How to Build a Profitable Real Estate Mobile App in 2025

According to NAR, the older generation prefers desktops to search for homes, while Millennials spend most of their time using mobile. An app for real estate can be the difference between success and failure for businesses because Millennials are gaining ground, and Gen Z shares among homebuyers are rising.

Additionally, there are 5 billion mobile users worldwide and more than 316 million smartphone users within the US alone. In addition, 76% of buyers use mobile devices or tablets to search for homes. To take advantage of these trends, we’ve assisted several real estate companies to create an online presence and mobile applications to increase their reach and retention rates. Our portfolio includes amenity and property management platforms as well as visualization solutions.

Today, we’ll examine the benefits of a real estate app development company and discuss how to create an app geared toward real estate. With our assistance, you will understand the different types of real estate applications, their most important features, and the most important steps to developing a real estate app.

What Are Real Estate Applications?

Before we talk about the features of mobile apps for real estate and costs, let’s look at what these apps are. We no longer live in the past when people had to move across the country from broker one to the next or from home to the next on their search for a property. Nowadays, all that is required is a swipe or click on commercial real estate apps on their phones. So, shopping for the perfect house or property has become a problem.

It is a simple bargain; it’s not complicated.

Creating the real estate app you choose is a good idea if you want to participate in the market and increase your customer base.

Real estate app development is a complex task that requires the right expertise and knowledge. Therefore, you must employ a mobile app developer to build a satisfying and exciting mobile app.

Why Is Creating A Real Estate App A Good Business Idea?

Numerous opportunities exist to develop cutting-edge real estate apps in the massive and rapidly changing industry. Introducing new technology, like Generative Artificial Intelligence, and the rising demands for digital solutions have enabled innovative real estate applications to thrive.

Well-known real estate apps like Zillow and Trulia make it seem like the market is crowded. However, there is plenty of room for growth and disruptive real estate apps to thrive. Here are a few reasons that could make a real estate app a lucrative business to build:

Increased Market Demand

Well over 88% of Millennials and 78% of Generation X members used mobile devices to search for housing, according to research from the National Association of Realtors. Furthermore, 68% of buyers who have never bought a home agree that mobile apps make it easier to buy a house.

Growing Market

Based on Grand View Research’s Real Estate Software Market Size and Share Report, the global market for real estate software is estimated to be valued at USD 10.24 billion in 2022. The market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.8% between 2023 and 2030.

Investment In Real Estate Technology

In the National Association of Realtor Technology Survey 2024, 28% of real estate agents employ machine learning and artificial intelligence for their business, and 35% of real estate professionals employ drones for marketing and property inspection.

Beyond Conventional Models

Real estate software can be developed for builders, investors, industry professionals, and others who seek to purchase or rent homes. This allows you to design unique and popular solutions.

As the demand for real estate technologies rises, investment in this field increases. It is a smart business idea as advanced technology could be integrated into developing a real estate app.

Types of Real Estate Mobile Apps You Can Develop

When embarking on the real estate app development path, it is essential to have an idea of the future product, including its design, purpose, and function. Thanks to the many options of products available, everyone is able to pick the one that suits their needs.

Agency App

We now know its importance. It becomes apparent that a real estate firm requires an upgrade to its website, namely the mobile application. A smart app allows new and repeat customers to familiarize themselves with the stores. It also provides essential communication tools and a visually pleasing interface with property management capabilities for every customer.

However, a company can employ a different strategy to manage its market position. This strategy could involve determining whether people use the app when they do so and what’s not working to improve engagement.

Aggregator Model

In this scenario, your app acts as a unique real estate marketplace that acts as a mediator between sellers, agents, renters, buyers, and sellers. Each can sign up on the app and use particular accounts with different options. People who want to sell their property may upload the necessary details about the property. They can upload photographs and photos of the property’s location, prices, and location on the website. Customers who wish to purchase it can look through the complete listing of items.

With the help of Big Data, the app can suggest alternative options based on the user’s prior preferences and opinions. The app allows users to communicate with one another and locate their dream homes or customers. This real estate website development could be a profitable investment for its creator.

Listings and Property Search App

According to NAR, 79% of real estate companies employ Multiple Listing Services (MLS). These useful tools help sellers list their homes and buyers find the best properties. In addition to the visuals and the MLS’s search capabilities, the MLS should include adjustable search filters and comparison capabilities. Utilizing mobile-first features (camera and AR for visualization) could give you an edge.

