Real estate software firm a la mode has released a new version of its multiple listing service analytics iPad app and will no longer charge for the software.
RE:Focus Analytics, which originally cost $49 a month, taps into 15 MLSs that serve 350,000 agents. The app lets agents dig up MLS data to generate reports based on factors including property type, geographic boundaries and property characteristics, and use the reports for comparative market analyses, listing presentations, blog entries, social media posts and other forms of marketing content.
The latest version of the software offers new editing features that help agents better customize reports.
“For example, an agent could add a report page of charts relating to inventory, sales or pricing,” said Dustin Moore, president of a la mode’s real estate solutions division. “Then they could simply tap the document to add context explaining what each of the charts means.”
RE:Focus Analytics stands out from some competing products like Realtors Property Resource (RPR), Cloud CMA and analytics features part of CoreLogic’s Fusion MLS because its tailor-made for the iPad, Moore said.
“In some of the other MLS applications we’ve seen, there’s drop-down boxes and checkboxes, which are really really bad on the iPad,” he said, calling those applications “not at all a mobile tablet experience.”
Some agents have shown a desire to adopt MLS technologies that cater to the iPad. Connecticut Multiple Listing Service recently scrapped plans to convert to CoreLogic’s Fusion MLS partly due to a desire to find a solution that would offer better compatibility with the mobile device.
Another aspect that sets RE:Focus Analytics apart is that it stores all data that comprises a user’s saved searches of MLS data on the user’s iPad, allowing agents who don’t have access to the Internet to still pull up MLS data and craft reports around it.
“… To present that data they don’t need an Internet connection,” Moore said. “They’ve got the listing presentation with all their data right their on the iPad.”
A la mode originally charged $49 a month for RE:Focus Analytics when it introduced the app last year. Moore said before a la mode decided to make the app free it cost $399 a year.
A la mode decided to adopt a “freemium” model in order to achieve “more brand exposure for our other top-flight marketing and lead nurturing products,” Moore said in a statement.
A la mode also offers website products and the lead management system Pipeline ROI to agents.
