Browsing through RealEstateVoices this morning and I stumbled across this article from MSN Money, Cell-phone service puts ‘a realtor in your pocket’.
Smarter Agent, through a new partnership with Sprint, promises to display recently sold home data through a GPS-enabled phone. The premise is intriguing, but I’d have to see it firsthand before I become a believer. I’ve yet to be terribly impressed with too many mobile applications (the exception being Google Maps Mobile, which has saved my bacon a number ot times).
But reading that article reminded me of another service that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Property4Cell is a marketing service that Realtors can use to send information about a property to buyers via SMS. Buyers who are out home shopping can send a quick text message to a unique property ID number (usually displayed on the Sale Sign) and instantly receive the details back in their phone.
This solution instinctively makes a lot more sense to me than something like Smarter Agent, whose approach seems overly complex and dependant on specific techological requirements. Smarter Agent’s offering falls squarely into the ‘nice to know’, but not the ‘need-to-know’, category.
Property4Cell, on the other hand, addresses a legitimate problem. How many times have you driven past a house for sale and the flyer basket outside is empty. This solution is a simple, effective, quick (and hopefully inexpensive) fix.
On another note, I’ve been looking at getting a new phone soon, as my contract just expired and my old Nokia is getting a little long in the tooth. There are lots of new models coming onto the market right now that have peaked my gadget lust. T-Mobile’s Dash and the BlackBerry Pearl, just to name a few. Any suggestions from the crowd? I’m pretty set on GSM (T-Mo or Cingular) since I travel fairly frequently back and forth between the US and Canada and I like to switch out SIM cards and avoid roaming charges.
Or maybe I should just hold out for the Apple iPhone?
