Me and my lovely wife are looking for a home! We currently live in a nice manufactured home, but with home prices being so low, we want to take advantage of the market and prepare for our future (with hopefully a few little ones running around). Because of this, I started looking for a good realtor. In my search I found a few websites that offered realtor services, but out of all of these, I was most impressed with Ziprealty, for a few reasons. They not only have a very clean professional website, but they also give you a rebate from the money they get. I signed up for the sight and was assigned a realtor automatically, which was nice, but I would have liked to have some say in the matter. Regardless, our new realtor called us within 24 hours automatically to introduce herself, and to get a feel for what we were looking for. She was very nice and sounded very professional. This was a few months ago, and I had then advised her that we weren’t seriously looking at the time, but when we did, I would contact her. Warp to just a few days ago and me and the wife were looking at homes when we found the perfect home on ziprealty.com. I was already logged in so all i had to do was add the house to “My Homes” and it was saved as a favorite. It also asked me if we wanted to look at the house as well, so we decided to go ahead and click it. Within about 20 min we received a call from the realtor, and we explained how the situation was changing, and that we wanted to look at the house. She set up a time and date that worked with us, and we were set. Now today, we went to the home, and the realtor pulls up with bad news that the house already had a contract as of the previous night. We were disappointed but rescheduled for other homes, and she left. Ok, so here is where it gets interesting. Me and the wife decided to start driving around the neighborhood since we really like it and see what other homes were available. On an impulse I search the android marketplace for ziprealty and lo and behold, there existed an app! I quickly downloaded it, and asked it to find me. Within seconds we were looking at the neighborhood on the phone, so we cruise around, and when we found a home that we liked we would access it on the app, and look at the price, the sq footage, and inside pictures! It was amazing! I truly feel that this is what technology should be! A perfect blend of reality and virtuality. I can already imagine in 10 or 20 years, our glasses will have this technology built into it, and we’ll be able to look around and access all kinds of data, simply by looking at a store or a house. Let me tell you, I think the future is almost here! The question is, will we recognize it when it arrives?
Wrap-up
The app is very good, and quite responsive. I love that it allows me to look for homes where ever I might be. The GPS option is great! I can be in an unknown neighborhood and get all the local listings in that area in seconds. The app also allows you to view your Realtors contact info, so you have quick access if you find what your looking for.
Pros
I love that the app has all the listings from MLS in one easy to access place. You can do street view and see all the pics from the home in one place. I also like that you can see your Realtors information with two taps of your finger, and easily call or email the Realtor. It gives me a connection to them that feels fluid.
Cons
The app is not perfect, as it is missing some really core features, such as the ability to access your favorite homes. Even though you login, you cant see the list of your favorite homes, which should be a key feature. Likewise, you also cant add any homes to your favorite, which was not good, and also should be a core feature. The app seemed a little sluggish at times, and when looking at a map, and moving, it has to reset all the homes. I would think it would be nice to cache them so when you move around the map, you have something to orient yourself with.
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