5 Top Apps For Buying A Home | Top Real Estate House Hunting Apps

(upbeat music)
(static hisses) – [Narrator] I'm here to help
because there's nothing more– (static hisses) (dogs barking) (static hisses) – Then the one next door– (static hisses) (funky music) (static popping) – I know you've seen all
those fancy commercials for the top apps that people
are using to buy a house. But which one is the best
and the most accurate? We're gonna be finding out today.

It's Take A Tip Tuesday! (soft music) Hi, my name is Kristina Smallhorn, your real estate whisperer. This week we're gonna be
talking about the apps. Everybody uses them to find a house. But which ones are the best? We're gonna be taking the
five most popular apps, one of them being zillow.com, Realtor.com, Redfin, Trulia, and Homesnap. We're gonna be going
through each one of them. We're gonna use one subject
property, this one right here, and we're gonna be
going through and seeing if the information, first
of all, is accurate. Secondly of all, is the app easy to use? And thirdly of all, does
it have any other features that the other apps don't
offer that is pretty exclusive and neat for that particular app? If you have any other
questions about these apps, make sure you put them
in the comments section so I can answer those questions. And if there's any apps
that I didn't mention in this video that you'd like
me to review in the future, please put that in the
comments section as well.

I'd love to have a conversation
and make a video for you. So let's get into it. Our first app that we're gonna
be going over is zillow.com. Everybody's used it on the laptop, and I just wanna see how the app works. So, we're gonna be using
our subject property. So we're gonna take a look to see if the information on Zillow is correct. So you're gonna be
following along with me. So, I already put in the
address, and let's see here. Immediately I notice at the bottom is the price and the square footage, but it only gives you an
estimate of square footage. It doesn't give you the
exact square footage, so I'm not really keen on that.
(buzzer blares) Next, it gives you the facts and features. Let's click on the button that says see more facts and features and
see what they have in there. And now, this is where
it gives you the accurate square footage, which
is 2,331 square feet. It doesn't give you the estimate. And I do like the fact, look, they give you that virtual tour.

I made a virtual tour
that goes to the MLS. Let's see if we click on it, if it actually goes to
the tour that I created. And it does. (bell dings)
It goes straight to it. You can play it from there, which is good. Okay. And it takes you right back to the app that it's not hard to navigate. I do like the fact that it says you can get pre-qualified,
but I strongly suggest of taking your advice of
your real estate agent or some friends and family
when it comes to mortgages. I find that the print
on here is a little hard to read, very small.
(buzzer blares) And I realize that it is a cell phone, but they could make that print a little bit bolder for people. But, all in all, this is a pretty good app if you're just trying to get just some basic information on the house.

And they actually break
down the monthly cost too with the principal and interest,
the mortgage insurance, property taxes, home insurance. These are good things to know. The homeowners association
fees are incorrect. (crowd booing) And I did include in the utilities. So this is not correct. This didn't give all the information right on this particular part when
it broke down the payment. So that's in something to note. And then it gives you
the grade of the schools, which it gives a score
from nine out of 10.

It shows you how close
it is to the property, which I do like.
(bell dings) 'Cause everybody wants
to know if their kids, how far the school is,
if it's driving-distance and how long, how much time
they're gonna have to manage in the morning to get
their kids to school. I don't know where this
is taking me, oh, okay. So it's taking you to other schools that are close to this particular home that might have higher
grades or lower grades. This is really good information. As far as usability on this one on a scale from one to
ten, I give it like a six. (bell dinging) I didn't like the fact
that the font was so small. I didn't like how you had
to click on certain buttons to get to all the information. The other thing is is that
the pictures came out good, but it kind of dominated
the whole entire screen. You get less information
the more visual pictures, and maybe they intended to do that. I also like the fact that
did show the virtual tour.

And I like that they gave
you other information about how other homes in the
area have been selling. So there was some pluses to it, but I don't think it's
like a grade-A wahoo. So let's look at the next one right now. The second most popular
app is Realtor.com. I personally have loved
Realtor.com for marketing my homes. It's probably been one
of my favorite sites as far as a national syndicated site as far as getting leads for my clients in the information that
they provide on the website.

But I haven't really
messed around with the app, so let's just see how this works. Okay, so it shows the house just like I had presented it on the MLS. The same thing. Okay, and I hadda click on that picture in order to get straight to it. I like the fact that it
does not get dominated with all the photographs
that were taken of the house. You actually can see the
information about the house first. I think the very first
thing that I noticed, right off the bat, is the
estimated monthly cost is a little bit higher than the one that zillow.com gave you, but if you remember when I looked at that app, I
said some of the information as far as the taxes,
the HOA were incorrect.

Look, see. This is what I was saying about Zillow. The font was so small it was hard to read.
(bell dings) This is so much clearer
and easier to read. Realtor.com got that right. Else, let's see the other details. The one I'm interested in is if it gives you the virtual tour. Because I'm finding
that it's very difficult to find the virtual tour
on a lot of these apps.

