Yesterday at the SIME conference (hyped Internet event in Stockholm with focus on media) Hemnet announced that they are developing an iPAD application to be released in spring. Hemnet is the largest residential listing service in Sweden.
Screenshot is from DagensMedia.
Functionality
The development firm Apegroup will build the app (they've also built the iPhone and Android app for Hemnet over the last year).
"Focus will be on maps, large attractive photos, inspiration and to have all information accessible in the easiest way possible" says Anders Graffman, CEO Apegroup (my translation)
An additional feature is that it will be possible to save photos on the iPad for inspiration for future decoration projects.
Carl-Henric Borg, CEO of Hemnet, also points out that the iPad app will: (my translation)
"... the iPAD app could also be used as a tool for the brokers/agents to present alternative listings during an open house"
More about Hemnet
Following the SIME event over Twitter also gave some additional insights to the Hemnet business case:
- 1,4 million unique visitors per week (15% of all inhabitants in Sweden!)
- The growth of visitors per week has been +27% over the last year
- 220 000 downloads of the iPhone App
- 3rd largest referrer is Facebook
- 30% of the visitors use Hemnet for 'entertainment'
- 150 000 listings per year
- to list is free for the brokers
- fee to banks for referrals for loan
And the final news item; a new version of Hemnet's website is to be launched "later this autumn"(?). Isn't that snow in the streets of Stockholm? ;-)
My thoughts
Having tried US based real estate iPAD apps like Zillow (residential) and Loopnet (commercial) I believe this move by Hemnet is a clever one.
My suggestion would be to create a specialised version of the iPAD app for the brokers/agents in order to give them a great presentation tool in their meetings/open house with the clients. Take a look at this video for Zillows iPAD app (CEO Rich Bartons blog post about it) and read this success story and you will see the benefits.
At my day job as Product Manager at Datscha, I've used iPADs extensively over the last couple of months running short sales presentations at different events/conferences and it is working brilliantly. It's easy and almost invisible to bring with you, starts in a second and you can quickly flip through a presentation (mostly used PDF over Dropbox).
I could just imagine how great it would be for a real estate agent with a dedicated iPAD app like above.