What is the most downloaded iPhones and iPad app for real estate? You might think it is one of the property portal sites’ apps, or perhaps a mortgage calculator, and believe you me, there are a lot of those. However the answer is, Open Home Pro.
Put simply, it is an app that helps real estate agents, gather information at open houses. When you think about it makes sense. You arrive at the open house or OFI (open for inspection), you are asked for an ID. Normally a driver’s license or some other form of photo ID. The real estate agent takes down the information and asks you for your contact details such as your phone number and maybe an email address.
With Open Home Pro, the agent just takes a picture of the photo id with the iPad (2 generation and/or later for uninitiated) or with his or her iPhone, and then hands the iPad over to the potential client to enter their contact details. The potential home buyer enters the info and… voilà!
The information is already in a database at this point making it easier to send out “thank you for coming to the open house” emails. It also makes it much easier to then add these people into their offices’ database, so that they can easily market to these people in the future.
Now I was thinking, if this is being done by a 3rd party (AMachado LLC the maker of Open Home Pro) why are portals not offering apps designed for the agents?
A portal creates an app that feeds, not into their front-end website, but rather to their backend agent site, where the agent can log in and enter the information about the open house, as Open Home Pro does. The portal does not charge for the service and in so doing they build agent loyalty and dependency, as only live/active listings are able to have information attached to them.
I have not seen or know of any portal that does this. It’s a value add to portal customers and one that will set you apart from your competitors.
