The A to Z of property apps: Part one
There was once a time when the start of a house-hunt was signalled by the quiet chime of the bell over a real estate agent’s door. Things have changed.
Searches that once took weeks can now be done on the train to work. Processes that didn’t seem possible are now every day events.
Progress marches on and almost every aspect of the property market now has an online presence. There is now a website, app or tool for every imaginable facet of real estate.
These make dealing with property easier, faster, more efficient and can help save money. There is so much more to working online than posting ads on big property portals.
There are a multitude of websites, apps and tools to help people buy, sell, market, discover and manage properties – so many that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the deluge.
The vast legion of online tools available allow one to snoop on property prices, go on holiday, make money, spend money, get price estimates, make plans, break plans, play, hunt and stay up to date.
So many aspects of property have been covered online that Property Observer made this A-Z of online property sites and apps.
Here is part one of Property Observer’s favourite online websites and apps, to help you with all aspects of property.
Alerts
There’s no excuse for missing that perfect property now. Websites will alert you every time a property that fits your criteria pops up. With alerts, you can be the first to know about a new listing before it gets snatched up. The various real estate portals all offer their different flavours of alerts.
Domain.com.au allows some very specific alerts to be sent. If you have a problem with cemeteries, you can specify homes at least 5km away from them, but within 1km of a park. You can choose to be close to the train station, but away from gaols and power stations. You can search for a home within those constraints, but also make sure you’re only sent three-bedroom properties that have a balcony and a shed within the inner city region. A daily or weekly alert with all these properties is easily set up through their search function.
Realestate.com.au has a similar offering, but it’s not quite as powerful. While Realestate.com.au does have more properties listed, we found the filters on Domain to be more refined. We welcome the environmentally friendly search options such as solar panel and energy efficiency filters, but these are not enough to set it apart from Domain. The email alerts are quite useful however, and you can set up multiple searches to the same address.
Realestateview.com.au can also send property alerts. The search feature can’t discriminate properties quite as well as Domain or RealEstate.com.au but the filters are tolerable. However, to save a search listing you must create an account or sign in with Facebook.
Alongside these portal websites, most individual real estate agency websites have the ability to send alerts on specific searches. If there are just two or three agencies active in your area it might be better to subscribe to their individual alerts.
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Augmented Reality
It can often be quite hard to visualise the vast reams of data available online. You can easily access 20 pages of hard data on a suburb and come away without a clear idea of what things are worth in an area. This is where augmented reality comes into play.
Augmented reality is a relatively recent development where real world information is overlayed over a camera’s output. It pulls information from the web based on your location and superimposes it over whatever you point the camera at.
CommBank Property Guide uses this free technology to overlay past sales history, current property listings and recent sales over a real world view through the iPhone’s camera. They say it works on more than 95 per cent of residential properties in Australia but Property Observer has found some of their data lacking. It takes its information from RP Data and realestate.com.au.
If you don’t have any luck with Commbank’s app try the free ANZ Property Tracker. It has a similar feature-set but pulls its data from Fairfax’s domain.com.au and Australian Property Monitors. Again, it’s a great idea, but we found it to be a little less than perfect.
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Banks
If you’re buying property, you’re going to have to deal with a bank at some point. It’s just how these things work. The banks all have their various online offerings and some have some quite nifty apps.
ANZ have been lauded for their latest mobile banking effort. The ANZ goMoney app is a simple to use but quite powerful app. It has a great new development where you can pay someone just with their phone number, which ANZ markets as an easy way to split bills. If you’re torn between ANZ and another offering, this app might be a deciding factor. Their website isn’t quite as slick but it’s a solid offering.
The Commonwealth Bank website has all the usual features, with quite an intuitive front page. Their website has the usual features. The page isn’t too cluttered but still has quick access to quite a few useful tools.
They’ve just launched a new mobile banking app that’s got a few people excited. Its claim to fame? It makes paying people incredibly easy. The app even lets you pay for drinks at a bar simply by waving your phone over a Mastercard PayPass terminal, which are gradually being rolled out across Australian businesses. Take note, this option does require buying an iCarte iPhone case. This latest app is a huge improvement over their earlier efforts.
St Georges Bank’s mobile banking app has a good reputation. It was frequently regarded as the best mobile banking offering until ANZ released goMoney and Commonwealth released their new app. The website is strictly utilitarian and doesn’t have too many flashy banners to divert your attention.
Westpac’s website does have quite a lot of information online. If you feel like a bit of light reading, they do regularly release economic updates, including information on the property market. Their mobile banking app is a well made piece of software and is regularly updated.
NAB's website has quite easily accessible information on their home loan offerings. In fact most of their website is quite intuitive. Their app is a standard issue banking app that does that job reasonably well.
