How Your Mobile Phone Will Simplify House Hunting

Finding a house is not easy. The right fit is hard to find. Couple that challenge with limited time to search or view openings and the quest to find your perfect home quickly becomes a daunting task. I know of many examples of friends who were in the market to buy, drive by a house for sale. Upon contacting the agent, the price of the home was revealed to the buyer's dismay or, worse, the price was perfect but the home was already sold. Wouldn't it be great if a service existed that allowed for instant information so that these situations did not occur?

A company called HouseFront recognized this need and addressed it by leveraging a mobile technology that we all are familiar with - text messaging. Therefore, the home shopping process suddenly became greatly simplified thanks to the immediacy offered by your mobile handset.

This is how it works - Drive by a house and text in its address to 46873 (spells ‘house’ on a phone’s keypad). A moment later, the complete details on the property is returned by SMS, from its estimated worth to the number of bedrooms and baths. Users can also post comments about the homes for others to see, as can a home’s owner. And consumers who are seriously searching for a new home can save each address on the website for later review.

While HouseFront was created to fill a practical need, some visitors have come up with a more entertaining use for the site: texting in celebrity addresses. Posted on HouseFront’s blog are direct links to the homes of Paris Hilton, Bill Gates and Jennifer Anniston, to name a few.

The big risk is that consumers who use the site will get harassed by Realtors once they text HouseFront about a certain residence. Clearly, the site will need to ensure that this does not happen to build positive word-of-mouth.

Have a look at the site - http://www.housefront.com/