Andrew Machado (@pelechati) is a twenty-something techie, living in the heart of Silicon Valley. After stints at eBay, he is currently a community manager for the contextual search plugin Apture.
His girlfriend is also a real estate agent.
Watching her sit in an open house one weekend, he observed her juggling reams of paper and become increasingly desperate to jot down the contact information of all the people who were walking through the home she was showing.
“There has to be a better way,” thought Machado.
There is now. Machado went home and built Open Home Pro, an iPad optimized app designed specifically for real estate agents. A free app, it just went live in the App Store this week.
Open Home Pro is a uni-task application. It’s designed to do one thing and do it well. OHP collects and stores a walk-in’s contact information along with their search preferences (number of beds, baths etc.).
Think of it like a sign-in sheet, retooled and supercharged for the 21st century.
But it does more than that. Once a contact is saved, the app automatically emails them listing details alongside a simple “thank you for visiting” from the agent.
Future versions, promises Machado, will include even more functionality, greater customization and some pretty slick social integration.
(Andrew has promised 1000watt readers who download the app an early sneak peak at the next versions – just email joel [at] 1000wattconsulting.com if you’re interested in participating.)
Here comes the flood
Back in April, upon the launch of the iPad, I wrote “…what does this mean for real estate? Everything and anything. Whatever you can imagine. After all, it is a blank slate. Open to whatever you bring to it. And create for it.”
Unfortunately, beyond the basics, we’ve seen precious few game-changing tablet applications for real estate professionals in the last six months.
I sense that’s starting to change.
While I’m impatient, I’m also still bullish on the iPad as a platform for real estate. The numbers don’t lie – IDC expects 7.6 million tablets to be shipped in 2010. And by 2014, that number is projected to grow to a whopping 46 million.
The market is growing. So is the need. It’s just going to take a few more Andrews out there inventing, innovating and building.
Finding a better way.
Local, Mobile, Social and the future of real estate
20 Tools to Bring your Real Estate Business to the Cloud
15 Ways to Make Your Marketing Mobile
Looks pretty cool… can’t try it out though… it’s only in the US store (yes, I know I can get a US store account and mess about that way but it’s not for me and the iPad people I know are less technically inclined).
Hey Will,
I’ll work on getting us worldwide. When we went to submit they asked a ton of questions about encryption and data security for different parts of the world.
I’ll keep you posted.
Andrew
Will, I take offense to that iPad user crack!! Lol. Kidding
And I too agree that this needs to be available to canadians asap!
Interesting. I’ve set up something similar using Polldaddy’s app — it’s great for Open Houses and can be used in a number of “new client” scenarios. Anytime we have a customer walk in they complete a simple form on the Ipad sharing their details and what they’re looking for in a new home. We also collect updated contact information from our clients at closing. I highly recommend it. http://polldaddy.com/iOS/
cute.
Finally, some cool tech for the industry using the Ipad… I actually hope they don’t add too many features to the app. It would be a shame if mission creep ruined another good idea. I have been hoping for something like this since my blog article “Will the iPad finally kill the listing sheet?” http://www.matthewferrara.com/rssfeed/ipadsdestiny/
Hey Matt,
Don’t worry I’ve got a good head on my shoulders. We have some really slick stuff. Please email me any ideas or if you just want to chat about the app amachado@gmail.com
I’m downloading it for my wife as I type. Just bought our 3g iPad yesterday and we will be buying a second one right away. Thanks for writing the app!
Hey Marc,
As I noted above email me if you have any questions or comments about the App. We have some really slick stuff in the pipeline and hope to update Open Home Pro at least once a month.
Andrew
cool app. Ready to see more real estate focused apps hitting the market.
For some reason i’m receiving a blank page when i attempt to post a comment,do you recognize the key reason why its going on?i’m using oprea web-browser
Love the concept of this app, and like you, I’m just waiting to see some REALLY killer stuff that I’m sure is in the works
Email me amachado@gmail.com I’ll show you some of the new goodies
We just launched version 1.1 into the Apps store
Included are two big features:
1. Selection of up to 5 bedrooms. #1 most requested item from Agents.
2. A Feature we are dubbing social discovery. We pass back to agents a users Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles automatically in the email we send to agents. This means agents can quickly connect with perspective clients across all of social media quickly and efficiently. Stop hunting through Google to track clients down.
Enjoy and as always would love your feedback at support@openhomepro.com
Andrew
[...] impressing prospects that walk in your open houses! The guys over at 1000 Watt Consulting wrote a great article about this app back in September. Leave a Comment | REALTOR® Marketing, Technology | Tags: ipad, ipad apps, [...]
Looks like a nice app. I will be telling my agent clients about this. I tweeted it. Unfortunately I don’t have an iPad so I cannot try it out myself.
[...] Home Pro first caught my eye a couple of years ago. I thought it was a real clear signal of things to come. The company had eschewed traditional platforms like the desktop and the web and instead focused [...]