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Earlier when anyone wanted to sell or buy a home, they had to depend on the availability of real estate agents. Agents were responsible to help buyers with property visits or getting prospective buyers if anyone wanted to sell or rent their property. But with the advent of Millennials and Gen Y into the real estate industry, traditional ways have changed.
The entry of millennials into the property market has triggered a range of new developments in the market, as well as current changes that affect all other sectors.
Well, the fact is the real estate industry is going through a digital revolution. Real estate agents and clients want to get the most out of the renting and buying convenience that Zillow and Trulia offers. So, if you’re trying to develop an app to take your real estate business to new heights, developing an app like Zillow or Trulia can be beneficial for you.
But how much does real estate app development like Zillow or Trulia cost? Let’s look at it for you. But first let’s have a look at some basic points for developing real estate apps.
With the advent of tablets and smartphones, people have shifted to real estate mobile apps to find properties, communicate with agents, and simplify the selling or buying process. This shift in the way people buy and sell has resulted in a rise in real estate mobile app development, and businesses are striving to keep pace with their customers’ ever-changing demands.
In simple words, a real estate mobile application is a software designed specifically for smartphones to digitize the process of selling, buying, or renting properties. Real estate apps also offer some other benefits such as, virtual tours, search for property in a particular area, and so on.
Real estate apps meet various needs, whether you’re looking to buy a new house, managing properties, or just want to explore the new properties listed in your town. Let’s talk about the most popular apps:
Emerging as a powerful tool, real estate investment apps offer an easy method to research the market, analyze, and invest in real estate opportunities.
One of the most notable advantages of these applications is the possibility to invest in relatively low sums of money, also known as fractional investment. This enables the users to own some of the part or a fraction of the property without paying hefty upfront costs for the whole property.
Calculating numbers is an essential element of the home-buying process. Mortgage calculators can aid in figuring out the financial nitty-gritty, such as estimating monthly mortgage payments, analyzing different loans, and creating budgets with precision
The main benefit of mortgage calculators is their flexibility. Users can input various variables, such as the amount of loan, the percentage of loan, or repayment period to quickly generate estimates of monthly installments.
Property search applications make it possible to easily search for new properties or homes without visiting them. Platforms such as Zillow have changed how we search for homes by providing a vast database of listings, ranging from spacious homes to vast estates.
These apps allow you to search for homes according to your preferences and offer useful information about neighborhoods, school, and other local facilities.
The task of managing several properties is tiring. But, property management applications can make it easier. In fact, the property management app functions like a virtual assistant, offering transparency to rental processes and making it easier for landlords to communicate with tenants.
With the ease of mobile connectivity, tenants can submit maintenance requests, pay rent online, and much more. Landlords, on the other hand, benefit from the automation of processes, including rental collecting, monitoring financials, and many other aspects of managing property.
The benefits of creating real estate apps can affect every person involved in the purchase process, including investors, agents, and buyers. Here are some of the benefits of real estate mobile application development for every stakeholder (buyer, seller, agents).
In the real estate industry, updating listings and modifying statuses are some of the tasks that can’t be delayed. With real estate apps, agents can make changes to deals at any time, making sure that information on properties is up to date. Furthermore, with modern technology, everyday tasks such as updating statuses can be automated, making it easier for agents to close transactions.
Another advantage of real estate apps that makes property management easier is the integration with CRM systems. This aids businesses in accessing client information and handling relationships in real time, regardless of their client’s locations.
Real estate apps also help with property scheduling so buyers and agents can see their respective time slots and schedule property tours directly through the real estate apps. In addition, users can get alerts about upcoming appointments or updates to their property.
Another benefit is that mobile real estate apps can support digital documents as well as electronic signatures, making it simple to sign and share documents from any location.
A real estate app is a user-friendly tool that allows you to search and display properties. It offers a wide range of possibilities for buyers and sellers to find the most lucrative deals at the appropriate moment. Real estate apps can collect information from users and adjust its recommendations for properties based on their preferences. In addition, it will notify users of any properties they may be interested in or price adjustments for homes they’ve already saved.
Integrated messaging capabilities allow investors to communicate directly with agents, making it simpler and faster to conclude deals. These features give users a more engaging and enjoyable experience than desktop-based platforms, making it a popular option for customers and increasing their interaction with your company.
Real estate apps typically provide intuitive, advanced filtering features that include searches for price, location, or property type. These apps are unique as users can search property in real-time, due to GPS and built-in maps, and users can be notified when they’re close to the property they want to purchase that meets their criteria.
An app for real estate can also incorporate AR features, such as immersive virtual tours of properties or access to local amenities by using a camera. This will reduce the requirement for several in-person visits to decide.
Real estate apps are easy to monetize. For instance, they could earn money through in-app ads or by providing premium listings to sellers or agents looking to increase exposure for the properties they own. The app may also offer subscription plans that offer advanced features like enhanced search tools, faster listing access, better market analytics, and the option to remove ads-free.
Another method to make money from the app for real estate is to create referral programs that work with local service providers like mortgage lenders or insurance companies for homes. With this method, you will earn a fee each time a user visits the app.
