These days it seems like the world and his monkey is determined to make the stressed home-buyers happier. Just a couple of weeks ago Realestate.com.au came up with this huge makeover for their website, and now I find out about the Commonwealth Bank’s latest invention, that is all about helping people find and buy a home quicker and easier.
Oh, and they wouldn’t mind lending you some money, while they’re at it.
But sarcastic jokes aside, this new iPhone app by Commonwealth Bank does look promising. It’s based on what they call an “augmented reality technology”, and the way I understand it, it is “augmented” because the app takes the reality – the address of the property you’re standing in front of, when you point and shoot your iPhone camera at it ( via geo-positioning), and then adds to it some information you would need to make your property decision.
That information can be the current property listings in the same area, so you get to see what’s listed for sale, what the price range is and a 5 recently sold houses in the same area, similar to the property you’re standing next to, with sale prices. No longer will your iPhone be a mere camera to take photos at inspections.
It also will have the ability to switch to a bird’s eye view to show all properties matching the search criteria at once, save a house in Favorites, send to a friend and more.
This new app should eliminate the need to open up a website (such as realestate.com.au or domain.com.au), do a search for that specific address, and then begin navigating your way through the other listings in that area. Which basically is a fair bit of work, especially on an iPhone, which (with all due respect) is not as convenient as a computer with a large screen, a mouse and a keyboard. Plus, when you’re inspecting, often you are in a rush to get to the other properties on time and one quick look at the information this app will provide can save you about 5-10 minutes per property – looks like a worthwhile piece of software to check out.
In fact, this app should be just as good as realestate.com.au itself , because Commonwealth partnered with them and with rpdata.com to develop this new digital wonder of technology.
The word from Commonwealth Bank is that this app will become available in June this year, when Apple approves and adds it to the Apple Store – for free download!
And for the iPhone junkies amongst us, who can’t wait, here’s a teaser – click below to watch a short video about this new cool virtual reality iPhone app, or if you’re reading this in your email, click here.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Its amazing how So many new apps keep coming out for the iPhone even as old as it is. I like the fact that this one is gonna be free. I hate paying 9.99 for some of these apps only to find it is useless. Hopefully apps like this will help more homes to be properly evaluated and sold.
The most important feature in my opinion will be that which is similar to Zillow… knowing what the homes around are selling for.
Thanks for the post I found it while searching something completely different! This looks like a great resource for investors and I think over the next year we should see much more competitive app’s such as this and with the ‘free’ tag should do very well, as Im sure CBA loans will do!
Also great site, have added you in my reader
Cheers,
Ben
That software sounds absolutely amazing. That gives people the resources to find out if a home is even worth what it’s listed at before they request a showing. Plus sellers will not be able to over-price their house without a buyer realizing it on their iPhone.
This is minblowing.. I am looking for a property right now and going to use this app for sure.. To ahve this information at my fingertips is going to save so much time which is crucial when househunting !
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