How to Design a Real Estate App: An Extensive Step-by-Step Guide

Real estate is a business industry that needs an app to be competitive in the market. Considering the recent Covid-19 pandemic and our tied-up schedules, viewing the property can be challenging. Real estate applications can help with the solution and provide online tours along with other effective tools for searching for a house.

This guide will help you dive deeper into the world of real estate app design. Continue reading and you will find out how to build a top-notch app for your real estate business and what mistakes to avoid.

Why the popularity and demand for real estate apps are growing?

The tendency of increasing interest in real estate applications development is caused by the following factors:

• Suburbanization trends. No one denies the demand for living places in big cities. However, more people tend to relocate closer to nature. Indeed, younger generations strive to live in megacities but to settle down the choice is obvious: suburb area.
• Living with tenants. As a solution to pay the mortgage or save more, co-living has become a trendy term. Or even to have good company, house owners often look for neighbors.
• Demand on commercial properties. Half of companies expect employees to return to offices. For the real estate market, it results in renting and selling offices speedily.

As a business owner, you can invest in real estate app design and receive a bunch of benefits. Firstly, with your own platform, you can get directly to customers. You will be able to see what your clients need and increase your brand recognition.

Secondly, you will expand your audience. Users are navigating through their phones more often than reading a magazine with real estate deals. By setting the right marketing strategy, your app will appear in the top positions when customers will look for a house.

Thirdly, most processes can be automated within one application. Submitting documents for customers or describing real estate offers for businesses can be done in one place with built-in tools.

What are the key factors of a good real estate app design?

Real estate design for applications requires multiple factors to be taken into account. For entrepreneurs who strive to get the highest user experience (UX), a real estate app should have the following features:

• Enhanced search options. The most vital function of a real estate app is to provide advanced search filters for customers. Allow your users to get the perfect property with filters for location, price, number of rooms, furniture availability, floor, planning, and so on.
• Full HD video room tours. The most convenient function of a real estate app is the ability for a customer to view the offer without leaving a current living place. Your platform should feature high-quality videos and 360-degree photos.
• Built-in financing services. In-app mortgage calculators and financing features allow users to estimate how much funds they should expect to invest. Also, a good real estate mobile app design has the possibility to apply for a mortgage or loan online.
• Online chat. Another possibility customers should benefit from using your real estate app is a real-time chat. They can communicate with sellers online and consider diverse options in one place.
• Document management. Users can store their documents right in the app database and avoid paperwork that can often lead to document loss during common real-life registration of the process.

A step-by-step guide on how to make a real estate app design

Designing an application for a property business is a multistage procedure. It starts with the idea and analyzing the users’ needs and doesn’t end when the app is released. Constant improvement is needed to be competitive in the market. Let’s go through the main steps of real estate app creation.

Analysis of the app users’ needs

The target audience of a real estate app consists of customers looking for houses, sellers offering property, and operators of the platform itself. Every category of users has special needs and pains.

For users of the real estate app, the main necessity is to find ideal residential or commercial variants. They need advanced search filters, well-detailed descriptions of the offers, video tours, customer support, and document management features. People looking for houses often face many pains: they want to have the best matches, be able to connect directly and negotiate, and go through a transparent filing documents process.

Sellers of the property expect to sell their offerings for the best price. They need to reach the right audience and also have access to direct communication with the clients. Possessors of the property hope for ease of transaction and a straightforward documentation process. This category of real estate app users requires support from the platform operators as usually face the inconvenience of not finding buyers.

Real estate app operators expect the platform to be profitable and easy to use. They may struggle with attracting users to their application, losing potential clients, and experiencing technical bugs, or poor usability.

Designing the app that will meet the needs of all target audience categories

The app users, sellers, and operators will benefit from a design that meets these characteristics:

• Easy to utilize. The real estate app design should simplify all the processes of selling and buying a property. Users should not spend hours coping with the search filters or calculating the mortgage. Sellers should not struggle with how to upload a photo or description of their offer.
• Intuitive. Since the real estate app has rich functionality, it is essential that its features were user-friendly. Going through a user journey will help understand how much time and effort it takes to successfully get to the end of the process.
• With a visually attractive user interface (UI). Good real estate app UI design harmoniously combined colors, clear composition, eye-catching illustrations, icons, and interactive animation. The visual side of the app is as important as its functionality.

What are the main mistakes made in real estate app design?

Here are the most common mistakes in real estate app design.

Absence of a search option that allows filtering properties by location, prices, and other criteria

Search is the chief function of every real estate app. People come to such platforms basically to simplify their property-finding process and they expect to get advanced search functions.

The inability to receive proper search options will significantly decrease the number of users. They will not want to go through a number of pages with variants that don’t suit them.

Absence of a map that allows users to see the houses located on it

A map in a real estate app is a must. This visual tool can save tons of time for buyers as they will see in real time where the property is located and what it is surrounded with. Online maps like Google allow the creation of custom maps, street views, or a local search.When such a function is not integrated into the app, users will have to manually search for the address switching between different platforms.

Absence of a photo gallery with the property photos

The ability to look at the house online is the principal reason why users choose real estate apps. A photo gallery provides such a possibility so buyers don’t have to come multiple times to see the house.

The absence of a photo gallery is damaging for a real estate app. The inability to see the offer is not much different from searching for a house using traditional methods.

Absence of a virtual tour

A virtual tour provides a lot of value for clients. They don’t have to arrange meetings with brokers, dedicate time, and adjust plans just to see the building. And often the search doesn’t narrow to one variant at the beginning meaning there should be multiple meetings to see the offer.

Photos will not be enough to cover users’ interests. If the option to look at the house from all angles is not presented in the app, it can cause inconvenience for clients.

Absence or poor usability of the contact form with real estate agents

A function to contact a seller or a customer support agent is highly important for a real estate app. All questions can be answered and matters negotiated in one place.

Being not able to directly contact the seller or experiencing issues with submitting a contact form leaves clients desperate and one-on-one with their questions.

Conclusion

Dedicating time and effort to create a first-class real estate app design is worth it. By investing in the platform’s usability and user interface, you will be able to reach more audiences and make them satisfied with the advanced solutions you offer. Thus, your business will grow and prosper.

Need help with designing your real estate app?

Our UI/UX design agency can help. We provide high-quality services in designing robust applications that attract users and increase sales. Our company offers modern solutions that will help you stand out from the competitors.