Homeownership and Rental Apps

Airbnb and other apps demonstrate that there’s a market for rental apps. They ease the lives of homeowners, landlords, and renters. In addition to the visual and search capabilities, rental applications can include rent payment and invoicing options, issues resolution, and messaging tools.

Investment Apps

The most effective applications for commercial and investment real estate (RealtyMogul and YieldStreet) help locate and assess a property’s potential. These apps require advanced analytical tools that can consider various factors that affect the ROI, including the area, the infrastructure, business, pedestrian traffic, etc.

Market Analysis Apps

Apps for analyzing the real estate market benefit realtors, home buyers, landlords, home sellers, and investors. Data analytics integrated into the system can give information on property valuations, investment possibilities, trends in pricing, and other aspects.

Essential Features for a Real Estate App

Adding features that will meet users’ requirements, sustain engagement, and speed up transactions is essential to making a real estate app noticeable. Popular apps such as Property Finder have features designed to enhance the experience of landlords, agents, and buyers.

Core Features Inspired by Property Finder

Advanced Property Search with Filters Include filters like location size, price, amenities, and types so that people can swiftly search for properties. This feature allows the user to search for homes suitable for their needs and meet their criteria faster.

Interactive Map View for Property Exploration

An interactive map helps users find the location of properties and nearby sites and services. This feature enhances the browsing experience by allowing users to have an accurate view of the surrounding area around the property.

Property Details Page, with High-Quality Media

Excellent, clear images, videos, photos, and virtual tours must be used in real estate listings. A more complex and appealing image improves the user experience, allowing users to be aware of the house and make more informed decisions.

Chat or Call Options to Communicate Directly with Agents

Add chat and call features to allow users to contact agents quickly. This will enable users to make decisions faster and get answers to queries faster. Direct communication will allow users to contact each other and immediately get the required assistance.

Agent and Agency Profiles

Agents and agencies should have complete profiles with crucial information, such as their contact information, any properties they offer to rent or sell, and customer reviews and ratings. As this demonstrates, a successful transaction is dependent heavily on trust and transparency.

Saved Searches and Wishlists

Users can save their most liked properties and searches to make them easier to access later. This lets them look over and quickly review the properties they’ve liked. In addition, it keeps users interested by reminding them of the properties that inspire them.

Geolocation and Proximity-Based Listings

Find your place to search for properties in the area and receive suggestions based on your current location. This can help those seeking properties in specific communities or proximity to particular locations such as schools, parks, or shopping malls.

Must-Have Features for Engagement and Retention

Personalized Recommendations

Utilize AI to recommend properties based on the user’s behavior and past searches. This can improve the overall experience by making it easier for them to locate the correct listings for their needs.

Push Notifications for Updates

Through push notifications, users will be informed of newly released properties, pricing adjustments, upcoming viewings, and other important events. This feature ensures that users are well-informed and encourages users to visit the website regularly.

In-App Calendar for Scheduling Property Visits

The app’s calendar lets users make reservations for property visits by contacting agents directly. This eliminates the need for numerous messages, making scheduling quick and easy.

Virtual Tours and Augmented Reality (AR) Integration

Use AR and virtual tours to offer customers fun and realistic online property research. Foreign buyers and anyone unable to physically visit the property will find this feature particularly useful. The property can be viewed in greater detail, as if it were there, which allows them to make better choices without the need to travel.

Mortgage Calculator and Financing Options

Include a mortgage calculator to assist users in calculating the amount of monthly installments they might be required to pay to get a mortgage. Buyers considering a home could use this tool to determine whether they can afford a house and how much they’ll have to spend monthly. It also provides information on the various options for home loans.

Advanced Features to Outshine Competitors

Advanced features can help you stand out in the highly competitive real estate market. Using the most recent technology, your app could provide value to today’s real property buyers and make it easy and fun. Let’s look at the advanced features that could improve user experience and distinguish your app for real estate from your competitors.

AI-Powered Property Recommendations

The usage of real estate applications is growing thanks to AI. Using sophisticated technology, AI can understand users’ preferences, behavior, and previous search terms. AI can use this information to suggest houses suitable for each person. This makes the experience more personal and assists people in finding homes that they may not have found by themselves. 

For instance, AI can suggest homes that fit your budget, the neighborhood you prefer, and your lifestyle preferences, such as how close the house is to schools, parks, and public transportation.

