ProxyPics is an app for hiring local photographers to take “on-demand” pictures from anywhere, and users can order photos in any market, from any market.
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ProxyPics is an app for hiring local photographers to take “on-demand” pictures from anywhere.
Platforms: iOS, Android
Ideal for: All agents, especially those in large urban markets
Top selling points
- Very simple to use
- Highly affordable
- Quick turn-around
Top concerns
Don’t confuse this app with hiring professional photographers for marketing a listing. It’s also only two weeks old, so it will take time to build its database of users.
What you should know
If you need to know if a repair has been completed or what a listing looks like before you even decide to drive by, ProxyPics has a solution for you.
The app gives users the ability to request a property photo from anywhere. Enter the location needed, add a short description and push it out to the user base.
Any person with the app registered in that requested market can grab the assignment. Pictures have to be taken within 24 hours or the person loses the assignment.
The company is aiming to have photos returned within 30 minutes or less. It only launched two weeks ago, so it will take some time to acquire the user base.
The app is very clean and intuitive, and it required no training or help requests to understand. Projects are tracked in three screens: In Progress, Available and Completed.
All pictures cost $5, and photographers earn $3.25 of it.
Given that price point, the intent of the app is pretty clear — it’s best used when agents need a quick look at a property or when someone wants to confirm the completion of a repair project during escrow.
It’s also a nice tool for agents who manage rental properties. (Sometimes tenants can be difficult to evict, and sometimes sketchy squatters take over empty homes.)
Hiring a local resident to grab a photo can ameliorate risk of confrontation, especially when the person doesn’t look official enough to garner the stink-eye from errant occupants.
The app is also ideal for agents who work in busy, urban areas where a drive-by preview would take a couple hours or more. It’s a good tool for agents who work alongside banks and appraisers too or who have corporate relocation accounts that require gathering information from other markets.
The app should be able to rapidly decrease administrative delays faced by large companies when hiring out-of-town services, such as local site selection specialists or data providers, by leveraging the “gig economy.”
I’m slightly concerned about the low cost of the photos, as it would take a lot of pictures for a local user to make the effort worthwhile. Perhaps as the user base grows, ProxyPics will up the costs.
The app is very nicely designed and boasts a minimalist user experience. Users need to allow ProxyPics access to location data.
ProxyPics is one of those easy, practical apps agents can add to their list of productivity tools without concern of it costing them money when not in use.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
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