Best Home Buying Apps

Sign Up Now

We chose Zillow as our best overall home buying app because of its massive scope in inventory and services. The app also provides free foreclosure data, pre-approval assistance, and customizable search filters.

Zillow was founded in 2006 by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft and Expedia executives. They launched the online real estate service company, Zillow.com, in Seattle, Washington.

Zillow’s home buying app is the best tool overall because it has the largest database at approximately 160 million homes, a full suite of search features nationwide, and the ability to connect to agents for in-person service.

Zillow serves the full lifecycle of owning and living in a home: buying, selling, renting, financing, remodeling, and more. Under the Zillow brand, Zillow runs Zillow, Zillow Premier Agent, Zillow Home Loans, Zillow Closing Services, Zillow Homes, Inc., Trulia, Out East, StreetEasy, HotPads, and ShowingTime.

The app works on a database of about 160 million U.S. homes, including homes for sale, for rent, and those not currently on the market. The agent finder tool can help start the real estate agent search. You can search by location, home price, size, and other features.

The app regularly updates its database. Some minor changes made by sellers appear within a few minutes on the app, but all changes are updated within 24-48 hours.

Zillow is free for buyers and sellers.

Sign Up Now

We chose Xome as our best app for buying a home at auction because of its easy user experience to view and bid on nationwide listings. Detailed information like financing, property, and neighborhood statistics; alerts when someone else bids on a property you are watching; and property price history all keep the bidder up-to-date on activity. Xome Real Estate Auctions further surpasses its competitors with an efficient e-signing capability for contracts.

Xome Real Estate Auctions is a nationwide app based in Texas. In addition, Xome has a variety of subsidiary companies and divisions that provide title services, mortgage solutions, field services, valuations, notary signings, and more.

Xome Real Estate Auctions has one of the largest nationwide selections of REO, short sale, foreclosure, and luxury properties for auction. The app allows a nationwide search of homes for sale with an easy user experience, making it our top choice for buying a home at auction.

Though it is free to register for an auction, interested buyers must agree to a $1,000 hold for every event they sign up for unless their account is verified. If a buyer wins a property, Xome will add a "buyer's premium" on top of the winning bid, which is either 5% of the winning bid value or $2,500, whichever is greater. This will become the new purchase price for the property, not including closing costs.

After placing an order and receiving a confirmation email, a Xome closing coordinator will reach out to coordinate the completion.

Sign Up Now

We chose Trulia as our best home buying app in terms of searchability because it lets the user view a property in several ways. For instance, an individual can view the property itself, area crime information, shopping, eating establishments, schools, commute times, and reviews from community members.

The company was founded in 2005, was acquired by Zillow Group in 2015, and is headquartered in San Francisco. The app is best for searchability because users can examine millions of listings nationwide using 34 neighborhood map overlays. These overlays provide users more insight into what it's like to live not only in that home but also in that neighborhood.

Since being acquired by Zillow in 2015, Trulia has access to most of Zillow’s database of approximately 160 million homes. To ensure consumers are viewing the best and most up-to-date information possible, Trulia processes more than 1.5 terabytes of data every single day, giving it the required data for buyers to search better than on other apps. The data falls into two core data sets: listings and public records data, and consumer behavior data. Like other home buying apps, Trulia gives home facts from public records.

Within just a few minutes of engagement on the app, users generate an average of 18 to 20 events, or signals, about their intent or preferences. Trulia processes these signals to serve custom content and drive engagement.

Trulia shows names and contact information for listing agents, so users know who they would be working with for each listing. The app is free for users.

Sign Up Now

We chose Realtor.com as our most reliable home buying app because it is the official search portal for the National Association of Realtors. This is made possible by the close relationship that realtors have with the Multiple Listing Service which provides data feeds used by most home buying apps. With this relationship, Realtor.com is often updated a little faster with the realtor-driven information from the MLS.

Founded in 1996, Realtor.com is currently owned by Move, Inc., a branch of News Corporation (NWS). As of the News Corporation's most recent quarterly report, the average monthly unique visitors on Realtor.com's web and mobile sites were at 72 million.

Realtor.com has the most reliable app because of the influence and needs of the National Association of Realtors and because the data is mined from the MLS.

Available for Android and iOS, this home buying app provides property listings sourced directly from over 800 MLSs. The data refreshes every 15 minutes. It shows everything from detailed photos of properties, details such as property tax and sales history, combined with easy-to-use search options. For investors and professionals alike, this app is always a top choice.

The app gathers leads for those looking for a home and then farms them out to participating agents who are paying for that specific zip code.

This app is free to use for home buyers.

Sign Up Now

We chose Redfin as our best value in home buying apps because it gives its users a combination of innovative technology, great service, and lower agent commission rates if you use a Redfin broker. While all apps are free to use, the costs of buying a house can be lower than normal because Redfin agents have lower commission fees.

Redfin, launched in 2006, allows the user to search for nearby houses, condos, and townhouses that are for sale or hosting an open house. You can book a home tour from within the app. Redfin is both an app and a brokerage firm.

Redfin offers the best value because of its lower listing fees, all while maintaining competitive technology and customer service. When selling, most homes list for only 1%. When buying, the average buyer collects a $1,500 refund back on the realtor agent fees. While all apps are free to use, the costs of buying a house can be less than with other apps because within Redfin you can search for homes listed by Redfin agents, which carry lower fees and offer buyer refunds.

The Redfin real estate app, which is available in over 100 U.S. markets, updates listings every 5 minutes, allowing interested buyers to optimize their search, whether it’s by neighborhood, school zone, ZIP code, or city.

Since Redfin is a real estate brokerage, it has access to data from the regional MLS where Redfin has agents.

The app blends innovative technology balanced by timely and customized human interaction. If you have questions about a certain home or want to work with a Redfin agent, simply click the “Talk to a Redfin Agent” button to submit a question, and a Redfin real estate agent will respond to the inquiry via email or phone.