After seeing it pushed in my Facebook feed for the past week or so, I decided to download the new Century 21 Australia iPhone app to see what it was like. My first impression was that it was pretty good – it offered great information about a suburb (local sales results, current median prices, real estate price growth, etc), and easy access to each section. But when I searched for local properties for sale, it made it pretty obvious that my local Century 21 office doesn’t have too many listings in this area (I found 6 properties for sale in the roughly 20 suburbs that are within 20 minutes of where I live).
Having said that, some of the features of this app look pretty good. For example, when you do eventually find a Century 21 house for sale (and if you live in an area where your local Century 21 office is busy), you can stand out the front of it, open up your app, point your iPhone camera at the house, and the app will give you information about it. You can also save notes about properties for sale, which could be handy …. if you’re really keen on a bunch of properties for sale through Century 21.
In fact, this is one of its most obvious faults – it only shows Century 21 listings, which is a given I guess. So when Century 21 tell you that this app “allows you to see all properties for sale and rent in your immediate area”, they don’t really mean all properties … just theirs. So if you’re seriously looking at buying a property, you’re probably going to prefer using the Domain.com.au iPhone app:
… or the Realestate.com.au iPhone app, as they will give you access to pretty much every property for sale in your area of interest.
Anyway, if you’ve downloaded this app, let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone who is currently looking to buy a property or if you’re selling through Century 21, as they’re using this app to provide buyer feedback to sellers.
For more information, check out the Century 21 Australia iPhone app on iTunes.