Move Inc. has launched a mobile app for agents that allows collaboration between agents and their clients, and serves up agent-only information such as agent remarks and showing instructions.
Move has offered a mobile app to paid users of its marketing and lead management system, Top Producer, since 2010.
The new “Find” mobile app is available only to real estate pros through multiple listing services that have agreed to send Move their sold listings data for display on realtor.com in exchange for access to Move’s Web-based “Find” search application.
Two MLSs that have adopted the app so far are making it available to members at no charge. But other MLSs may charge their members for access.
Move rolled out the “Find” Web app in 2010, offering MLSs access to a database of content from Move’s network of sites. The Web app comes with a “natural language” search interface that allows MLS members to search for listings using keywords; cross reference listings with school district boundaries, environmental data and other contextual information; and facilitate the sharing of listings between cooperating MLSs.
Move declined to say how many MLSs had signed up for the Find Web app and would therefore be eligible to deploy the Find app. So far, at least two MLSs have adopted the app: the Southwestern Illinois Regional MLS (SIRMLS), which has 1,700 brokers, and Florida-based Jupiter-Tequesta-Hobe Sound MLS (JTHS), which has 1,800 members.
Unlike the Find Web app, the Find mobile app allows agents to invite clients to the realtor.com mobile app via Find. When a client accepts, that client’s realtor.com mobile app becomes branded to the agent, and the client and agent can then message each other within the app, collaborate on specific properties of interest, suggest listings for review or schedule showings, said Russ Cofano, Move’s senior vice president of industry relations.
In addition to for-sale listings, the app also includes Move’s new homebuilder inventory and rental properties. As with the realtor.com mobile app, users can search by school and school district, draw a custom search, and make personal notes on listings.
For agents only, the app serves up MLS data such as commissions, showing instructions and private agent remarks. Agents can also see the number of days a listing has been displayed on realtor.com, check whether a listing is bank-owned or a short sale, get driving directions to a listing, and contact the listing or buyer’s agent or broker directly with one click.
“Most real estate professionals access this agent-level detail through their local MLS, but only a fraction of MLSs offer mobile versions of this data,” Move said in a press release.
“Immediate access to important agent-only details, combined with real-time client collaboration, can make the difference between showing a home in the next 10 minutes or scheduling an appointment three days later.”
The Find mobile app also contains each market’s complete MLS inventory — eliminating the need for agents that belong to multiple MLSs to conduct the same search in several MLSs, Move said.
“The Find app empowers agents with a single, familiar interface that eliminates the confusion of varying feature sets and access points that mark the current professional app landscape — providing equal opportunity and experience for all members of an MLS,” Cofano said in a statement.
“We’ve placed our priority on delivering the accurate, timely and complete information that agents on the road need to serve their clients and to cooperate with fellow real estate professionals to facilitate and close transactions.”
Over the coming year, Move will add more of the Find Web app’s features and reports to the Find mobile app, Cofano said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to note that although two MLSs that have adopted the Find mobile app are making it available to members at no cost,other MLSs may charge their members for access. A Move spokeswoman said it’s “incorrect to say the app is free.” The app is “only available to agents and brokers through their local MLS. The cost is determined individually by a number of factors, and we don’t disclose the terms of individual agreements.” How each MLS chooses to make the app available to its members “should not be assumed to be reflective of the agreement between Move and the MLSs,” the spokeswoman said.
