The easy app lets iPhone-toting house hunters find listings and be parted houses in their vicinity. But it’s not the only smartphone real estate tool

by Prashant Gopal

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House chase.? Forget the listing agents and classified ads. Now you can find homes for opportunity to sell with a few taps on a smartphone.

Trulia, one of the Web’s most visited home listing sites, on Aug. 25 is introducing a tool available on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone that can locate all the listings and open houses in a user’s vicinity.

The free software industry uses navigation technology to summon data and displays the results steady an interactive map. It lets users call together up such information as price, photos, square footage, and number of bedrooms. Another tap of the cover sends a short visit or e-mail directly to the listing agent. "It’s every person of about convenience," says Trulia CEO Pete Flint.

Trulia is besides releasing home listing applications at the same time that antidote to Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, Samsung’s BlackJack, and Dash Navigation’s Dash Express, which provides navigation services using GPS technology. Trulia’s service will also be available on various mobile operating systems, and on devices made by dint of. Sony Ericsson and Nokia (NOK).

Trulia, which boasts information for 70% to 80% of the properties on the multiple-listing benefit database of veritable estate listings, testament be the biggest listing locality with an iPhone application. But it’s hardly alone. FrontDoor.com says it resolution introduce an iPhone application later this year that not only searches nearby listings, but also integrates video and information about what it’s like to live in a given neighborhood.

StreetEasy.com’s two-week-old iPhone application, what one. provides location-based for-sale listing information in quest of New York City, has been downloaded about 5,000 times. The application was designed through New Yorkers in mind, letting surfers see available properties not just in a neighborhood, but also in a given building.

Coming versions of StreetEasy’s iPhone software will make it possible to search for guileless house and broadcast observations near specific buildings. "People are experiencing real estate by means of walking from the top to the bottom of the street; they’re not experiencing it in front of the computer," says Dawn Doherty, StreetEasy’s vice-president of business development. "It takes people involved in searches single step closer to the plain product."

Greg Swann, a broker for BloodhoundRealty.com in Phoenix, says that while the Trulia application may undermine the role of buyers’ agents, it will apparently be a boon to sellers’ agents and customers. He’s quick to add that as empowering as the iPhone apps may be for buyers, they can’t replace the advice and negotiating abilities of a good Realtor. "Anyone be possible to change their allow oil," Swann says. "But then why is there evermore a line for Jiffy Lube?"