House hunting? Real-estate apps for Windows Phone
When we bought our first home, real-estate apps didn’t exist yet.
Too bad they didn’t; they would have made our search faster and perhaps less painful!
Luckily, there are now a variety of Windows Phone apps to help you find your dream home. So if you’re looking for somewhere new to live – whether it’s an apartment to rent or a house to buy – these apps can help you make the search for home easier.
Real Estate Search
This free app for Windows Phone 8 and above searches more than 800 real-estate databases throughout the United States – that’s well over three million homes for rent and for sale across the 50 states. Produced by Realtor.com, the app showcases the properties with large, professionally shot photos, giving you a better sense of what they’re like.
Besides details such as square footage and number of rooms, Real Estate Search provides other key information such as sales history, property taxes, and neighborhood schools. You can draw your own custom search on Bing maps; search nearby homes for sale and view open houses, apartments for rent, and recently sold properties; and you can save your searches for quick access, whether you’re on your Lumia or your computer.
And of course, you can pin your search to your home screen to quickly see what’s available on the market.
CommonFloor Property Search
This free app for Windows 7.5 and above searches available properties for rent and for sale throughout India. You can customize your search via filters such as location, property type, price, broker, and amenities. The app will also show full details of a property listing, including floor plans, specifications, nearby services, and photos.
You can tag properties that you’re interested in as well as share them with your family and friends. In addition, you’re also given the contact details of property owners, agents, or builders so you can text, email or call them directly. One neat feature: You can tell CommonFloor the type of home you’d like to buy or rent, and the app will notify you of new properties that match your requirements.
Rightmove
Looking for a cottage in the Cotswolds? A flat in South Kensington? Student digs in Cambridge? Customized for the U.K., Rightmove searches the biggest bank of more than a million properties for sale and for rent.
You can share properties you’re interested in via social media, and you can save and schedule property viewings straight from the app into your calendar. You can also contact real-estate agents and developers from within the app, and get a better sense of the property via StreetView.
Zoopla Property Search
Zoopla reportedly has the most comprehensive database of residential and commercial property listings in the U.K., with more than 95 percent coverage across the country. Via this free Windows Phone 8 app, you can find the current value of any U.K. home, even your own.
The app’s built-in GPS means you can see which homes are for sale near your physical location. And if you sign up for a MyZoopla account (accessible on any device), you can set your “search” preferences and tag your favorite properties for sale.
Loan Calculator
Last but not least, it’s handy to have a loan calculator to estimate whether you can afford to buy that beautiful property you can’t stop thinking about. This free app’s key features include the ability to calculate: monthly mortgage payment, how much of a loan you can afford, and how long it will take to pay off the loan. You can also gauge how much you’d save if you pay off a mortgage loan early.
Loan Calculator includes amortization tables, graphs to view and analyze your loan in different ways, and the ability to compare two loans, side by side. The app also integrates phone, email and Bing map/Nokia Drive features so you can quickly contact and locate real-estate agents or property sellers. And if you wish, you can pin the app to your home screen so you can see your loan summary instantly.