Followit Is Like Instagram For Property Hunters

Followit is a new app for Android and iOS that pitches itself as the Instagram of real estate. Instead of following friends and celebrities, you follow houses in specific streets and suburbs where you want to live. Here’s how it works.

As its name implies, Followit uses the “follow” mechanic made popular by social media platforms. From within the app, users can follow specific houses, streets, suburbs and real estate agents to receive live updates and notifications. Once set up, they will only see properties that tick all the right boxes.

Followit’s main claim to fame is its sense of immediacy — properties that fit the user’s criteria appear on the app as soon as they are listed online. (Traditional property sites like Domain purportedly take up to two days for listings to appear after they have been uploaded by a real estate agent.) This is thanks to an automation process that allows participating agents to instantly upload listings to Followit’s portal with the click of a button.

The upshot to all this is that Followit users get access to listings quicker. Property price guides are updated in real time to ensure accurate listings. It’s being billed as Australia’s first live real estate platform to give renters and buyers up-to-the-second property information.

Followit is currently in beta phase with property listings limited to Sydney’s Northern Beaches. It will roll out to Perth at end of February and then expand to all capitals over the next six months. (If you’re looking for a property in Manly or surrounding suburbs, click here to see what the app can do.)

The app is free for property hunters with “competitive pricing” for real estate agents who wish to opt into the service. It will be interesting to see how many real estate agencies sign up. Promisingly, around 85% of agents in the Northern Beaches area signed up for the beta — although it’s not clear whether they were charged for the privilege.

You can download Followit on Android and iOS devices here and here, respectively.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments