15 Best Phone Apps for Real Estate Agents in 2021
Realtors are always moving.
That’s why your phone, and the apps on it, are incredibly important!
Your phone is your mobile office, allowing you to manage your social media accounts, search for homes, email marketing, collaborate with team members, open houses, text message, and run your lead management while on the go.
Here are some of the best real estate apps for agents to consider, to help maximize your mobile office!
Phone App Basics
Obvious apps you’ll want as an agent:
- MLS app
- lockbox app (e.g. Sentrilock/Supra)
- mortgage calculator
- CRM app
- e-signature app
- cloud storage
- social media (Facebook Messenger, Instagram, YouTube, Buffer, etc)
Homesnap
Homesnap, recently acquired by the commercial real estate CoStar, is a real estate portal not unlike Zillow or Realtor.com. While its website traffic may not be more than a fraction of those two giants, it is a favorite tool for many agents, particularly because of its marketing tools and client collaboration.
You can invite clients to download the Homesnap app to their mobile device and conduct your house hunting together!
It has additional marketing features like paid advertising. Listing agents can advertise homes for sale or farm their zip codes.
Waze
I keep hearing Waze on everyone’s short list. Google Maps works just fine for me, so what was everyone talking about? How could it be better than Google Maps?
Well, it is.
Waze is Google maps on steroids and reacts more swiftly to traffic updates, recommendations, and even local police speed traps.
It’s so good, in fact, that Google stopped trying to compete and simply bought Waze in 2013 in a huge deal where every Waze employee got over a million dollars.
Feedly
Feedly is a news aggregator. You can follow your favorite business channels and get all your industry news and opinion in a single app.
In addition to the desktop version, the mobile version allows you to quickly look through articles between appointments.
It’s also great for curating your own social media channels, keeping them full of interesting real estate-related content. Don’t let your Facebook page or Twitter feed go days without a post. Share relevant articles that you curated from Feedly!
CamScanner
CamScanner is a mobile scanner app. It lets you quickly create PDFs just by taking a picture with your phone.
I use it. It’s almost as good as an actual scanner, though real scanners are a lot faster if you have numerous pages. I use it for the vast majority of my scans!
I can email or save them straight from my phone, making it really quick to get a real-world document to whomever you need.
Genius Scan
Genius Scan is another mobile scanner app that is very similar to CamScanner. You might want to try both and see which one is more natural to you.
In order to export to the cloud, you must have the paid version for $7.99 one time.
The company that makes it also has Genius Sign to sign documents and Genius Fax.
CamCard
CamCard is an ingenious app that lets you quickly store contact information from business cards. No more cup holders and wallets full of business cards.
The best thing about CamCard is it actually is able to figure out and save the information on your card – name, company, phone number, just from the picture (if you do it just right). It’s all right there!
You can also use the app to share your own business cards with other users.
If you use Salesforce, it allows you to scan business cards directly into your CRM!
BeFunky
BeFunky is a very robust photo editor, with lots of easy-to-use features to edit your photos on the go. It’s great for quickly touching up pictures before sharing them to social media. Add text, change colors, beautify yourself, add objects, and more!
It’s free! Some of the objects and items you can add are premium features. They also have a desktop editor.
WordSwag
Similar to BeFunky is WordSwag, which adds text to your pictures. This is a great app for Pinterest and Instagram power-users for quickly sharing personalized messages to your followers.
It is a paid ($3.99) app, but you get a lot of fonts and customization for the money!
DarkSky
DarkSky is perfect for real estate photography and planning your photo shoot around the weather.
It’s also just a fun way to watch the weather. I recommend trying it out! It’s free!
Sun Surveyor
Like DarkSky, this is another must for agents who are doing lots of outdoor multi-media.
Video and photography is all about good lighting. Knowing where the sun is going to be on a home before your shoot, tracking where the sun rises and sets, and more is essential to professional media.
It is a $7.99 ($9.99 for iPhone) one time paid app.
Google Translate
I used Google Translate quite recently in fact. I know a little Spanish, but not enough to ask a tenant if the property manager had completed the repairs to the pipes under the sink.
Keep this on your phone just in case you need to navigate through a conversation or issue with someone who doesn’t share a language with you.
BSafe
BSafe has all the features you need in a safety app. Obviously as real estate agents, we are often putting ourselves in potentially dangerous situations meeting strangers in strange houses.
BSafe allows you to input a number of contacts called “guardians” who will get alerts when you push the SOS button. They will know your location, and your phone will begin recording and sending both audio and video automatically (don’t accidentally press it!). The SOS button can also be voice activated.
You can also set it up to get a fake call at a specific time, or it can set off a siren when you need to scare an attacker away.
Expensify
Expensify is one of the best ways to keep track of all your business receipts and expenses.
Like TaxBot and QuickBooks, it also has mileage tracking. It notes when you are moving in a car, and lets you classify those miles later as business or personal expenses.
The upgraded version comes with “smart scans” which can read your receipts for you – no manually filling out the information!
TaxBot
TaxBot is another expense tracking app that is very good, and focuses on getting you “audit proof”. It easily stores and classifies receipts, as well as tracks your mileage.
It links to your bank account so that all of your expenses are correctly classified.
QuickBooks
QuickBooks is the leader in business accounting software, and, of course, they have an app for that!
Especially if you are already using QuickBooks for your backend accounting software, be sure to get the paid app, which can track your expenses and mileage on the go. It will link with all your other accounting software and you are good to go!
Resources
The app scene is always shifting and changing. Technology is great!
If you are trying to stay on top of your technology game, Craig Grant with the Real Estate Institute of Technology (RETI) is a great source for up-to-date real estate tech advice. He and his firm offer coaching, seminars, and tech coaching.
Their site has some free info, but they also have a members section that features their in-depth product reviews, guides, and webinars, including lots of information on apps for real estate!
Conclusion
The right group of best apps for realtors should keep you more efficient, more organized, and, most importantly, mobile!
That is essential to a real estate agent!
Updated December 27, 2020; Originally published September 30, 2018.