Now let’s move on to our main topic, how much it costs to develop real estate apps like Zillow or Trulia.
An array of features can affect the final cost of app or real estate website development. Let’s us have a look at some of the major features that you must include in your real estate mobile application.
It allows app users to sort their results based on privacy, location, and other aspects! The app users searching for houses can easily type in the right keywords and browse appropriate properties.
Users won’t have to worry about reaching the property with the navigation feature. By clicking the map option of the app, users can easily get information on a property. They can find information on every property within the boundary by circling an area of the map that interests you and drawing the feature.
Furthermore, it can help users determine if there are nearby schools, markets, or hospitals. It could also include other information, such as the number of people living there and the crime rate within the vicinity.
These applications must store a lot of data, which is why they require strong databases. The right databases collect data about properties from a variety of sources, such as the MLS, as well as third-party sources.
Every property should include complete information on your application. It could briefly describe the property’s address, size, dimensions, or price. In addition, it should include photographs of the property.
Ratings and reviews about the property, realtor’s professionalism, information about neighborhoods could affect homebuyer’s decision. Your agent’s credibility as an expert in their field can be strengthened through scores and ratings.
Homeowners can speed up their selling process by using positive reviews and ratings of their property. So, allow all users on your application to leave ratings and reviews.
In addition to logging in, users are required to create a profile on which they can write about their needs and provide the listing owner with contact details. Let users register and log in before using your app to locate and contact appropriate property listings.
You must integrate two different profiles: One is intended for home buyers, and the other is designed for real estate agents and owners. To make it easier for users, it is best to allow users to log in using their email or social media accounts.
Let the property owners and agents create an extensive listing on the real estate apps, which includes the property’s location, size, and other amenities in the vicinity. This listing is a great opportunity for owners to provide buyers with complete information on the property.
You can enhance the listing of properties by adding photos or videos. The property’s appearance could attract casual app users who will consider the property’s purchase or rental.
Instead of relying on text-based listings, you should use graphic visuals to boost the number of engaged people. SDKs for charts and graphs can be used when creating real estate apps. Furthermore, this can assist you in improving the appearance of your website.
Also you can create an application for marketplaces through direct contact with business owners or property owners instead of databases. This is possible by letting users submit proposals. It is beneficial when you first have a real estate pool, as buyers will likely download an app for real estate with a list of properties they can add their properties to. To avoid any legal issues, ensure that all deals are financially safe and that each party is reliable.
All users of your app should be able to access this feature. Buyers can use an in-app calendar to search for available dates and schedule showings with homeowners or agents.
An agent’s calendar is important. Using the real estate apps, agents can manage their shows and receive scheduled reminders.
Finding the approximate cost of developing real estate apps is challenging. Have you ever considered what it would take to make an app like Zillow or Trulia?
The price of developing an app for real estate, such as Zillow or Trulia, depends on various elements. Some of them include the app’s level of complexity, experience of developers, the location of the development agency, etc. Below are some of the major factors that affect the cost of developing a real-estate mobile application.
Major segment of the real estate apps is the design of UI/UX, which accounts for about 1/3 of the total price. When it comes to property search platforms, UI/UX is of paramount importance because both sellers and buyers, different types of users, follow distinct paths and yet are in direct contact. Thus, selecting a reputable UI design firm is essential to ensure a smooth user experience.
Choosing the right front-end technology is essential in estimating the cost for a property-search platform such as Zillow. Native technologies like Kotlin, Swift, and Objective-C generally cost more than cross-platform platforms such as React Native, Flutter, Ionic, Angular, and others. As a reputable mobile app development company, we suggest considering cross-platform or hybrid technology to reduce costs.
Selecting the best front-end technology is essential, and integrating a reliable back-end technology is just as important for your developing real estate apps. NodeJS and ReactJS are preferred as top technologies for developing the back-end of your mobile application. It’s important to note that NodeJS is more affordable than Python, given Python’s limited technology status.
Integration of third-party services improves your application’s performance by controlling key functions. Making decisions about things like video calls or payments and AR/VR using third-party services could be cheaper than a customized method. While these services are expensive, they can speed up development and cut expenses. Partnering with a top agency for custom-made app development is vital to finding the most suitable third-party solutions to your concept.
The price can be different according to the location of the business. Hourly wages differ between different locations. Partnering with a mobile app development company in Asian regions is less as compared to the expenses you would pay for companies located in the USA, the UK, or another world region.
As we discussed above, the cost of creating an app for real estate, such as Zillow or Trulia, depends on various aspects that go into it. There are a few such factors as the level of complexity of the app, the size of the development team, location of the real estate app development company, time-zone, and so on.
If you integrate the features we discussed above and plan to develop an app with medium complexity, it will cost you around $83,000 to $1,00,000.
Before investing all your money in developing your app, it is recommended to develop an MVP created and tested to ensure that you’re on the right track.
Once you’ve created your app, it’s time to research ways to monetize it. You can hire a developer to create your real estate mobile app.
