Whether you’re a realtor, prospective homebuyer or renter, or property manager, the amount of time and money you need to invest in buying, selling, or renting property means you’ll want to avoid any costly errors or delays. The length of the process and the associated regulations can create stress for everyone involved, but developing a real estate app could make many tasks more manageable.
The purpose of real estate apps
A real estate app is a mobile application that provides support for various functions of the buying, selling, and renting of property. While many people think of houses when they hear the term “real estate,” there are also rental, investment, and commercial properties that have different regulations and procedures.
Using an app to manage your real estate processes unites your documents, contacts, and other important resources on one platform, making your daily tasks and long-term projects easier to accomplish.
Types of real estate apps
Real estate is a complex industry, and the kind of app you build will depend on your role. Here are a variety of real estate app functions:
Realtor apps
As a realtor, you have to juggle a large amount of information from current, potential, and even past clients, which can quickly become overwhelming. Building an app can help you
- Enable communication between you and your clients
- Manage documents in an organized, easily accessible format
- Keep track of properties currently for sale
Household/property management apps
Homeowners and landlords are responsible for finding solutions to issues that will undoubtedly arise — anything from plumbing issues to homeowner’s association violations. Using a household or property management app will enable you to
- Log the dates of repairs and other maintenance activities
- Store vital documents related to mortgages, insurance, utilities, and taxes
- Manage requests from tenants
Property listing apps
Both realtors and potential buyers need access to an updated catalog of available properties in their area. A property listing app should make it easy to
- View details about a property’s features, amenities, and price
- Search and filter for properties that meet their requirements.
- Schedule an in-person tour of the property
Property inspection apps
Before anyone can live in a house or apartment, it must pass relevant inspections to ensure the safety of its inhabitants. Keep all members of the inspection process on the same page by creating a property inspection app that can do the following:
- Allow inspectors to log results
- Flag issues that need to be resolved
- Display upcoming appointments and deadlines
Renting apps
Once a renter identifies the right home for them, they need a way to express their interest, submit an application, and make payments toward their rent. Developing your own renting app should allow your tenants to
- Submit applications for available properties
- View, sign, or edit leases and contracts
- Receive notifications before payment due dates
Estimated real estate app development cost
Apps in general can be expensive, but with the specific needs of the real estate industry, you can expect your app to cost somewhere in the range of $9,000 and $50,000 — or possibly more if you include complex features like an interactive map of available properties. While your initial real estate app development cost will depend on a number of factors, there will be additional expenses related to updates and maintenance that will contribute to your annual costs.
Factors influencing real estate app development cost
With such a diverse range of possible functions, real estate app development costs can vary greatly depending on the features you wish to include. Some factors influencing real estate app development cost include
- Platform choice: Your total development costs could depend on whether you want to build your app for iOS, Android, or the web. Since these platforms have different coding requirements, it can be difficult to make an app coded for one platform work on another without building a new app from scratch. Limiting which platforms your app can be used on will reduce costs — though keep in mind that not developing your app for a certain platform will also limit your potential users.
- Design and user interface: While your app needs to be accessible and aesthetically pleasing, the more design features you choose to implement, like animations and splash screens, the more your app’s user interface will cost to develop.
- Third-party integrations: Some features are easier to implement through a third party rather than coding directly into your app — though many of these third-party companies require a recurring payment to use, especially after your app surpasses a certain number of users.
Tips to reduce real estate app development costs
Before committing to a specific developer or development team for your app, shop around and get a variety of quotes. One developer’s hourly fee may be far higher than another’s, even if the quality of their output is the same. You may come across two developers with the same hourly rate, but one may estimate their final number of working hours to be significantly fewer than their competitor, which can save you money as well.
Rather than hiring a developer to create your app, you can do it yourself using open source technology, which is free. The primary downside is that this method may be highly challenging and/or time consuming, especially if you don’t have prior coding experience.
Another way to reduce your real estate app development costs is to prioritize building a minimum viable product, or MVP, which is an app that’s just functional enough to share with users but is missing certain features. Then, as you can allocate more of your profits to your budget, you can increase the available features in the future.
An example of a feature you can wait to add is built-in scheduling for property showcases. Instead of listing available appointment times in your app, you can ask users to contact the realtor directly to schedule their tour.
While these tactics will lower your costs, they can also impede the usefulness or convenience of your app. You may have difficulty choosing whether to prioritize cost savings or app quality — but thankfully, with software like Jotform Apps, you don’t have to.
An easier way to develop your real estate app
Using Jotform Apps’ drag-and-drop builder, you can develop a real estate app that meets your needs as a realtor, homeowner, or landlord — all without writing a single line of code. With more than 700 premade templates, including ones designed specifically for the real estate industry (like a property inspection app and a home buying checklist app), it’s easier and faster than ever to streamline your real estate practices with the aid of a mobile app.
You can add a number of elements to your app and customize your logo, color scheme, and splash screen with Jotform’s extensive customization options. Jotform Apps integrates with 40 payment gateways, making it easy to collect any fees related to your services.
When you’re ready to share your real estate app with your users, Jotform Apps offers a variety of sharing options, including QR codes and custom URLs, that give you control over who’s able to access your app.
There are countless benefits to creating a real estate app for realtors, renters, buyers, and more, and Jotform can be a powerful partner in your app-building journey.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it take to build a minimum viable product (MVP) for a real estate app?
To build an MVP for your real estate app, you can expect to pay anywhere from $9,000 to $50,000 or more. This cost will depend on your developer’s hourly rates, the features you choose to implement, and your app’s overall complexity.
How can I reduce the cost of creating a real estate app?
Lowering your total real estate app development cost is difficult, but you can spread out the amount of money you spend across a longer period of time by creating an MVP and adding additional features later on.
You can also reduce costs by creating a simple user interface, shopping around for different quotes from developers, and building your app yourself with an open source app building platform. You can also get started using Jotform Apps for free.
How does a real estate agency benefit from having a personal mobile app?
A personal mobile app can benefit a real estate agency because it supports branding in a way that hosting your property listings on a third-party platform can’t. When you develop your own app, you have utmost control over everything — from its user interface to the information on each listing in your property catalog.
You can also streamline your processes by creating templates for frequently used documents, collecting e-signatures on important applications and contracts, and communicating with clients directly in your app.
Photo by Mikhail Nilov
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