How to Create a Competitive Real Estate Mobile App in 5 Simple Steps?
Volatile economics, low-mortgage rates, and migrations create a huge demand for real estate mobile app development companies. The rush begins a competitive real estate app market. Thus, it is crucial to be fast to find the market fit to gain the lead. Being an app development company, in this blog today, we will share what it takes to create the demanded product that solves real estate problems.
What are the Must-Have Features of a Real Estate Mobile App?
A real estate mobile app can be considered an MVP (minimum viable product). This means that the product has a minimum number of features and is made within a minimum time frame with minimum effort. Viable means the app needs to perform the core functionality and lets the early adopters accomplish their goals. The functionality of a real estate app includes simple features that allow proper accommodation for the users. Here are the features you must seek in a real estate mobile app.
#1 Search Filters
This is the first thing you need in a real estate mobile app. Any real estate mobile app development company should consider adding this feature right at the start. It is beneficial for those mobile users who use the app on the run. The search filters should have the following feature:
- Location
- The type of property
- Year of construction
- Price
- Neighbourhood
#2 Map Integration
As a real estate mobile app development company, you cannot imagine a real estate mobile app without a map. The good thing is it is not difficult to offer one. You can opt for the shelf-map solution from third-party providers like Mapbox or Google Maps.
#3 Admin Panel
This is another part you should get in a real estate mobile app. This panel helps anyone to submit or remove any listing, edit the listed properties, and receive reports for rental applications. This is excellent news for a real estate app development company. You won’t have to build an admin panel right from scratch. Instead, you can integrate the existing solution and then customize it according to your requirements.
#4 Chat Solution
Being a real estate mobile app development company, we know that instant communication is one of the most critical factors in the accommodation search. The users can send a message to the realtor in the chat instead of calling one. When you call someone, it complicates the real estate search process. Thus, another “for-sure” feature that should be in the real estate app is the chat solution.
#4 Review Booking
You will make the users’ life much easier when you allow them to see time slots for apartment reviews online. This will eliminate the step of making a call and scheduling an inspection. This will also increase the chances of users booking an appointment.
#5 Registration
Adding registration in the app is the best way to customize the product. Creating an account will save the users the “search filter” option and categorize their favourite offerings into a “favourite” box. As a real estate mobile app development company, we can say that the registration feature is easy to introduce. You can use the user’s email address, contact, or social media accounts.
How to Develop a Real Estate App in 5 Steps?
Now that we have mentioned the must-have features, here are the steps to develop the real estate app. The first thing you need to know is that for all app development companies, the development process for app development companies is the same. The steps are as follows:
#1 Figure Out the Goal
You cannot build an app out of anywhere. And if you do, your products will fail. To avoid this outcome, you need to determine which problem the product will cover. Figure out the market that you are targeting, choose the target audience, explore the market, and find the user’s pain.
#2 Think How the Product Stands Out
Once you have done the market research and met the competitors face to face, you must ask how the app differs from theirs? This is crucial being a real estate mobile app development company. Your product doesn’t have to be unique, but you should always be sure about what makes the product valuable. For example, perhaps you offer a hassle-free mobile app development than your competitors. Take your time and think about it!
#3 Collect the Listings
Listing is the lion’s share of a real estate app. These are a database of real estate data/apartment/house offerings ready to be integrated into the app. Listing is crucial because when you start a real estate app, you must be sure to offer something to the users.
The good thing about listings is that you can easily integrate them into the app. On the other hand, the bad news is that it is not always possible to do it because MLS is not always available in every market. There are special broker communities at some needs that you enter which manage these listings. You can partner with them in this case.
A real estate mobile app development company knows that sometimes there is no unified database on the market. In these circumstances, you shall need to collect the database by yourself. Along with the listing, there are a few more factors to consider. They are:
- How shall you update the listing database?
- Can users upload the offerings? Or can only the agents make their listings?
- Will moderators or administrators be on the platform to check whether the offerings are authentic?
#4 Gather Around a Team of Professionals
It can be alluring to love a new idea, especially when working on it. Unfortunately, when you love something, it becomes hard to challenge it. Eventually, you might find no demand for the product in the market. To eliminate this situation, you shall need a pool of product teams that can test your idea with real users. Once the idea is validated, you can proceed with the development part.
#5 Developing the App
In a real estate mobile app development company, once the product team and the developers validate the idea, then comes the development part. For an MVP, it is crucial to create a basic product version quickly. First, however, you need to foresee how the product potentially scales up and adapts the architecture for such a case.
In Conclusion
Real estate mobile app development companies must go through intense competition. Such fierce competition set’s the game’s rules. However, as an app development company, it should not mean that you don’t enter the race. Instead, think about your audience and the niche and figure out a solution for that group of people. That’s how you engage your audience.
