With so many real estate apps on the market today, figuring out which ones deserve space on your phone or iPad isn’t easy. That’s why we put together this list of the most innovative real estate apps that are helping Realtors stay organized, market their brands, and close more deals in 2023 and beyond.
In this update, we revised our picks and gave a sneak peak of two very promising new apps that are making waves on the conference circuit.
We organized our selections by category, so be sure to use the table of contents on the left (or top of the page, on mobile) to find your new favorite app.
Best Real Estate CRM Apps
1. Propertybase
Pricing: Custom Let’s face it: To get ahead in real estate in 2023, drip campaigns, text messaging, a mobile app, call logging, pipelines, and a dialer are no longer optional for a robust customer relationship manager (CRM). Luckily, Propertybase is up to the challenge, ticking pretty much every box that today’s real estate agents, teams, and brokerages need out of an app.
Combining a rock-solid, Salesforce-based CRM with MLS integration, Propertybase is a true all-in-one platform for real estate. The fact that the company’s IDX lead-generating websites have won accolades from RealTrends got our attention as well. Throw in an available transaction management platform, and you may not need to buy any more software—ever.
Propertybase Review: The (Old) New Kids on The Block Get Serious
2. LionDesk
Pricing: $25 per month (Try it out for 14 days free) If you ask the average agent what they want out of a CRM in 2023, you’ll probably get two answers: affordability and lead generation. Well, apparently LionDesk is listening.
LionDesk CRM is affordable for almost any agent at $25 per month, and includes built-in Facebook marketing along with an integrated AI to automate your speed-to-lead response. Take LionDesk for a 14-day test drive—no strings attached.
LionDesk CRM Review: Is It the New King of the Real Estate CRM Jungle?
3. CINC
Pricing: Custom Operating almost like an inside sales agent, CINC monitors your incoming leads and acts as your own personal concierge, getting them on the phone, qualifying them, and then connecting them straight to your phone without all the email or text messaging back and forth, saving you a ton of time and upping your conversion rate.
4. Sierra Interactive
Pricing: Starting at $499.95 per month for five users Sierra’s app allows you to run your entire real estate business from anywhere—even sitting on the beach. Unlike some CRMs, this isn’t some stripped-down version of desktop software either. You can nurture leads, send bulk emails, manage showings, list properties, and track your team’s performance, quickly and easily—all from your iPad. That’s probably why agents and team leaders gave Sierra’s app 4.8 stars over 733 reviews on the app store.
Sierra’s app works seamlessly with its RealTrends award-winning IDX websites, but you can also just get the CRM if you already have your web presence set.
The Best Real Estate CRM for 2023: In-depth Reviews & Pricing
Best Apps for Real Estate Marketing
5. Freshchat
Pricing: Free-$69 per month Let’s face it: In 2023, leads are a little spoiled. They expect (and very often get) nearly instant responses to their online inquiries. That’s why chatbots like Freshchat are so crucial for your website. You can give prospects an instant response, answering their questions with a programmed bot. Or better yet, respond personally to their query on your phone just like you would a text message.
6. Buffer
Pricing: Free-$6 per month Even though competition in the real estate software industry is fierce, it’s nothing compared to that of social media management platforms. Take the investment and user base for your average real estate software, and triple it. That translates to the thoughtful features of Buffer, such as advice on when and how to post content, automated engagement reports, and collaboration tools.
7. LabCoat Agents Marketing Center
Pricing: $59 per month for individual agents; $249 per month for teams up to 10 Feel inspired to create an Instagram story in line at Starbucks? With an app like the LabCoat Agents Marketing Center, you can capitalize on that burst of creativity without pulling out your laptop.
The first comprehensive marketing platform designed just for real estate agents, LabCoat Agents (LCA) Marketing Center lets agents quickly create gorgeous social media posts on the fly. It also offers a one-stop shop to create or edit tons of other marketing templates for business cards, flyers, door hangers, and more.
LabCoat Agents Marketing Center Review: Pricing, Features & More
8. Canva
Pricing: Free-$9.99 per month When I worked in marketing, our managing director balked at spending more than $1,000 for Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. We needed them, but that didn’t make the cost any easier to swallow. Today, apps like Canva offer basic Photoshop-like functionality for free.
9. Houzz
Pricing: Free If you have design-focused clients and want to be a rock star at your next showing or open house, download the free Houzz app. Along with contractor recommendations and shopping, Houzz has an augmented reality feature that lets you preview what a room might look like furnished—right from your phone during a showing. Perfect for demonstrating the potential of under-construction or dated homes.
10. Animoto
Pricing: Free-$39 per month Animoto is an all-in-one video maker that makes creating and editing videos on the fly much easier. You can shoot a video; add titles, transitions, images, and music; and share your creation on social media. The free version offers music tracks and custom colors, though you’ll have to sign up for a paid plan if you want high-definition videos (1080p) or want to ditch the Animoto branding.
11. magicplan
Pricing: Free for up to two projects-$75 per user, per month In a perfect world, we would all get detailed floor plans, well-shot images, and a neat and orderly list of recent renovations for every listing. Of course, none of us live in a perfect world, so we all have to make do when buyers ask about simple things like floor plans or wonder how much new countertops might cost.
