mRealty: House Shopping by Phone
Browsing through RealEstateVoices this morning and I stumbled across this article from MSN Money, Cell-phone service puts ‘a realtor in your pocket’.
Smarter Agent, through a new partnership with Sprint, promises to display recently sold home data through a GPS-enabled phone. The premise is intriguing, but I’d have to see it firsthand before I become a believer. I’ve yet to be terribly impressed with too many mobile applications (the exception being Google Maps Mobile, which has saved my bacon a number ot times).
But reading that article reminded me of another service that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Property4Cell is a marketing service that Realtors can use to send information about a property to buyers via SMS. Buyers who are out home shopping can send a quick text message to a unique property ID number (usually displayed on the Sale Sign) and instantly receive the details back in their phone.
This solution instinctively makes a lot more sense to me than something like Smarter Agent, whose approach seems overly complex and dependant on specific techological requirements. Smarter Agent’s offering falls squarely into the ‘nice to know’, but not the ‘need-to-know’, category.
Property4Cell, on the other hand, addresses a legitimate problem. How many times have you driven past a house for sale and the flyer basket outside is empty. This solution is a simple, effective, quick (and hopefully inexpensive) fix.
On another note, I’ve been looking at getting a new phone soon, as my contract just expired and my old Nokia is getting a little long in the tooth. There are lots of new models coming onto the market right now that have peaked my gadget lust. T-Mobile’s Dash and the BlackBerry Pearl, just to name a few. Any suggestions from the crowd? I’m pretty set on GSM (T-Mo or Cingular) since I travel fairly frequently back and forth between the US and Canada and I like to switch out SIM cards and avoid roaming charges.
Or maybe I should just hold out for the Apple iPhone?
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Beau | Sep 28, 2006 | Reply
Being a big fan of text messaging, I think Property4Cell is a great idea. It drives me crazy when agents get lazy and the flyer boxes are empty. Maybe this will just encourage their laziness? Seriously though, text messaging in this scenario could be very useful and heck, eco-friendly.
I am looking forward to a service that shows ‘listed home’ on a gps-enabled device. It would be nice to drive a neighborhood and see all the data on a screen with all the relevant listing data, rather than have to jump out of my car and grab a flyer that may or may not be there.
I’m looking forward to picking up a Nokia E62 from Cingular tomorrow when/if it’s released.
Joel Burslem | Sep 28, 2006 | Reply
I was really thinking about the E62 as well, but the lack of a camera was a big turnoff for me.
Beau | Sep 28, 2006 | Reply
That almost killed it for me as well. And I’m sure I’ll upgrade again in the future if they add a camera to it. For me, being able to have full communication with my clients including full email capabilities, full html browser, receiving pdf faxes and being able to review and send them is what is selling me on it.
Bill Brister | Nov 16, 2006 | Reply
Individui is a new player in the SMS for info arena. We are working together with realtors and brokers focusing on what they want a technology to look and feel like. Check out our website … our official launch date is Dec 1st 2006!!!