Best Apps To Look While Buying Property: We all have to look for a house from time to time, and when people do, it’s almost always a technology-driven search. Searching for a house for sale or rent on the internet is far superior to relying on brokers, who are only interested in maximizing their commissions and rarely listen to understand what you want from your home.
The issue is that with so many real estate websites and property apps to choose from, how do you even begin? Things started with Google in our own search for a house to rent – searching for apartments generated a lot of leads from various platforms, including apartment message boards. The message boards are actually a very useful resource – many people prefer to list on these internal boards in order to keep the apartment among “known” people, and as a result, they receive fewer applicants, increasing your chances.
We came up with a shortlist of six different platforms after doing some research on the listings and looking at what apps were popular. Our hunt continues after two weekends of searching and approximately 30 house visits, but here are some useful observations on each of the apps we tried that may help you find your dream home.
NoBroker
As the name implies, you will see houses listed by their owners, which means you won’t have to pay a large brokerage fee, and the company claims to have verified all of the owners. The owners must follow a checklist to ensure that all listings contain enough information to be useful. NoBroker succeeds at listing and detail management. It’s not as well-known, which is why it seemed to have fewer listings than the others.
The app itself is visually appealing, and in addition to rentals, it also allows you to buy houses, hostels, and flatmates. The basic filters are simple to set up, and the results are easy to navigate. There’s also a map view that shows you exactly where everything is.
One area where it could improve is its recommendations – despite our search being in Bengaluru, NoBroker thought it would be a good idea to pop up a flat in Thane. It also sent suggestions outside the areas we were looking in, which was not ideal.
CommonFloor
CommonFloor, at least in Bengaluru, had the most listings in our experience. That’s a huge plus and the most important aspect of house hunting. There are no listings without agents by default, so you will have to take an extra step to find them. Simple filters can be configured, and a toggle allows you to choose whether to buy or rent.
If you are looking for a place to live for your family, CommonFloor is a good option. The map view is smooth and searches as you scroll. CommonFloor has a large number of 3D tours of properties, which can reduce the number of site visits. In Bengaluru, CommonFloor seems to be ahead of the curve, at least in terms of their collection.
However, there are some issues. For one thing, it keeps attempting to connect to your Wi-Fi, which feels intrusive. Second, even after signing in, you may have to re-enter your phone number when contacting a homeowner. Many of the homeowners also made mistakes on their CommonFloor listings, such as the date of possession or the amount of deposit, which were frequently incorrect.
It’s also worth noting that CommonFloor as a platform is extremely spammy – you’ll get a lot of notifications via email and SMS, which can be useful, but if you’re on the app, it’d be preferable if that could all be contained within it instead.
Housing.com
Housing.com only recently relaunched its rentals feature, which had been deactivated since 2015, with 60,000 verified listings. The number of listings is unquestionably lower than that of the competition. What we liked about Housing.com was how smoothly the map view worked and how each listing had a large number of photos – some listings on other sites had only tiny thumbnail images, which Housing.com avoided, at least among the listings we saw.
The website, on the other hand, is a little difficult to navigate. The app does not yet support rentals – we were using the most recent version of the Android app at the time of writing, and it only had homes for sale – but if you’re looking for a house, Housing.com is worth a look. Before deciding to visit, you’ll be able to view the houses and get all the information you need. You can set up filters and search very easily – however, the results themselves are cluttered and can be confusing.
99acres
99acres is the oldest company on our list and has a large number of listings. You’re literally one tap away from searching in your general area, which is very convenient if you’re already out house hunting and pull out the app. It also has a listing quality filter, which allows you to limit the results to houses with photos or videos, or only properties that have been physically verified by 99acres.
That’s fantastic and will save you a lot of time. While the website appears to be out of date at this time, the app is quick, fast, and attractive. It would be great if 99acres had a sort by distance option, in addition to the price and date options.
It is not possible to choose a price lower than 25, 30, or 40,000 in the app, for example. This can be difficult if your budget falls between two limits. Unlike the others we tried, this app’s map mode isn’t as detailed or loads listings as quickly. Stick to the list mode if you’re using 99acres; it has all the information you need anyway.
Makaan.com
Besides the chat interface, Makaan includes Widgets and a Best Apps-like interface once you’ve done a search. More filters can be added, and everything is very simple to understand.
Once you have located houses on a map, you can create a shortlist, schedule property visits, and log in. You will still receive SMS notifications, though not as frequently as CommonFloor. Although we found a third of the number of listings (excluding broker listings) compared to CommonFloor.
Nestoria
Nestoria differs from the other apps on this list in that it does not directly aggregate listings. As an alternative to Nestoria, you can find listings from sites like Housing.com, Makaan, NoBroker, Commonfloor, and 99acres (among others).
In the app, you can tap or click on a listing you like to go to the platform’s website. There’s a slightly clumsy two-step process involved, but you can apply filters to start saving time searching.
The website of Nestoria provides more information about Nestoria than the mobile app does. The app loads pages on an internal browser, but it doesn’t jump between apps, so it’s okay. The real benefit is getting a head start on your search, and Nestoria delivers on that front.
MagicBricks
MagicBricks, India’s leading real estate portal, now offers property search on the go via a mobile app called “MagicBricks Property Search.” Aside from refining search, this app allows you to create email alerts to receive matching properties automatically. Properties and projects can save and accessed for future reference. This real estate app also allows you to read the most recent real estate news.
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India Property
The India Property apps allow you to search millions of property listings for sale or rent throughout India. With this app, you can find out the map view of a property as well as its list view, using a feature called “Property Lens.” You can calculate the distance between various properties. It will also assist you in obtaining additional property information.
