If you’re mid-house-hunt, there’s every chance you’re an exhausted, scattered and slightly frustrated version of your former self.
Your weekend schedule is overfilled with OFIs, auctions or trying to win over landlords.
But mobile technology has changed the way we look for houses – for the better. Real estate apps can streamline the process, consolidating home details and alerting you when new listings pop up in your shortlisted areas.
1. Get the app
First things first. Jam-packed open inspections leave no time for fumbling around with handwritten lists that can easily get lost in the haste to get from Property A to Property B. Our very own realestate.com.au app reached four million downloads this month. Don’t get left behind.
By providing a little bit of information from the outset – what suburbs you’re interested in and the price range you want to stick to – your realestate.com.au account will be your best friend. It will remind you about auctions and OFIs. It will provide a map detailing your route to get to them. It will let you know when new listings pop up. And, it will tell you all this from whichever device you have on hand at the time.
Get reminders to your phone about auctions, OFIs and new listings.
Without your app friend buzzing away in your pocket – you could miss out of your dream home.
Keeping a tight schedule is one of the trickier parts of house hunting. For most of us, the responsibilities of the hunt spill over into the weekend – the time we usually set aside for housework, hobbies and catching up with family and friends. If you keep a calendar on your phone already, the realestate.com.au app has the ability to sync in with it. So for any inspection or auction that you need to attend you can roadblock clashes without even thinking.
The best part of making a digital property search is you can chop and change your preferences as quickly as the market shifts its pace. Maybe you’ve been searching for three weeks for a furnished rental in Culburra/Callala with two bedrooms and had no success. Swipe right on “furnished only” and you might have more luck.
The refinements on our app are designed to be basic and broad so you don’t narrow your options too much. It’s the stuff that really matters, like how many bedrooms and bathrooms you need and whether or not pets are allowed. For more tick-boxes, you’ll have to take your search to desktop, but when you’re on the move, you need to be able to filter in terms of importance.
A renters guide: Go from rental seeker to happy tenant
This isn’t strictly part of the house hunting process. In fact, you’ve probably found a house by this stage – you’re settled, you’re happy, you’re home. But for whatever reason, you can’t get your nose out of the market. You’re no longer searching out of desperation, this is pure, unashamed sticky-nosing.
You might be an owner looking to sell one day. Or a renter hoping to buy into the area you love so much.
The realestate.com.au My Property function saves your current address and finds similar properties in both the area and matching suburbs. It then sorts them into three categories: Sold, For Sale and For Rent. For the properties on the market, it creates a calendar of inspections and auctions if curiosity’s truly gotten the better of you.
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