Blockchain for Transparent Transactions

Blockchain technology could dramatically alter real estate transactions’ operations to make them more transparent, secure, and efficient. Blockchain technology ensures that transactions are recorded in an unchangeable, permanent ledger. This makes fraud more difficult to commit and provides a clear account everyone can count on.

It is safe to preserve important information regarding the property’s ownership, location, and transaction history, giving purchasers and sellers confidence in their ability to conclude deals without the usual paper-based delays. In the real estate market, which continues to move towards digital solutions, including blockchain technology in your app can make it recognized as a transparent and reliable platform.

Machine Learning for Dynamic Pricing Suggestions

Examining aspects such as past sales, current market trends, and customer requirements, machine learning can help make decisions about the most competitive real estate prices. Buyers and sellers can make better choices using dynamic pricing with the latest information.

The app, for instance, will suggest an appropriate price for a home by analyzing information like the property’s location, facilities, and current demand. This will ensure that your property’s price is right and that it is not overpriced or too low to avoid being priced out of the market or staying there for a long time. This is a way to ensure an honest price, which improves the whole process for all and improves the efficiency of the market.

Integration with Smart Home Technologies

Incorporating smart home functions into your real estate application can significantly enhance its value as smart homes become more popular. People are constantly searching for features such as security systems, voice assistants such as smart thermostats, smart lighting, and even automated lighting. Your app can draw tech-savvy consumers by showcasing homes with these features or offering the chance to include these features. 

In addition, integrating your home with smart technology allows you to provide additional services, like controlling your device using an app or subscription to a home automation service.

Neighborhood Insights and Market Trends

Nowadays, buyers seeking a home require more than just the house. They also want to know about the overall market and the surrounding area. The app will provide information regarding crime rates, school walks, walking distances, and nearby shops or parks by providing local information.

Market trends, such as how real estate prices are changing in a specific area, could assist buyers and sellers in making better choices. For instance, a buyer might want to invest in a location where real estate prices are increasing rapidly, or a tenant might be interested in knowing about upcoming developments that could impact the cost of renting.

These new features could improve your real estate app’s reliability, efficiency, and user-friendliness. This will allow you to distinguish your application from rivals and adapt to today’s users’ evolving requirements.

Benefits of Developing a Real Estate Mobile App

Understanding and responding to market requirements is crucial for effective real estate app development. Let’s look at the advantages of a mobile real estate app:

For Customers or Property Buyers

Direct Interaction

Customers can only be content by an app if they receive a prompt response to their questions. This will allow the app to build a loyal following and customers who buy items. Interactive apps help users comprehend how the app functions and what they seek.

Easy Search

The filters and the details of each property listed in the app make the user experience worth it. From looking through the photos of the property to creating a virtual tour and obtaining all the details at a single point, the app truly serves its goal.

Customer Support

Users can stay current by obtaining the latest information about the app through the customer support feature.

Speed of Sales

Promoting a property through these platforms can boost a seller’s sales. Helping sellers reach out to buyers is an ideal way to advertise their available properties.

For Property Dealers

Extended Reach

Dealers or agents can post their properties in these apps for greater and more extensive reach. With increasing numbers of users searching for properties on real estate websites, dealers’ properties have the most coverage.

Better Commission Sharing

The mobile apps are integrated with the MLS, which allows users to search for only the properties that meet their needs and specifications. They do not need to look through properties that do not meet their needs. Thus, the agents can draw users’ attention by showing them only the properties they are interested in.

Decision Making

Because the app functions as an online platform that connects dealers and customers, they can make rapid decisions; these apps also assist dealers in getting more information about prospective buyers.

Collect Feedback

Any agent or company must get customer feedback because it allows them to make adjustments and work towards improving the app.

Create a Brand Reputation

Building goodwill in the marketplace is always beneficial as it will draw customers to your business. With positive reviews and increased sales, your company could be ranked as one of the top brand names on our app.

For Builders and Real Estate Developers

Get More Deal Conversion

Developers earn money from conversions, so this rate is very high in real estate apps. As the day goes on, and when a typical task is completed using an application on mobile devices. PPl allows users to search for dead property using a real estate application, saving time and energy.

Provide Quality Experience

Offer a superior experience for your customers by providing an enhanced property display that includes high-resolution photos.

Keep Transparency

The developers created the platform to serve buyers and sellers. They will log any communication or conversion between the two. Thus, they will make money on every mobile real estate application deal.

