Dive Brief:

• Real-estate listing website Realtor.com is enhancing its Android mobile app with two features that let users gather details like price and other specifications on properties using their smartphones in the field.

• The first feature, called Sign Snap, uses image recognition technology through the phone’s camera and GPS, allowing potential buyers to access information like photos, price and agent contact details by taking a photo of for-sale or for-rent signage. Users can share the information through email and text.

• Realtor.com is planning to launch another feature, Street Peek, this spring. It will allow users train their smartphone camera on a property to reveal details from the platform’s database, including sales prices, the number of bedrooms and estimated values, regardless of whether it’s available for sale. 

Dive Insight:

Realtor.com’s new and upcoming mobile features join a host of mobile tech tools recently developed by online real estate companies to help potential buyers search and purchase homes and rental properties.

In December, Realtor.com announced that it had developed an automated response application for its Doorsteps rental listing website on Facebook Messenger that serves up rental listings meeting users' preset requirements for features like price and size at a preset time.

Rival Zillow followed with the addition of iMessage functionality to its own real estate app, allowing users of iOS-based mobile devices to share photos and information on a home for sale or rent.

Recent research by Zillow found that younger homebuyers are more likely than are members of previous generations to search for a property on the internet and to seek feedback on social media.

That has attracted interest from the investment community, with real estate startup Opendoor, which purchases and resells homes online, bagging $210 million in funding in November to expand its services to more U.S. cities. 

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