The 10 Best Apps for Home Buyers

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• How do you go about looking for the perfect home? Long gone are the days when house hunting meant sifting through stacks of newspapers with your trusty highlighter. So what’s the latest and greatest way to buy a home?

There’s an app for that.

Your smart phone has the ability to lead you right to the home of your dreams. From cozy apartments to grandiose mansions, here are the best apps to help you find your perfect place.

Finding the perfect home

1.    Realtor.com – Throw those newspapers in the recycle bin and join the 21^st century! This is technology’s greatest guide to listings. The app includes up-to-date real estate listings in the U.S., including homes for sale, for rent or recently sold. Each listing includes photos, property details, open house information, and pricing. It allows you to share favorite listings with friends and family, and highlight a customized area that you would like to search. Best of all, it’s free!

2.    House Hunter – Having trouble making a decision? Don’t waste time asking your in-laws for opinions! Look no further than “House Hunter,” a unique app that offers a scoring method to help you identify your favorite houses. It has a comprehensive list of over 80 different home features. If you’re looking for something specific, you can personalize and prioritize the features list to fit your own needs. While doing a walk-through of the home, you can score each feature and check it off on the list. The app will automatically calculate an overall score for the home, taking into account things like size, location, age of the house, and price per square foot. You can even take and store pictures of the home. For only $3.99, it’s a super effective way to organize your thoughts about possible homes in one place.

3.    Mortgage Calculator by Quicken Loans – Get the lowdown on mortgage products right from the source. The “do-it-all” app for the future home buyer, the Quicken Loans Mortgage Calculator offers five different calculators, which allow you to compare options and effortlessly evaluate your choices. No more waiting for the information you need, so you can get some peace of mind and feel confident about your options.

Checking out the neighborhood

1.    Wikihood – For any iOS users, Wikihood uses the world of Wikipedia to bring you the latest and greatest information on your neighborhood of choice. Using Wikihood will give you a feel for the culture of a neighborhood, including important people, landmark buildings, local companies, and geographical information. It also offers a virtual tour of the city with an enhanced map.

2.    Safe Neighborhood – If you’re not familiar with an area, it’s important to check ahead and make sure it’s safe. If you’re looking for safety stats, download Safe Neighborhood. It gives you access to the National Sex Offender Registry so you can scout out the offenders in your area. You can actually pull up names and pictures of the offenders. This is free for Android users, but there are many apps just like it for iPhone; for the iOS user, download Sex Offender Search, another freebie.

3.    Around Me – Location, location, location! Looking for easy access to banks, gas stations, and coffee shops? Input an address, and Around Me will tell you the distances to those spots and more. And for the low, low, price of FREE, why not?

4.    SiteWise – At $9.99, it’s on the pricier side of apps, but SiteWise will give you the lowdown on area demographics. Maybe you’re looking for an area with lots of young families, or you’d like to fit in at a cool college town. Using information from the 2010 Census, the app will give you a demographic report which includes population by age, education level, number of children, household income, and more. This concise report is one of the best ways to pinpoint your ideal city, even if you’ve never visited the area before.

Designing your new space

1.    Houzz Interior Design Ideas – One of my favorite TV shows is HGTV’s Millionaire Dollar Rooms, a Tuesday night series which profiles the most expensive rooms in people’s houses. I like to daydream about what types of features I would have if I had a million dollars to spend on a room. If you need fabulous inspiration for your own home, this free app has it all. It’s an intuitive photo bank of over 150,000 images from buildings all over the world. Take a peek, get inspired, and unleash your inner designer!

2.    iHandy Level Free – A free app so cool I can’t contain myself, iHandy transforms your phone into a Level for precise alignment. If you’re in the mood for some home improvement, download iHandy to make sure your picture frames are straight so you don’t have to nail more holes in the wall than you should!

3.    I.D. Wood – A friend of mine is crazy about her hardwood floors. She’s completely right to be, since they cost a pretty penny, but God forbid you drop something or scratch the wood! That’s why it’s important to research wood types if you’re looking to do anything with wood in your home. I.D. Wood is a visual wood dictionary, providing information on over 160 different kinds of woods, including data on their durability and sustainability. If you’re investing in hardwood floors, it’s essential to pick the right type of wood, and this app can be a big help.

Whether you’re looking for a family-friendly neighborhood, a stunning sunroom, or just a crime-free block, one of these apps will help you find it.