Mobile Realty Apps’ HomeSpotter mobile app, which allows agents to access info from their multiple listing service while on the go, is now available to MLSs and their members in a free version.
With the app, formerly known as “edgeMLS,” agents can sign in to their MLS to access listing statuses, showing instructions, agent remarks, listing agent contact information, compensation information and the agent roster. They can search for listings by map, GPS, MLS number and the app’s augmented reality feature.
To use the augmented reality search feature, which helped Mobile Realty Apps win an Inman News Innovator Award for “most innovative real estate startup” in 2012, agents point their smartphone or tablet’s camera toward a home and info for nearby active and sold listings pops up on the device’s screen.
“We saw a need among some MLSs that wanted to provide members with full access to listings and information through an app, but couldn’t pay for a site-licensed mobile app,” said Aaron Kardell, CEO of Mobile Realty Apps, in a statement. “For those organizations, the free edition of HomeSpotter for the MLS is a perfect solution to something we know their members have been asking for.”
Currently, 25 MLSs, including the nation’s largest MLS California Regional MLS, have purchased the premium edition of HomeSpotter, which allows an MLS’s members to upload photos and edit their listings from within an MLS-branded version of the mobile app in addition to the other features.
The launch of the free MLS edition of the app, which includes no uploading or editing capabilities for agents and no branding by the MLS, is a play by Mobile Realty Apps to get HomeSpotter out to more agents and to upsell them to premium versions, Kardell said.
For around $10 per month, agents will gain the ability to upload photos and edit their listings, Kardell said. For around $25 per month, agents will also be able to brand the app and use its collaborative search tool with their clients and contacts.
Mobile Realty Apps competitor Homesnap, which has its own MLS agent-only app, began offering its Homesnap Pro app to MLSs for free for the first 12 months of a new contract. In May, Rockville, Maryland-based Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. signed up for the app and Combined Los Angeles Westside MLS Inc. made it available to its agent members in August.
Homesnap has an augmented reality tool, too. Users can get info about a home, whether it’s for sale or not, by taking a photo of a home with their smartphone or tablet. They can see sale date and price, listing history, lot boundaries, similar active listings, recent sales comparables and local schools.