Thankfully, magicplan supplies you with quick answers that will likely sate buyers’ curiosity until a pro can be brought in. You can get on-the-spot floor plans by scanning a room with your mobile device, and then upload that floor plan to create cost estimates, 3D tours, and more.
30 Real Estate Marketing Tools Every Agent Needs (+ Reviews & Pricing)
Best Real Estate Apps for Lead Generation
12. StreetText
Pricing: $160-$250 per month If you want to start generating leads from Facebook ads without the steep learning curve, StreetText is for you. StreetText simplifies the complicated process of creating and optimizing Facebook ads and business pages. You get verified phone numbers, emails, and social media profiles, and can integrate the tool with existing CRMs and email platforms. Even better, they tailor the results for real estate agents. Unlike other Facebook ad platforms, StreetText really seems to understand just how critical speed to lead is for agents. It’s not cheap, but for the time and stress you save, we think it’s a bargain for those who count Facebook as a major part of their marketing strategies.
How to Create Real Estate Facebook Ads That Actually Generate Leads
13. Zillow Premier Agent
Pricing: Free with Zillow Premier Agent membership The Zillow Premier Agent app is a must-have if you have listings on Zillow—or ever want listings on Zillow. It has task management, lead sorting, and even lead assignment and other features for teams.
The app also offers a surprisingly robust free CRM that lets you import leads from BoomTown or realtor.com through Gmail. You can set up tasks, reminders, texts, and emails as with any good CRM. But also—if you sign up for their My Agent program, which makes you the only buyer’s agent your leads see on Zillow—it gives you a granular look at what your leads are searching for on Zillow.
Best Real Estate Apps for Open Houses
14. Curb Hero
Pricing: Free Over the past few years, Curb Hero has become the go-to app for agents who regularly run open houses. It’s 100% free, customizable, and even offers a QR code sign-in feature. Curb Hero also offers custom branding for bigger brokerages, text and email follow-up tools, lead verification, single-property websites, and CRM integrations.
15. Spacio
Pricing: Starting at $25 per month If you want more bells and whistles for teams in your open house sign-in app, Spacio is a solid choice. It offers team-wide reporting, agent management, permissioned access to leads, auto-populated listings, and default form questions for agents. Since being acquired by HomeSpotter, the company has added some open house marketing and digital advertising product tools as well.
16. Open Home Pro
Pricing: Free-$25 per month Now owned by Placester, Open Home Pro is another great option for bringing your open house into the 21st century. Like Curb Hero and Spacio, Open Home Pro can send out automated follow-up emails to open house guests and also features one-touch social sharing.
9 Open House Apps Tech-savvy Agents Are Using to Get More Leads
Best Productivity Apps
17. monday.com
Pricing: Free-$16 per month If you’re looking for a free project management app or want an endlessly tweakable lightweight CRM, monday.com is a no brainer. Its secret sauce? Flexibility. If you’re into customizing your workflows, you can find a way to make monday.com do pretty much anything—maybe even replace your CRM. It comes ready to go with standard CRM features like contact management, in-app calling, automated reminders, and more.
18. CamScanner
Pricing: Free-$4.99 per month The smartphone era has brought us some amazing things. We not only have access to the entirety of human knowledge in our back pocket, but a still camera, video camera, and motion sensor as well. But sometimes you need a tool to optimize these advancements for your business. With CamScanner, you can scan documents on the go and use their optical character recognition technology to convert the text on your scans into a machine-readable form. That way, the data you capture is easier to process, edit, and search.
19. RPR Mobile
Pricing: Free for NAR members A wholly owned subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Realtors Property Resource’s app helps Realtors parse and access property data for showings, comparative market analyses (CMAs), research, and more.
RPR Mobile remains one of the best ways to keep your clients informed on the go. Out to lunch with a buyer and want to pull up a list of new three-bedroom listings in a particular ZIP code? RPR lets you draw custom polygon search areas to target even the smallest micro-neighborhood.
20. Dotloop
Pricing: $31.99 per month Over the past few years, transaction management platform Dotloop has slowly become the dominant player in the industry. Since competition in the enterprise space is fierce, Dotloop has smartly released a free version for individual agents. But you’ll only get the ability to create 10 free real estate transactions before upgrading, so it’s really more of a free trial for those who are in it for the long haul.
21. Dropbox
Pricing: Free-$24 per user, per month Dropbox is a super-simple app that lets you store files on the go. It’s so common among agents these days that most have it on their phones. The free version limits you to only 2GB storage and access on three devices, but paid plans offer advanced security features, offline file access, and the ability to request signatures, for example.
Best General Purpose Real Estate Apps
22. Deal Check
Pricing: Free-$20 per month With everyone and their grandmother hyping up real estate investing over the last few years, chances are you have at least one buyer who wants to talk CAP rates instead of how green the lawn is. If you don’t know a ton about investing, they might even know more than you do. That makes it harder to come across as the real estate expert you are.
