Century 21 iPhone app goes live
The Century 21 iPhone app has officially gone live. We are absolutely thrilled to finally share this one with you all. Building a comprehensive, fast, and feature-rich real estate app for one of the most recognized brands in the industry was a fantastic challenge. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at what we built and why it’s going to completely change how house hunters search for properties.
Real Estate on the Go
Let's face it: the days of sitting at a desktop computer to look for weekend open houses are fading fast. Buyers want to pull out their iPhones while they are actually driving through a neighborhood, check what is on the market, and get instant pricing.
Our goal with the Century 21 app was to put the entire real estate market directly into the user's pocket. The interface is designed to be incredibly intuitive, perfect for tapping and swiping while on the move. When you open the app, you are greeted by a clean, grid-based dashboard that gets you exactly where you need to go without any clutter.
Key Features We Love
We packed a lot of functionality into this release. Based on the screenshots we shared, here are a few of the standout features that make this app so powerful:
- Interactive Map Search: Instead of just scrolling through text lists, users can pull up a map view populated with Century 21’s iconic gold pins. You can instantly see exactly where properties are located across suburbs like Pymble, Gordon, and Killara.
- The "Camera View" (Augmented Reality): This is one of the coolest tech features in the app. Users can literally hold their iPhone up and use the camera view to overlay property data onto the real world around them. It is a massive leap forward for on-the-ground house hunting.
- Comprehensive Property Data: The list and detail views pull rich, real-time data directly from the backend. At a glance, buyers can see the exact bedroom, bathroom, and parking counts, along with total land size (in square meters).
- Live Auction Tracking: In the fast-paced Australian market, auction dates matter. The app highlights upcoming auctions, complete with exact times and specific auction locations (like the Pymble Golf Club, as seen in the preview), so buyers never miss an opportunity to bid.
- Deep Suburb Info & Agent Finder: Finding the right house is only half the battle. The app includes dedicated modules to research local suburb demographics and instantly connect with local Century 21 agents.
Why Performance Matters
When you are dealing with high-resolution property photos, dynamic maps, and real-time database queries for pricing and auction times, the app has to be fast. If a user is standing on the sidewalk using a spotty 3G connection and the app takes too long to load, they are going to close it.
Our engineering team worked hard to ensure that the data bridging between Century 21’s massive property databases and the mobile front end is heavily optimized. The result is a buttery-smooth experience that delivers heavy data payloads without the lag.
We are incredibly proud of how this app turned out, and we can’t wait to hear what real estate agents and buyers think of it. A huge shoutout to our development and design teams for getting this across the finish line!