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Calculators
Real estate is all about money, and money needs maths – sometimes, quite complicated maths. Thankfully, there are some kind souls out there that make these things easier, with a range of intuitive calculators for smart phones.
tapMortgage is an Australian made app to calculate stamp duty, transfer fees, first home concessions and more. It hasn’t been updated since August 2011, but it's a great tool to calculate mortgage costs.
Real Estate Master IIIx is a calculator for estate agents. It allows you to calculate mortgage insurance, amortization, FHA, ARMs, rent/buy comparisons and more. It can do just about any calculation a real estate agent might need to do. There are videos on Youtube to help with the more complicated sums one can do with the app.
Property Evaluator is an iPad app that gives comprehensive estimates on property costs and returns for investors. It allows you to input every imaginable piece of financial data about a property and then crunch the numbers to give estimated returns over the next 30 years. It’s a useful tool and might be instrumental in demonstrating the real value of a property. This comprehensive app allows you to graph and table all the generated information and email this on. It’s not designed purely for the Australian audience so there may be a couple of hiccups along the way, but for basic projections the app works well.
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Depreciation
Depreciation is an easy way to claim some money come tax time but it’s often regarded as a bit of a mystery area with property – but no longer.
Washington Brown Tax Depreciation Calculator calculates the tax depreciation of a property. Under Australian tax rules, investors can claim the depreciation of their investment properties against their taxable income. If it’s something you find yourself doing quite often, this app might come in handy.
The Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors is the national professional standards organisation for quantity surveyors. It’s a good resource for finding a local professional to help you with all your quantity surveying needs including depreciation.
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Environmental Concerns
Houses are designed to take the occupiers out of the elements and put them into a safe place, but you can’t just ignore the environment. Real estate affects the environment, and conversely, the environment affects real estate. There are tools out there to help make homes more sustainable and liveable. A big part of living in Australia, especially in rural areas, is the threat of natural disasters. So we’ve included a series of tools that inform users about risks associated with the Australian environment.
Eco Easy Home is a new Australian app that grades the environmental credentials of a property. It allows users to rate their home on a number of factors through its clean interface. The app allows users to work out the orientation of a home and the future sun paths around a property. The app is full of drawings, diagrams and helpful information to assess a home. The rating system is based on a system used by architect Gareth Cole and NSW councils. The app is useful for vendors hoping to spruik the environmental credentials of a home and buyers looking to discriminate between various choices. Overall, its a very comprehensive app aimed at Australian usage. There is an iPad edition coming somewhere down the line.
Liveability.com.au is an online resource for owners, renters and landlords on living sustainably. The site publishes advice on how to make property more environmentally friendly.
Our country is prone to disasters. Sometimes nature decides to shake things up a bit. When investing in a new area, especially in more remote or rural areas, it’s important to know what to expect.
Disasterwatch is the ultimate app for the perpetually nervous. Created by the Australian Emergency Management Institute, this app gives real time updates and warnings on all possible disasters in Australia. You can check fire safety warnings before deciding on buying that nice house in the bush.
Romsey Australia is well worth a read. It catalogues the history, threats and nature of areas all around Australia. It’s the work of an independent organisation who disseminate freely available information in an easily digestible form. It’s not the most beautiful site but it’s a favourite of ours.
Queensland really copped a beating in 2011. People died and many homes suffered severe flood damage especially around Brisbane. It was a tragic time but what happens now? How do you know if a home for sale suffered flood damage. It might look fine but there could be rot lurking beneath. Or if it was rebuilt, how can do you know if it’s in a flood prone area. These tools will help.
FloodWise Property Report: If you’re buying in Brisbane this government run website has flood history of all Brisbane areas. Sometimes agents don’t volunteer flood information so it’s best to check this website first. Given the recent floods this really is a sensible idea when buying in Brisbane.
Planning and Development Online: This is a similar tool for the Cold Coast. You can search by property address and check for flood reports. Without this tool it might not be immediately apparent that a property is prone to flooding.
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Floor Plans
We have no time for people who post online real estate listings without floor-plans. Impress people and make friends by producing your own floor plans with one of these great tools. Your clients will love you.
MagicPlan allows you to automatically create a floor plan of a house within minutes just by taking photos. Walk around a property with your phone and take photos of every corner in the house and it will automatically create a floor plan. One of the few genuinely ground-breaking apps, and free, this is great news for agents or buyers when there are no floor plans available.
FloorPlanner is a powerful online tool for creating easy floor plans and furniture placement. You can add floorplans from possible purchases and see how your furniture fits in. Brilliant. As of May 7, they have added an iPad app.