Deal Check makes it easy—even if you don’t know your BRRRR from your ARV. The app pulls in data from a variety of sources so you can quickly rattle off estimated cash flow, CAP rates, rent estimates, rehab budgets, and more. Even better, if you’re even thinking about working with investors, the app will give you a crash course in analyzing investment properties.
23. MLS Touch
Unlike a certain MLS app that has a 2.3 rating on Apple’s App Store, MLS Touch has been quietly taking over as the number one choice for boards across the country. One scroll through the app and it’s easy to see why. It’s a joy to use. MLS Touch is more than just a pretty face, though. It has features Realtors have been clamoring for for years, like neighborhood search, school search, comps, hot sheets, flood zone maps, and even a tool that lets you publish listings on Facebook.
Sadly, MLS Touch is only sold to associations. So if yours still uses that other app, you’re out of luck. We’re just happy that real estate technology seems to be finally coming out of the dark ages. Here’s hoping we get more cool apps like MLS Touch in 2023.
24. Bubble Level App (aka Spirit Level)
Pricing: Free Here’s one for agents who constantly find themselves showing pre-war listings that need a little TLC. Is that door frame level, or is it the floor that’s wonky? Instead of guessing or raiding the contractor’s toolbox, you can just pull out your phone and get a quick reading. If you’re on Android, the Bubble Level app will serve you well. If you’re on iOS, you have a bubble level built in. The only problem is that it’s kind of hidden. Here’s a quick rundown of how to find it.
25. BrokerAssist
Pricing: Free BrokerAssist is a one-stop shop for referrals and other quick gigs that require a licensed real estate professional. Need to run keys to a listing? Open up a listing for a contractor? Refer an out-of-town client? BrokerAssist is a great way to hire out—or get hired for—real estate work within your brokerage or other brokerages in your association.
26. Forewarn
Pricing: $20 per month (enterprise pricing available) In slow markets, speed to lead goes from a best practice to a necessity. If you aren’t willing to show on a buyer’s or renter’s schedule, there are 10 other agents who will be more than happy to jump at the opportunity. The problem, of course, is safety. Meeting a stranger alone in an empty property—no matter the time of day or neighborhood—can be risky.
Forewarn offers agents an easy way to screen leads so they can accept more showings. Using just an incoming phone number, Forewarn can instantly pull up the lead’s real name, criminal history, current property and vehicle ownership, and even bankruptcy history.
9 Top Real Estate Safety Apps You Need to Know About
Apps to Watch
27. REAL Messenger (Update)
In our last update to this article, we couldn’t help but include the new app, REAL Messenger, on our list. The idea seemed tailor made for success: an exclusive club where buyers, sellers, and agents can network around high-end pocket listings. They even had celebrity real estate agent Fredrik Eklund running the show. So how has it fared since our last update?
Well, let’s just say there are a few kinks to iron out before dominating the app store charts. While some appear to love it, others complain that user experience and login issues make it nearly impossible to use—common issues with new apps. Of course, as die-hard believers in technology’s ability to disrupt the real estate industry, we’re rooting for them. An app that deftly combines social media and property search is sorely needed in our industry.
28. 1060 App
Pricing: TBD The 1060 App is another new social media meets real estate app to watch in 2023. Endorsed by real estate luminaries like Jason Oppenheim, Tomer Fridman, and the Sean McPeak team at SERHANT., 1060 takes the high-end pocket listing idea one step further than Real Messenger to set its sights on TikTok. Like TikTok, the videos on the platform are short—under 60 seconds. Just enough to offer a sneak peek of a hot new property.
Sounds like a TikTok clone for real estate right? Not so fast. The app has one killer feature that TikTok lacks: property search. Buyers on the app can search for homes based on criteria like price, number of bedrooms, neighborhood, or even keywords. Pretty cool, right?
Why This Matters
Why do we think this is an important trend to watch? Simple. They’re combining the addictive nature of TikTok with real estate search on a platform they own. That means Realtors might soon have the option of using Realtor-owned social media platforms instead of relying on the whims of TikTok and Instagram. Watch. This. Space.
The app is still in beta mode, but you can sign up for early access below.
What Are Real Estate Apps?
Real estate apps are programs designed for phones and tablets that help real estate professionals and their clients generate leads, market homes, and buy and sell properties. While most real estate apps are mobile versions of websites designed for desktop computers, some, like Curb Hero, were designed specifically as apps for use on mobile devices.
Methodology: How We Chose the Best Real Estate Apps
Even though our team has more than 50 years of combined real estate experience, choosing the best apps wasn’t easy. To make sure we were using objective measures instead of just our opinions, we looked at five key criteria to choose our picks for the best apps:
- Utility: Does the app solve a common problem for agents?
- Pricing: Is it affordable? If not, does the app offer working agents a good return on investment?
- Ease of use: Is the app well-designed and intuitive?
- Network effect: Is the app popular with agents? Is there a community that supplies support and best practices?
- Stability: Does the app work as intended most of the time, or does it frequently crash or lag?
Over to You
What real estate apps do you use every day to stay effective and close more deals? Let us know in the comment section.
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