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 one very promising new app that is 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 that won’t let you down. And the fact 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.
2. IXACT Contact
Pricing: $33 per month (new agents get 6 months free)
If you ask the average agent what they want out of a CRM in 2023, you’ll probably get two answers: affordability and social media features. Well, apparently IXACT Contact is listening.
IXACT’s CRM is affordable for almost any agent at $33 per month, and includes advanced features for social media marketing along with all the usual contact management features agents demand from their CRMs today. Even better, IXACT Contact offers new agents six months free—no strings attached.
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 $299 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 manage 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 their 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 Real Estate Apps for 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 and answer 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 – $10 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: Individual agents – $59 per month; teams (10 agents) – $249 per month
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.
8. Canva
Pricing: Free – $12.99 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 less easy to swallow. Today, sites 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 to ditch the Animoto branding.
11. magicplan
Pricing: $9.99 – $89.99 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.
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.
26 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.
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.
Zillow Premier Agent 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 like with any good CRM, but it also gives you a granular look at what your leads are searching for on Zillow in detail if you sign up for their My Agent program, which makes you the only buyer’s agent your leads see 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
Recently acquired 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. Trello
Pricing: Free – $17.50 per month
Trello is yet another piece of software that would have cost an arm and a leg a few years ago. Today, it’s one of the most popular project management apps on the internet.
Trello enables you to create “cards” that you can share with your partners or team and edit, move, and update them as you hit your goals. It’s great for blog publishing, social media, graphic design projects, and even deal tracking for smaller teams.
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.
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. Bubble Level App (aka Spirit Level)
Pricing: Free
Here’s one for agents who constantly find themselves showing prewar 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.
23. BrokerAssist
Pricing: Free
BrokerAssist is a one-stop shop for referrals and other quick gigs that you need a real estate professional for. Need to run keys to a listing? Open up a listing for a contractor? List a referral? BrokerAssist is a great way to hire—or get hired for—real estate work within your brokerage or other brokerages in your association.
24. Forewarn
Pricing: $20 per month (enterprise pricing available)
In hot markets like Williamsburg in Brooklyn, last-minute and evening showings are becoming increasingly common. 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 apartment—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
Up & Coming
25. REAL Messenger
After starting a buzz at a recent NAR conference, we couldn’t help but include Fredrik Eklund’s new app, REAL Messenger, on our list. It promises to bring together two things Realtors can’t live without: lead generation and social media. Think of it as an exclusive club for buyers, sellers, and agents offering information about hot properties that haven’t hit the MLS yet.
While the app is still fairly new, it could offer buyers and sellers of high-end homes a Zillow-like experience that is both better tailored to their needs and more fun and engaging. But Eklund and his team have a steep mountain to climb here, since social media apps live or die by something called network effect—the more people use the app, the more useful it becomes, and vice versa.
We’re going to keep a close eye on REAL Messenger, and we’d advise listing agents in hot markets to do the same.
What Are Real Estate Apps?
Real estate apps are applications 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 was not easy. To make sure we were being objective, we looked at five key criteria to choose our picks for the best apps:
Over to You
What real estate apps do you use every day to stay effective and close more deals? Let us know in the comments.
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