CAR offers iPhone app
Realtor association is first with smart phone app
By Inman News, Monday, June 8, 2009.The California Association of Realtors claims to be the first Realtor association to roll out its own iPhone application, providing users access to local market statistics, loan information, and nearby educational and professional certification programs.
Chris Tellez, online training programs manager for CAR subsidiary Real Estate Business Services Inc. (REBS), blogs that the iPhone app will be available through Apple's iPhone App Store later this month.
Tellez, Alan Arora and Ben Karp produced a short video demonstrating some of the application's capabilities (below).
The app allows agents to call up median price and sales volume statistics for their market, analyze annual and monthly trends, and e-mail a report to clients with contact info.
Loan information includes information on FHA loan limits and guidelines, and interest rates taken from Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage market survey.
Custom-built software applications for the iPhone and other "smart phones" capable of surfing the Internet have become all the rage in the real estate industry, thanks to the ease of developing and distributing them to users (see story).
Zillow released an iPhone app on April 29 that's capable of tracking a user's location using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, and displaying nearby homes for sale and estimated valuations of other properties on a map (see story).
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Submitted by Victor Lund on June 8, 2009 - 6:08am.
After much begging and pleading, I was offered an opportunity to beta test this application.
Set up is very easy - just hit the "i" in the lower right corner of the screen like all iphone apps and configure the cities in California that you are interested in monitoring. Now, with the touch of a button I know the following about my community: median price over the past 2 months, median price for the same month last year, along with dollar and percent changes for the same term.
As the video above shows, I can swipe across the phone and see how my area compares with the rest of the state, or another area in the state. That is the coolest feature of the app - allowing the REALTOR to have a quick answer to "How's the market"
They have a nice Mortgage page with calculators - all other info is from the FHA: loan Guidelines, Limits, Types, Foreclosures and even a page on how to avoid a foreclosure.
CAR Resources tab provides an RSS feed of the CAR news of the week.
Education near me uses a similar interface to popular restaurant finder app Urban Spoon to help REALTORs find information on Designations, Professional Development, Tech Training, WINForms and GRI
Hot Items was not live on the system yet (not sure what will go here)
Director's Cut is a series of links to information on the CAR and other websites.
All in All - a pretty cool application. My understanding is that it will only be available to CAR Members at launch - but someone will need to confirm that.
Victor Lund
Partner
WAV Group
http://waves.wavgroup.com
http://www.wavgroup.com
Submitted by Marilyn Wilson on June 8, 2009 - 7:44am.
I have already gotten interest from other parts of the country since I posted a piece about this on our blog late last week. Since consumers are so interested in local market trends this application has global appeal. I hope CAR can expand the application to other parts of the country.
Submitted by Albert Tran on June 8, 2009 - 9:16am.
Thank you for the positive feedback! This 1.0 version of My C.A.R. is free for C.A.R. Members only who should be able to download it through the iTunes store by the end of June. However we have structured the App's framework to be easily adopted under license by interested Realtor Associations and customized with their desired data.
The "Hot Items" menu will contain summaries of breaking news items C.A.R. would like to ensure its members are aware of.
We are also providing a version for Blackberry users as well. Formal announcements on availability of both coming later this month. - Alan Arora, REBS CEO
Submitted by Sharon Kerrigan on June 8, 2009 - 10:18am.
I was so excited that C.A.R. developed an application for the iPhone! It's at your fingertips, you don't have to go into Safari and then the C.A.R. website, so it's a much faster way to access pieces of information quickly.
As an Association Executive that attends C.A.R. meetings at least three times per year, I was especially thrilled about the "Directors Cut" feature. At Legislative Day I was able to view legisltation C.A.R. is watching or sponsoring, as well as things like the program of events for the meetings, and committee meeting materials. It's one more step towards going green! You can view information right on your phone rather than enter sessions manually into your outlook calendar & print out agendas and other supporting documents.
It's still new, and just the first version, and I'm confident that C.A.R. will improve upon it and make it even better. And it's FREE!
~Sharon Kerrigan, EVP, South Tahoe Association of REALTORS
Submitted by Marilyn Wilson on June 8, 2009 - 11:59am.
It's great to see an application that serves the needs of associations, agents AND consumers all in one shot. That is hard to do with a 2 x 5 inch screen!
Submitted by Suzanne Yost on June 8, 2009 - 12:44pm.
The new CAR app allows me to give some quick information to clients while in the field. I can respond faster and also email them information without having to get to my laptop.
I also especially like the ability to find Director contact info without having to go to the full website.
This is a great tool and I look forward to using it more.
Suzanne Yost, Broker Associate, Alain Pinel REALTORS, Los Gatos
Submitted by Jeff Barnett on June 8, 2009 - 2:30pm.
This is a great service from CAR that also works on my TREO
Submitted by Jenny Roberts on June 8, 2009 - 5:51pm.
Real estate professionals live on their mobile devices. It makes sense to have your Association logo next to the Twitter and Facebook icons for a one-stop shop of connectivity. I've heard nothing but excitement about this new app from our members!