APP OF THE DAY: Rightmove review (Android)

Anyone who has ever dealt with an estate agent will be able to tell you that you're better off avoiding them as much as possible. It's not that they're bad people, it's just that they will do and say pretty much anything to get you to part with your money. So if you could replace some of what they do with an Android app, you'd probably jump at the chance, right?
Enter the Rightmove app, it aims to let you find a property with far less fuss than calling agents to ask what they have to show you on any given day. It's very similar to the website, of course, but you can take it out with you, and that makes it incredibly useful.

Rightmove

Platform

Android

Price

Free

Where

Here

The best feature, especially when you're out and about, is the option to find properties close to you. Obviously, this uses cell data and GPS - if you have it enabled. This is great if you're on a walk, and find a road you'd like to live in, or if you're in an area you don't know well, but think it might be somewhere you want to live.
As it happens, our house is for sale at the moment, and we tested the GPS from here, and happily it was the first house on the list. So it works well too. It also gives a good starting point if you're looking for house prices in the area. It means that you can be sure you aren't overpaying for any potential home.

Sign up for a Rightmove account, and you can save properties, and access them from a computer or another smartphone. It makes a lot of sense, and it also means that you can save properties from your computer, and look at them when you're out and about. Handy when you're at a house and want to check another property.
Search results can be filtered and sorted, too. So you can find things within a certain radius of your ideal postcode, and remove those with too few bedrooms or outside your price range. Once you've got the results up, you can sort them based on price or when they were added to Rightmove - handy for finding houses that aren't selling, and on which a deal can be done.
You can also choose to view the results on a map - which is very handy as it gives you a far better idea of where houses are, something you won't get with a simple road name.
There's also the option to call the agent from the app, or send an email to them. Do be warned, Rightmove uses a centralised set of 0843 numbers to route your call to the agent. This more than likely won't be free on your mobile tariff.
So take the strain out of your agent-buyer relationship, and grab yourself the Rightmove app. You never know, it might stop you from having to call them some nasty names.