So far, you’ve got an idea of the cost, the factors that affect it, and the features that will assist you in determining the price of building an app similar to Zillow.
Now is the time to learn about the monetization strategies that will assist you in understanding how to make money by creating an application similar to Zillow.
Real estate mobile app’s costs can be recovered by implementing the correct monetization strategies. These strategies will allow the app to take the lead in the market and earn you profit. Review the monetization model here.
Advertising is a very popular way to generate high revenue through apps. This can be a reliable source of revenue in your mobile app. Additionally, when you post, use different ad formats like sponsored listings, banner ads, and native ads.
You could work with similar companies to provide complementary services for your customers. For example, you could contact logistics companies to transfer your customers’ items to new homes. As a result, you could make a small charge from logistic companies, which can serve as income for your application.
You’ll have a large quantity of data and many users. This will assist you in licensing data. Utilize the data to generate reports dependent on the cost of labor, industry information, and the number of people using the real estate apps. The app could be useful for tracking trending market data, user behavior indexes, and property prices.
The cost of creating real estate apps similar to Zillow is based on the price of real estate websites based on the home’s dimensions. The featured listings allow sellers to publish ads that will get maximum exposure by charging a substantial amount. Giving sellers the ability to display their property will allow you to charge a commission. The commission can be used as the revenue source for your application.
Consider offering a premium membership to your frequent app users. It can encourage them to make use of your app for real estate. It will also help you pay to create real estate apps similar to Zillow. With a premium subscription, you charge users to pay a monthly, quarterly, or a yearly subscription fee. In this case, the user pays by the search requirements. This can be viewed as income generated by the application.
Real estate professionals constantly look for clients who might be interested. Through effective strategies to monetize apps, they can make money by selling leads to developers, agents, and brokers. Be sure that the users of your app are interested in the real estate industry, which will make your leads more efficient. Make an effort to convert them into potential customers interested in buying and selling properties.
Developing real estate apps like Zillow or Trulia requires a carefully chosen development tech-stack. Here are some of the major technologies you can leverage for real estate mobile application development.
Front-End: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, React.js, Angular, Vue.js, Bootstrap
Back-End: Node.js, Express.js, Ruby on Rails, Django
Database: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
Cloud: AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure
DevOps and CI/CD: Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, GitHub Actions
Third-party Integrations: Google Maps API, Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid
Other Technologies: Elasticsearch, GraphQL, Firebase
Mobile Development: React Native, Flutter, Swift, Kotlin
Due to the increasing market competition within the residential real estate sector, creating an app with essential features isn’t sufficient. It must add additional elements to it to stand out and gain an advantage over the competition. Let’s look at these features:
When you integrate chatbots into your real estate apps, they can answer your clients’ questions 24/7. They will assist you in answering FAQs and can also help you learn more about the capabilities of your application and offerings. In addition, you’ll reduce costs on the customer support aspect.
Real estate apps requires plenty of information to reach the right people at the right time. Additionally, these apps are equipped with huge databases related to properties that they have to organize, analyze, sort, and then present.
Therefore, you must study all the data to identify the most relevant customers, create ads, and offer a seamless user experience. The information you get from this data is referred to as Business Intelligence, which is vital to the success of many companies.
Offering your customers an interactive 3D model of your property could enhance their experience to a new level, leading to an increased speed of purchase. This feature could also aid in increasing your customers’ engagement since they’ll be spending more time with your app. However, you’ll have to invest a bit more money to incorporate these features into your app.
Through the blog, you may have had an idea of the cost of building an app for real estate like Zillow and Trulia. The market for real estate apps is revolutionizing at a rapid pace towards generating the highest amount of income.
Whether you are developing an iOS app or an Android app, the main goal of the app is to ease the process of buying, selling, or renting properties. Make sure to partner with a reliable app development company for creating your app. Also you must consider creating an engaging UI/UX to make sure your app becomes a success in the market.
So in the end, real estate apps industry is an-ever growing sector and many businesses are leveraging the benefits of real estate app development services to generate profits from this venture.
Whether it is a real estate app for Android or iOS, it’s always targeted to ease the buying, selling, and renting process for the end-users. Make sure to implement a simplified dashboard to manage profiles. An intuitive UI in your real estate apps will define its success in the long journey. To stay ahead in the market, understand what Zillow and Trulia app delivers and continually upgrade features to deliver an unparalleled app experience.
It typically takes 3-4 months to design and launch an MVP. However, this timeframe could vary depending on the features you plan to incorporate into your real property MVP.
A mobile-friendly personal app for real estate companies can bring several advantages. The business has become part of the growing huge market share. The market for real estate is vast, and more people visit your site or app every day. If you have the right tools for analytics, you can analyze users’ data to identify possible leads. Additionally, you can become one of the top agencies available to receive inquiries and schedule property visits via your application.
Strategies for monetizing real estate apps include subscription fees, in-app ads, agent leads generation, and premium services such as virtual tours and commission-based transactions.
App development costs vary according to the level of features, complexity, and regions of development. A simple app could cost anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000, while a highly-featured app could cost $50,000 to $150,000 or even more.
