to the public.

Reasons To Choose a Custom Realtor App Developer

Not every business is exactly the same, however. Some organizations can greatly benefit from working with a custom app developer. Although this may mean spending significantly more on a project that takes longer to complete, there are some advantages.

• Completely Custom: The app is made uniquely for your business. If there are any features that you want, you can have them built. For some real estate businesses, this is important. If your company operates very differently from other realtors, this may be a valuable benefit. For example, if the listings in your area are unique and do not fall under the typical MLS display filters and functions, that may be the job of a custom developer.
• Opportunities for Integration: With a custom app, you can ask for an integration point with any of your other systems. HomeStack offers some integration points with common software. However, you may want your app to work with some other custom system you already have.
• Greater Control: Some teams simply want the control offered by a custom job. If you want a very unique user experience, you have control over how everything is laid out. This can be an advantage and a disadvantage depending on your team’s interest and aptitude for app design.

A custom real estate app is a significant undertaking. It is more costly and time-consuming than using HomeStack. However, it also offers the chance to do everything completely customized for your business.

Which Is the Right Choice?

There is no simple answer to this question. For most real estate businesses, HomeStack is likely the right choice because it is a more streamlined, accessible, affordable and great for growing teams. It's a way to easily create an app for your business. However, some larger organizations may benefit from having a completely custom app.

HomeStack apps can be surprisingly unique to each business. However, no real estate app builder can offer the same extreme level of customization available from working with a custom app developer and developing an app or months (and sometimes years).

One thing to always be wary of when choosing an app developer is their comfortability with working with local MLS’s and coding in the data feed for listings. This is most definitely an undertaking and we would recommend working with a developer that’s successfully taken on past projects specific to this, considering it could be costly and time-consuming if they’ve never done it before.

If you are uncertain which is the better choice for you, the HomeStack team is happy to discuss what your app could look like. If it covers all your bases, HomeStack is likely the right choice. If you need something completely unique, a custom job may be the way to go.

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