While animated gifs and rap mixtapes are enough to justify the internet’s existence to me, I assume more mature types appreciate it when they come across techno-tools that help them go about their more mature activities. Like finding a house to buy. Trulia’s new iPad app almost makes that most daunting of tasks seem fun.
What is it?
Trulia Real Estate Search, Free, iPad. Trulia, an impressive real estate search engine, has been hanging around on the iPhone for a while now, but its recently released native iPad app gives you a whole lot more real estate to work with. In a few senses! You can pull up a map that quickly populates with nearby properties for sale or for rent (all of which come with property information as well as high res photos, where available) or you can limit search by location across the country, price, or number of beds and baths. There’s a whole bunch of places to look at, but poking around to explore them with your finger is somehow much less frustrating than clicking around on a website. While it probably won’t be the only resource you need to find your new digs, it definitely should be one of your resources.
Who’s it good for?
People who need a new place to live; real estate voyeurs.
Why’s it better than alternatives?
Trulia is a respected name in the real estate game, so there are results on results on results to peruse. The app also lets you save your favourite listings which can be accessed later from your My Trulia account on their website. And then there’s a whole bunch of peripheral features – open house listings, recent price reduction listings, restaurant and business search to scope out the area around your prospective place, etc.
How could it be even better?
Some more search parameters would be nice – say, the year the property was built, dollars per square metre, etc.
Trulia Real Estate Search [iTunes]