The A to Z of property apps: Part three

Overseas

Investing further afield requires new websites entirely. Following is a list of sites for different countries. For America, see Z for Zillow.

immobilienscout24.de – One of the biggest real estate websites in Germany. The website has more than 1.5 million properties listed every month for rent or for sale and covers every imaginable sort of property throughout Germany. They also run a series of powerful mobile apps aber Sie müssen Deutsch sprechen.

immonet.de – This alternative to immobilienscout24 offers a similar set of features and has more than 1 million properties on offer. Their app made headlines in 2010 as one of the first to offer Augmented Reality. While it is all in German it is reasonably intuitive but for the more advanced features either Google Translate or German classes are required.

Rightmove – A UK property search juggernaut this website claims more than 90% of property listings in the UK are listed through this website. That’s more than 800,000 properties listed for sale throughout the country. Including rental properties their datebase includes more than 1.2 million properties. They also dabble in overseas properties but the listings are limited. A search in Victoria yields just 60 properties. Their sleek mobile app comes with the usual bells and whistles.

Prime Location targets a wealthier demographic stating they cater to upper and middle markets. There are approximately 1 million properties listed for sale and rent on the website. Their ipad app is different to nearly other property listing app Property Observer looked at. It presents properties through a spiral of images. Perhaps not the most functional but certainly good fun and it’s aesthetically quite pleasing.

Go Home is a large Hong Kong property portal that has an English language option.

Trademe.co.nz – Always keen to express their individuality, New Zealand has collectively rejected sites like Ebay and use Trade Me as their mainstay for selling things. This includes property and the website currently has more than 30,000 properties listed for sale through the whole country.

REA run a series of overseas websites as well.

New Zealand - Realestate.co.nz provides intuitive searches for the whole country and has more than 80,000 properties listed. They do have an app which comes with all the standard features. The site is accessible from the realestate.com.au through the map.

France - https://www.immoregion.fr/

Germany - https://www.athome.de/

Hong Kong - https://www.squarefoot.com.hk/

Italy - https://www.casa.it/

Luxembourg - https://www.athome.lu

Singapore - https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/

Top real estate websites around the world ranked by percentage of population reached

Top real estate websites in the UK ranked by unique users.

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Planning Updates

Property developers sometimes have a habit of sneaking through applications for buildings. Sometimes you may be caught unaware as the house opposite you suddenly transforms in a 16 level concrete apartment block.

Clearly Property Observer has the latest developments on many big applications. Our tips give you the scoop on which building is going to be developed next however there are more resources out there. Stay up to date on local developments with these offerings.

Planning Alerts is a website that scours council websites for planning applications and alerts you when a nearby property pops up. Just pop in your address and be informed when anyone within your area applies for their next ugly renovation. Before you move in you can track what applications are going on around a property to avoid being woken up at 6am by a jackhammer days after you move in. 

The developers of planningalerts.org.au have released a plugin for the Layar app. Similar to augmented reality apps offered by various banks this app allows you to point your phone’s camera around a neighbourhood and see which properties have planning applications.

The various states all their planning websites as listed here, but as usual Victoria is bounds ahead of the others.

PlanningVIC: Planning Property Report allows access to any planning scheme information for any property in Victoria. It’s the same information as available on the site but offered in app form.  It’s a breath of fresh air to see Government departments releasing apps like this that facilitate access to public documents. We hope other states follow suit.

NSW https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/

WA https://planning.wa.gov.au/

ACT https://www.actpla.act.gov.au/home

SA https://sa.gov.au

TAS https://www.planning.tas.gov.au/

NT https://www.nt.gov.au/lands/lis/index.shtml

QLD https://dlgp.qld.gov.au/

Of course you should always be checking your local council website to see what planning issues are happening.

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QR Codes

QR codes are those 2D barcodes you’ve been seeing on various ads around Australia. Originally designed for the manufacturing industry they’ve become a popular marketing tool around the world and they are just becoming a common fixture in Australia now. QR codes provide an easy way to share URLS, marketing messages and allow users to engage with an ad through their phone. If you’re a smaller agency it’s a great feature to add to for sale signs.

NeoReader is a simple free app for most phones that allows you to scan QR codes. It does one thing and it does it really well. The company make their business from creating QR code campaigns for paying users.

QR Reader is an iPhone app that does a similar thing to NeoReader. People have different results with different products so if NeoReader doesn’t sit with you try this offering.

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Rural 

Buy a farm without getting your feet muddy. Rural properties are following the same trends and residential and commercial and are now being listed on vast dedicated portals. Be it a small hobby farm or a cattle station the size of Vanuatu, you’re able to explore them from your phone.

Farmbuy.com is a newly started Australian company that lists rural properties online. The site just signed a deal with Elders Real Estate and it looks set to take all the properties from LJ Hooker and possibly Ray White shortly. If you have any desire to buy rural or lifestyle properties farmbuy.com should be your first stop. There are more than 13,000 properties listed on the site across Australia.

buyacres.com.au is another website for buying and selling rural properties. It’s not as big as Farmbuy but it is an alternative place to look.

Property Guide is domain.com.au’s rural offering. Choice is a little limited but it’s a clean and functional site.

Rural View is the rural offering by Real Estate View. It offers the same features as their main site but it’s geared towards hobby farms. While it lacks the massive stations of sites like farmbuy, it does have a healthy collection of smaller hobby farms.

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Suburb profiles 

Information on how certain suburbs are performing can actually be quite hard to come by. Luckily Property Observer is here to help.

Propertyobserver.com.au keeps profiles on all suburbs around Australia including median sale prices, price histories, time on market and rents. It has information on units, houses, demographics and recent news stories. Navigate through the map on the front page or enter your postcode.

RPData has reports on more than 10 million properties across Australia. For a fee you can look up the history of your property and depending what state you’re in, how much it last sold for and who bought it. If no data is available for one specific property you can look at neighbouring properties and get a feeling for an area.

Ripehouse is a website that provides information on any suburb of your choosing. It does require signing up to get their full information but it is quite handy. The information is layed out clearly and seems accurate.

Real Estate View has great data on states and suburbs around Australia, The website is run by Bigpond and we found their information to be quite useful. To find their suburb profiles select the Property Data tab and select your suburb.

Home Price Guide is a suburb profiling website run by Domain with APM figures. The information is quite detailed but the detailed reports do cost.

Residex provide reports on property values. They will tailor a specific property report for a cost but they do provide detailed suburb reports for free.

Price Finder is another price finding offering. Their free suburb profiles are quite attractive and are well layed out. It acts as a competitor to RP Data. They also run an iphone app that offers the same functionality but requires an account. 

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Twitter

You’ve signed up for a twitter account, you’ve posted a couple of tweets about how you got stranded in Thailand and you’ve followed a few friends but what now? Twitter is a great resource for following new trends and news about any topic a nd property is no exception. All it takes is to follow a few key players and the rest falls into place. Here is a quick list of people to follow to get your started.

Tweet Deck is one of the original apps for twitter. It takes your normal twitter feed and beefs it up to a much more powerful interface. It makes managing your twitter account and reading your Twitter feed much easier and much more efficient.

The A to Z of property apps: Part one

The A to Z of property apps: Part two