Useful Mobile Apps for Residential Real Estate

A couple weeks ago I wrote about some mobile apps for Apple and Android devices that might be useful for commercial real estate. Today I want to cover some mobile apps that might be useful for residential real estate buyers, renters or investors.

MLS apps – Searching for available residential property:

Practically every major real estate brokerage has its own app. Also, there are apps available by Trulia and Zillow to assist in the search for homes to buy or places to rent.  These apps are all free, typically available for both Apple and Android devices (but not always) and each have their strengths and weaknesses. It’s best to try several at first as everyone’s preferences will differ.  One complaint I hear about Zillow is the agent identified with a property is often one who has paid to be promoted to the user and not necessarily the listing agent on the property.  For all of these apps there will be some aggravation over the fact that not all available homes or rentals are identified and some that are off the market still come up on the app. Did I say it was free? You get what you pay for.

Homesnap is a little different. In this app, you can snap a picture on your mobile device of a property that interests you and then pull up the information on that property through Homesnap.

Mortgage Financing:

Both Trulia and Zillow have mortgage apps that contain payment calculators, live rates and allow you to seek loan quotes. Trulia’s mortgage app is only available for Apple devices.

Design Ideas:

Houzz Interior Design Ideas  and Zillow Digs each allow you to browse photos for ideas. Zillow Digs also provides project estimates for bathroom and kitchen projects based on your location. Zillow Digs is also only available at this time for Apple devices.

Space Planning, Rehabilitation and Repair:

Magic Plan allows you to create a floor plan on your mobile device (Apple and Android). You take pictures of the corners of the room, fine tune it, and move the room into the overall floor plan with your fingers. Resulting floor plan can be saved as a .jpg, .pdf, .dxf or .html format.

HammerPoint allows you to quickly create professional repair estimates on your mobile device prior to entering into a contract. Available for both Apple and Android devices.

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Atwell-Hicks: Specialized Solutions for the Real Estate and Development Community

Whether you’re acquiring acreage in Akron, converting condos in Cleveland or working on wind farms in West Virginia, the Northeast Ohio office of Atwell-Hicks can help.

With over 40 specialized professionals located in Solon, and 400 across the country, land development consultants Atwell-Hicks offer real estate and development professionals the cutting-edge consulting services, technical expertise and industry resources to get the job done.

As a consultant to our firm's clients, Atwell-Hicks offers aggressive, yet realistic, environmental consulting and transaction services to ensure full knowledge of potential site challenges before purchase. Once the full scope of environmental concerns is known, Atwell-Hicks also offers creative, tailored remediation strategies for new construction, redevelopment projects and existing facilities.

“Environmental consultants assisting the property transaction process should bring perspective to the project,” says Connie S. Carr, an attorney with Korhman Jackson & Krantz PLL. “With Atwell-Hicks, we receive both the technical facts required per our intended use as well as valued consulting on feasibility, options and costs associated with the proposed transaction.”

While the environmental consulting team is often first on the scene, Atwell-Hicks can take clients from concept to completion with urban design and land planning, site development, entitlements and permitting and construction support services. In essence, clients can come to the organization for one particular project need or enjoy the benefits of combined services through a dedicated project manager. In either case the goal is to represent the client’s best interests and support their overall development goals.

One unique aspect of the firm, aside from their full-service capabilities, is their focus on private-sector development markets. This allows the technical staff and managers to deliver results to the commercial, homebuilding, industrial, healthcare and related industries through an understanding of their market drivers, requirements and potential obstacles. Many consultants service a largely municipal audience, which dilutes the ability to specialize on the private markets and often presents a conflict of interest.

Since opening its Northeast Ohio office in 2004, Atwell-Hicks has strengthened its relationships in the region and has been recognized as a three-time Weatherhead Award winner, a Team Neo Success award recipient and has been recognized through client and project success at the Greater Cleveland HBA Cleveland Choice Awards.

Success in Northeast Ohio has also generated project activity in Nashville and Pittsburgh, resulting in regional locations in both cities. Clients in the region can enjoy project or program support in these markets, as well as on a national level through additional offices in Michigan, Illinois, Florida and Arizona. For more information about Atwell-Hicks, please visit www.atwell-hicks.com or contact Erin Ryan at 440-349-2000 or eryan@atwell-hicks.com .

An Overview of Our Feature Columns

In our efforts to provide you with consistently useful content, we have designed several feature columns that will be published periodically on the Ohio Real Estate blog. These columns are: “CLE Update,” “Featured Resource,” “Hot Off the Press,” “Real Estate Law 101,” “Vendor Spotlight” and “Watch Your Language.”

The columns may be easily recognized by unique headline images that will precede each of the posts. Each special headline and a description of the corresponding column follows.

In our CLE Updates we will provide information on upcoming continuing legal education seminars in Ohio that address real estate issues. The title of the seminar, dates, times and location will be included, along with contact information and a web site line so you can obtain further information if you are interested.

There are many useful and informative web sites on the Internet. It’s just a matter of knowing which sites those are and what information can be found on each site. In the “Featured Resource” site we will review those sites and summarize for you what information and useful resources can be found on each of them.

In our “Hot Off the Press” column we will update you on recent federal and state court decisions and statutes on real estate matters.

“Real Estate Law 101” is devoted to the fundamentals in real estate law, where we will provide an overview of basic real estate documents and issues.

Our “Watch Your Language” feature columns will cover two aspects of drafting real estate documents. First, on the macro level, we will address general language issues in various real estate forms and documents. Second, on a micro level, we will get into specific wording and grammar issues and can change the meaning of a document, frequently contrary to what one party intended, and often with costly consequences.

Finally, in our “Vendor Spotlight” we will feature vendors that provide services in the real estate arena, including descriptions of the companies and of the various services they provide.