As we use our phones more and more in our daily lives, it's not surprising how mobile phone apps and digital resources are becoming essential parts of the homebuying process.

An American study found that over 75 percent of all home buyers used a mobile device to find their home.

While trusted real estate agents are always the best resources to help you find specific and holistic information about the market, buying process, and your community, some of these apps and digital resources can be useful tools to help support you as you consider your next home purchase.

Getting Started on Your Real Estate Journey

• Real Estate Dictionary: Are you a first-time buyer, or has it been a long time since you've been through the process? There are so many acronyms and industry-specific terms to know. This app will help you learn some of the terms you'll see in listings and contracts. If you have any questions, just ask your agent.

Budgeting for your journey:

• You Need a Budget (YNAB): An app to help you budget for real estate or pay down debts to help you with your finances before and during the real estate buying process.
• EveryDollar: Another app to help you organize your budget and help you to plan saving for your down payment.
• Credit Karma: Another budgeting option for when you are almost ready to buy and need to begin budgeting. 

Credit Score Monitoring

• myFICO: Since the specific FICO Scores are used by 90% of lenders for real estate purchases, this is considered the best option for credit score monitoring. It also provides a simulator that allows you to predict how future actions can affect your score over time. This lets you understand your financial circumstances and project outcomes with different action plans to allow you the most options when you are planning to buy.
• Experian: Provides free access to your Experian report, FICO score, and instant alerts for hard inquiries, which is crucial during the home-buying process.
• Equifax's Lock & Alert: Considered the best for security and protection, so you can lock and unlock your report. This helps to prevent fraud during the buying process. 

When Considering Co-buying Properties

• CoBuy: In some cases, buying a property with someone else is helpful. This is a platform for planning, financing, and managing co-owned homes, which offers tools to align budgets and define legal agreements together.
• Husmates: Another co-buying option and listing platform that connects people to buy property together.
• Sharetini: Also focuses on connecting users to share the costs of purchasing a home or investment property.
• Nestment: This is a tool for co-buying but it provides co-buying specialists to guide users through the financial and legal process. However, unlike the other options, this one focuses on friends or family partnership rather than strangers. 

Looking Up Neighborhoods and Listings

• Realtor.com: Reliable for accurate, up-to-date listings. You can search your neighborhood to see what homes are for sale and set up appointments to view homes.
• Your local real estate firm website. Most have all listings available in the Multiple Listing Service, and you can set up saved searches, compare properties, and more.

These are just a few resources to help with your search. It's great to use these as tools to help you research and prepare, but don't hesitate to ask your agent about properties, community, how to buy, and so much more. We are happy to share what we've learned over the years and help you obtain all the information you need to help purchase or sell your home.