Yeah.
(buzzer blares) No, I cannot find the virtual
that I have put on the MLS. This is not on the app like
it is on the Zillow app. So that's a negative for me
on that particular thing. They give you that same
information that Zillow did too about the scoring, and it
gives you the same grades. Let's see the schools on the map. Oh! (bell dings)
I like this. Okay, so, there's the subject property. You can see it right there,
and it's highlighted in red. Right next to it is all the
schools that are around there, so it shows you exactly
how close the schools are to the subject property. That is smart. I was a fan of the Realtor.com website, but I'm definitely a fan of the app. I think this looks really nice. So the usability on this one,
I give it, I give it a nine. (bell dinging)
This is really usable.

The reason I didn't give it a 10 is it didn't show the virtual tour. I do like how user-friendly this is. I think this is a more thorough
app than the Zillow one. But we have to, we have to go
through the other apps too, so right now this one's a nine. So this one's gonna,
this one's gonna stay. Realtor.com is a good app. I just didn't like the fact that didn't put in the virtual tour.

Everybody wants to look at a virtual tour. They wanna see you with the house on the inside not just pictures. The next app we're gonna
be looking at is Redfin. I know that there's a lot
of controversy about Redfin and where they do their practices, and that's for another video. This is about their app. And I've been told their app is fantastic. A matter of fact, several
magazines named it as their number one app to use for searching for homes in as far as accuracy. So let's go ahead and put it to the test. So, it looks a lot like Realtor.com's when it comes up that top picture, not a bunch of busyness
with all the pictures in the background like Zillow. It does give the correct sales price, and the correct amount of
bedrooms and bathrooms. There's a little button
here that says street view. Let's click that. Oh, street view is not available (buzzer blares)
for this listing. Okay, well.

I'm not really loving this app already. There's a lot of busyness going on. Maybe this isn't, maybe this
isn't optimized for an iPhone. But if you notice like all the
wording is crammed on there. It is bold and easy to
read, but some of it is doesn't look right. It wasn't really optimized
(buzzer blares) for the phone. They have HOA fees correct. All this other information's correct. Let's see if the virtual tour is there. Oh, look it is. It says media external link. Let's click it. And it does take you straight
to that virtual tour. Yup, perfect. But it takes you straight out there but doesn't make it
easier for you to back. So you actually have to
click out and go back. (buzzer blares)
I don't like that. And I'm trying to get
more information, okay. This is a more touchy app. I don't know if I love it. Okay, so, their estimate for monthly costs is even higher than the last two. If you remember the one on Zillow, it said it was around $1,700.

This one is even higher still. So, the principal and interest. It gives you the HOA dues. It gives you the homeowners insurance. So, I would say, let's
just click the done button. Oh and it sends you back. Oh and it shows you exactly
when the house was listed, and how quickly it sold, which is nice. Again, it gives you that
scoring, which is identical to the last two.
(bell dings) Ah, look a the public facts though. There's nothing there. There's no public facts of
the bathrooms, anything, like, they didn't put
any of that in there.

I don't know. Okay. A walk score was eight. Let's see what that is. A walk score of eight. A walk score helps you find
the walkable place to live. A walk score is a number
between one and 100 that measures the
walkability of an address. Okay. Oh, 90 to 100 is a walker's paradise. And ours is an eight.
(bell dings) (Kristina laughs) Car-dependent. And that is 100% true. We don't have sidewalks here in Louisiana. I wish we did. But, yeah. There's no place to walk. There's not a place to really ride a bike, so I actually kind of agree with that. That is a neat feature. And then it gives you the Redfin estimate of the property's value. Their estimate is lower than
the other ones in the area. They're saying it's 339. I think these estimates
that these apps are giving don't give a good indication
of actually a home's value. So if you're concerned or wanna know more about your home's value, please check with your real estate agent.

Don't depend on any website or apps to give you an accurate
estimate of a home's value. They cannot determine a
house's condition, location, the housings around it,
the surrounding area. So don't put too much
weight on these estimates that these apps give you. It does have usability, which was a lot better than Zillow's. But there were some features
I didn't love about it. The font was easy to read, which was good, unlike the first app that we toured. The information looked right, but I don't like how they
crammed in some of the stuff where like the like
flopped onto one another. I'm kinda being nitpicky
here, but, I mean, you do wanna be able to read what that is 'cause I'm like, I don't
have that bad'a eyes. I would say that this app is equivalent to Realtor.com as far as
usability and information.

I do like the fact they
gave you an internal link, and I like the usability, so I'm kind of liking
(bell dinging) this app a little smidgen
more than Realtor.com. I don't know. I'd say they're tied right now. So let's go and take a
look at the next app. Okay, now we're gonna be looking into the fourth app, which is Trulia. It is a company that is
by Zillow, so I'm assuming that the app will be very
similar to the Zillow app. But let's just hope
that some of the things that were wrong with the Zillow
are repaired in Trulia app. So let's just take a look. It looks very similar to all
the other apps, except for the one which I was complaining
about is the font size. I noticed right away
that the estimated cost for this house as far as a mortgage is way lower than the other two apps, which it's saying it's $1,601. So I'm interested in how
they came up with that.