Steps To Develop Mobile Applications For Real Estate Business

After learning about the most essential features, kinds of real estate applications to create, and the most advanced technology to consider, the question remains of how to build real estate-related apps. You must follow the steps listed below for real estate app development:

Define Your App’s Purpose and Target Audience

In the beginning, you must clarify the goals of your real estate app and the target market because your app’s goals must establish a clear application vision that targets your users with relevant information.

Conduct Market Research and Competitor Analysis

Research on market conditions is the basis for constructing an app that can assist you in analyzing your competition and its distinctive selling points. Additionally, you should look at their customers’ challenges through their app. They can be an opportunity to develop appropriate solutions using the most effective real property app.

Choose the Appropriate Technology Stack and Platform

It’s time to select the appropriate technological stack and platforms (Android or iOS) for your real estate app development. Your choice should be based on your goals and result in a technology stack that is in line with your desired results.

Design a User-Friendly and Attractive UI/UX

In this stage, choosing the most appropriate look and feel for your mobile real estate application, which is your target audience, is essential. Create an app that is simple to use and interesting, with a UX/UI design that will boost customer satisfaction and result in happy customers.

Develop, Test, and Deploy Your App

The development phase follows the design phase. This is where you develop your app using the development method and programming. Before you go, conduct thorough tests on your property application. Find problems and bugs and fix them. The app is now ready to go live for consumers. You must publish it in app stores and then make it available for download.

Upgrade and Maintenance

Making an app isn’t enough. For success later on, you must keep your app current and well-maintained through regular support and maintenance.

Technology Trends in the Real Estate Industry

The real estate sector is considered one of the most volatile and unpredictable industries, so prices often fluctuate due to the marketplace’s sensitivity. In addition, the demand for houses is growing exponentially, so individuals are seeking methods to improve contact with owners, agents, and sand. Real estate app development company should employ four leading technologies to make their services more efficient.

Big Data

Big data assists in storing and processing huge chunks of information and gaining details about each user to predict their choices and behaviors. In real estate, large data is utilized with artificial intelligence to provide suggestions and give the clients the desired results.

Blockchain

Blockchain is extensively utilized in the real estate industry due to its transparency, safeguarding against fraud in business operations. This is possible because it permits double-checking every document and ensuring that documents aren’t altered or modified. Blockchain can also reduce the amount of paperwork and avoid the endless mediators who charge fees for their services.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is used to study users’ needs and preferences and provide the most appropriate and relevant suggestions. Users can save a lot of time. AI is also a great tool for managing properties by automating maintenance requests and analyzing price changes, listings, and other information. It can be highly efficient in researching prices and assist in managing risk.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is instrumental in increasing sales by visualizing properties for prospective buyers and renters. It helps them envision what it will look like post-purchase. This technology is perfect for remote virtual tours of the property. All of this will help sellers and buyers tremendously in reducing time and improving the quality of property marketing.

Conclusion

Many real estate businesses exist, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get new clients since the typical deal cycle is quite long and competition is increasing.

Providing offers and establishing an easy way of choosing the right property can make a good real estate firm stand out. Since millennials are growing to be a significant portion of the target market for real estate businesses, you must begin talking to them in their native language. It’s mobile.

For more information about the real estate app development services, contact us. We’ll be happy to discuss whether your real estate company could benefit from a mobile application and how you can make money and market it after you’ve developed apps for your real estate firm.

FAQs

Why should real estate businesses consider developing a mobile app?

Real estate companies should consider developing a mobile app to remain competitive in the digital world. Apps allow them to facilitate property browsing with personalized search results and seamless communication, improving the user experience while attracting more prospective purchasers and buyers.

Does it make sense to invest in a mobile real estate application?

Yes. Investing in a mobile real estate application is a fantastic opportunity to grow your business’s reach and appeal to a wider audience. It is possible to earn money through these apps by using different revenue models, such as:

  • Subscription Model
  • Freemium Model
  • In-app Purchase Model
  • Advertisements
  • Commissions

What is the cost of creating an app for real estate?

The price to real estate app development can vary between $40,000 and $100,000 for an MVP with essential features and up to $100,000 for a sophisticated application with complex functions like virtual tours and integrated payments. The final price will depend on the app’s complexity, platform and design, backend infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance requirements.

What is the main objective of an application for real estate?

The primary goal of real estate app development is to make the real estate process quicker and more simple. Agents of real estate can use a customized app to showcase properties, communicate with potential clients and manage properties, for example. Property buyers, on the other hand, can make use of a real estate application to locate the most suitable properties easily. A real estate application can bridge the gap between the real estate service provider and a buyer.

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