A new app just been released can put Northeast Florida’s Multiple Listing Service in every local Realtor’s back pocket.
Designed by Realtor.com, the tool — called the Find App — features home listings, but also other MLS data available only to brokerages, such as private agent data used by Realtors to arrange a showing of the house.
The new mobile tool gives agents a more powerful way to collaborate with clients in their home search when they are outside of the office, said Bob Evans, Realtor.com’s director of Industry Integrated Solutions. Evans unveiled Find App and other software updates at the annual meeting last month of the Northeast Florida MLS.
Realtors need better home search app
Like Zillow and Trulia, Realtor.com has a phone app that lets home shoppers look at listings while driving through neighborhoods.
Updated every 15 minutes directly from the MLS, the popular app has been used by tens of millions of consumers, Evans said.
But there have been limits.
Realtors have had the same app as consumers and therefore, could only access the same public MLS information visible to them.
“So the conversation with the consumer would go something like this – ‘That’s an awesome house, can we get in it?’” Evans said. “And, the agent would go – ‘’You know what? I’ve got the consumer app. I don’t know how to get into that house.’”
Realtors asked the company to include private agent data into a version of the app and release that app exclusively to agents.
The result — Find App — includes directions to the house, showing instructions, gate code information and lock box information.
Find App is available to Realtors at the iTunes and Google app stores. Northeast Florida is only the third MLS in the nation where Realtor.com has gone live with the app, Evans said.
Agent is just a button-click away
Evans also pitched another Realtor.com enhancement, the collaborative search. The function was released two years ago within the mobile app, but is still unfamiliar to many Realtors.
It allows Realtors to invite home shoppers to “friend” them within the app, and then exchange text messages about specific listings.
That puts a Realtor and consumer on the same MLS page while on the go – to suggest a listing, ask questions, make an appointment, or conduct a conversation on a property-by-property basis.
When an agent is connected to a consumer, the agent’s branding appears inside their app, Evans said. Then, every time they hit the ‘Ask my agent’ button on a property, the question comes directly to that Realtor.
Find that house
Realtor.com updates its mobile app every six to eight weeks, Evans said. But one other recent change was just too cool to go unmentioned. It’s a new ‘Find Me’ button.
“Have you ever had a client who called you and said, ‘I’m standing at the property. Find me and tell me about it?’” Evans said.
The button uses GPS tracking to locate the nearest home listing, without having to enter any search criteria.
“You drive to properties, hit the button, and it will simply find the property that’s right next to you,” Evans said.
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