Whether you’re looking to achieve the great Aussie dream and purchase your first home, buy an investment property, or rent, finding a home can feel overwhelming. Real estate apps are one way to help make the house-hunting process easier.
Fortunately, there are a variety of real estate apps on the Australian market that cater to different needs. There are some that allow you to narrow your search to specific requirements and look up your house’s value, while others give detailed property profiles. If you want to participate in an auction from your phone, there’s even an app for that.
To help you get started, we’ve put together the top property and real estate apps available in Australia.
1. Realestate.com.au
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
Established in 2010, realestate.com.au has gone on to become Australia’s most popular real estate website. Their app offering allows you to find all types of properties for sale and rent including houses, land, apartments, acreages, and townhouses. Their handy search filter can help narrow down your search by location, number of bedrooms/bathrooms/car parks, indoor/outdoor features, and price range. You can also save your searches and get notifications when matching properties are available. Other features include an inspection planner to manage auction and inspection times, estimated property values, a home loan calculator, rental and sales history profiles.
2. Domain
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
Majority-owned by Fairfax Media, Domain offers a range of useful features to help you find the perfect home. Whether you’re looking to buy, invest, or rent, you can filter the search by type of property, suburb, price, number of bedrooms/bathrooms/car parks, and even keywords such as ‘garden’. Plus, you can search properties by school name and Domain will show you options in that particular catchment. Keeping track of inspections is made easy with their inspection planner that allows you to shortlist your favourite properties and add times to your phone’s calendar.
3. Rent.com.au
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
If you’re looking for a rental property in Australia, rent.com.au offers a range of helpful features to help your search. It allows you to find rental properties across Australia that match your lifestyle. For example, you can choose to filter your search based on suitability for families vs. singles or quiet and peaceful vs. vibrant and busy. Other search features include NBN availability, a walk score, and transit score. The user-friendly app gets you to fill in a renter resume, a renting profile featuring details such as the number of people living in the house, number of cars and pets, budget, and referee details. Rent.com.au also offers bond finance, renters content insurance, and lets you to check your tenancy record.
4. Property Values Search (onthehouse.com.au)
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
The onthehouse.com.au Property Values app offers access to free property information and data on every property in Australia. The app has useful features for homeowners, property investors, and real estate agents including detailed property profiles, sale histories of individual properties, and comparative reports. The app also offers calculated value estimates of a property based on location, recent sales, and other market-influencing factors.
5. Soho
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
Founded in 2017 by Jonathan Lui, Soho is best described as the ‘Tinder of real estate’. After you set up a property profile, the app will offer you properties where you can swipe and get matched. For real estate agents and brokers, Soho offers social news feeds and groups where you can connect with experts, gain property insights, and keep up-to-date on market trends.
6. GAVL Live Auctions
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
Launched in 2017, GAVL Live Auctions lets you be part of the action of an auction without having to physically be there. The app allows you to watch and participate in live real estate auctions for free from anywhere in the world. Plus, auction results are published seconds after the auction finishes. You can also find market insights into auctions including the number of attendees and bidders at auctions.
7. Property Calculator Australia
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
When it comes to buying your first home or investment property, there are a lot of factors that go into the cost other than just the sale price. There’s also stamp duty, lenders mortgage insurance (LMI), and loan repayments to take into account. This is where Property Calculator Australia can come in handy. After you enter the purchase price of a property, the app will instantly calculate the stamp duty, loan balance, deposit required, loan repayments, and more. If your deposit is less than 20% of the property’s value, it will also show you the lender’s mortgage insurance cost. Plus, if you need to brush up on property terminology, the app includes a helpful glossary.
8. Houzz
Cost: Free
Available on: Apple, Google Play
Launched in Australia in 2014, Houzz lets you search through millions of high-resolution photos of home interiors and exteriors by style, room, and more. If you’re looking to build, renovate, or decorate your home, the app can connect you with more than two million active home improvement professionals including interior designers, architects, and builders. If you want to see what items would look like in your house, the app offers a 3D feature using your phone’s camera.
NODDLE is a consolidated online resource, we are not financial advisors. We work with a range of industry professionals and compliance check our articles to ensure factual accuracy. However, we do not provide professional financial advice. Consider seeking independent legal, financial, taxation or other advice to check how the information and ideas presented in this article relate to your unique circumstances.