I'm assuming that they probably didn't put in the taxes, maybe. Uh, I don't know they
came up with that value. That seems off. They did put in the right information, and you can read the font very easily. (bell dings)
So already right off the bat, I like the way this looks way better. Oo, look at this. There's a button right here
at the top, crime statistics. (gasps) Oh, let's click on that. Oh, look, there's zero crimes. You can click on it,
it says assaults, none, arrests, (gasps) oo, vandalism. Oh, this is really good. (bell dings) Oh and look, you can just
scroll right over to schools. But it gives the, but it says that it's the St. Amant school district, which it's not St. Amant schools. It's actually Prairieville schools. (buzzer blares) So that information is incorrect. Anyways, the details of
the house are correct. Oo, look, they have virtual
tour, unlike Realtor.com. Love that. Let's see if it takes it
straight to that site. It does. It takes you straight there. Okay, and we're gonna push cancel, and it takes you back to the app.

So you don't have to close out
one app to open another app. (bell dings) As far as usability, this is really good. Let's see the monthly mortgage. This is how they came up with. See they estimated the HOA fees less, which those are not correct,
and the property taxes and home insurance they estimated less, so that's why the monthly payment on this is incorrect.
(buzzer blares) This is a good lesson learned
for anybody that's thinking that this is exact science
when it comes to these things. Always talk to your mortgage lender when it comes to coming
up with monthly payments. Don't rely on these apps. All right, let's look at
the legal protections, local legal protections, hmm. Okay, local legal protection, do legal protections exist for the LGBT community in a state-level in Louisiana? That is really interesting.
(bell dings) That's the only app that I've seen that has something like that.

So that's an interesting feature. I do like that. As far as a review, I don't like the way that they gave an estimate for how much the house
is gonna cost per month. I think it's way too low, and
I think you're getting your expectations set up too high if you think your payment's
gonna be that low. I think the second thing I
don't like about this app is that some of the information
on here was incorrect. That's why it's always good to check with your real estate agent when you're looking at these apps to
make sure that's correct. 'Cause it's saying that's a
one acre lot, and it's not. And it didn't give you
the correct schools, so I don't like that. It's easy to read. I liked the way it looked. It was easy to use. (bell dinging) But the information is super incorrect. I don't know. Yeah, mm-mm, nope. The last app we're gonna
be looking at is Homesnap.

It is a real estate app
that a lot of realtors use when it comes to helping determine value. So I'm assuming their estimates
as far as value of the house are gonna be a lot closer
than those estimates are. The other thing that this has is that it's directly piped in from the MLS
and is supported by the MLS. Our MLS. Not all MLSes are the same, so this may not be one that your MLS uses. So we're gonna go ahead and
take a look at right now. All right. I don't love the fact that soon
as you click on the property it gives you a smaller like
slideshow of the house. And it blows up the pictures really wide, so you can't see the entire house. I don't love that part of it. But it does give you
the accurate information right off the bat.
(bell dings) It's requiring you to sign in.

And I don't personally love the fact that you have to sign
in to get information. Let's see if we can get
some more summary on this. Listing details, let's show more. The main thing I'm look for on this, other than the fact
that it's easy to read, I'm looking to see if they
put in the virtual tour. (buzzer blares)
They do not. That is a big disappointment. For me as a listing agent,
I think it's very important that if you take the time to
make a beautiful listing video for your clients, it should be featured on all of these websites, especially one that's sponsored by our local MLS.

'Cause we're trying to
get these houses sold for our clients, and that is a big giant
disappointment for me. As far as local schools, this is correct. The information is correct, and it gives exact same scores as all the other apps as well.
(bell dings) The 9/10 for Prairieville Primary, the 10/10 for the middle school, and the 10/10 for the high school. So the information has not changed. Property lines. It says, walk the property lines. So let's click on that. All right, let's go for a walk, it says. First, head over to the corner
of the lot and tap I'm here to start an augmented reality.
(bell dings) (laughs) I don't know if
that part's gonna work 'cause I'm in my house. But that's an interesting
little extra feature. I like that. That's good to know, especially
if you're on a big property. We have lots of them
here in Ascension Parish. But, all and all, this
is not my favorite app.

It's easy to use. I don't like the fact
that you have to sign in. I don't like the fact that
there is no virtual tour. And I do not like the fact that they blur out some information. (bell dinging) But, all and all, it is a good app. It is accurate. I wanted this one to be
my favorite, but it's not. You decide which one you think is the best by this review, and you
tell me what'chu think. I personally have my
favorite, and you can probably tell me in the comment
section what you think which one's my favorite app. And I'll let you know if
you're correct or not. So these were the top five apps that people use when searching for a home. Which one was your favorite? Can you guess which one mine was? Let me know in the comment section. If you have any questions
about real estate or real estate apps and you
want me to make a video, just go ahead and email me at info@yourrealestatewhisperer.com.

Or you can even leave a
comment in the comment section. My name is Kristina Smallhorn, Your Real Estate Whisperer
for Ascension Parish. And I tell you all this
because you matter. Wanna watch more videos about apps? There's a fun one right here. This one's been pretty popular..

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