How to Build a Real Estate Auction Software – An Extensive Guide

Gone are the days of a dramatic set-up with people participating in the bidding war for properties. Today, online real estate auction software development is emerging as a more effective and profound replacement for traditional real estate auction activities. According to a study, the revenue in the global online bidding platform market stood at US$ 2.68 billion in 2020, and the online bidding platform demand is forecast to increase at 16.3% CAGR between 2021 and 2031. Since these stats advocate the increasing prominence of online bidding platforms in the future, it is not a bad idea to build a real estate auction platform for your business and accelerate the process. Let’s start with this section and learn about real estate auction software development.

What is Real Estate Auction Software, and How Does It Work?

Real estate auction software is a tool that allows realtors, managers, agents, sellers, and buyers to participate in real estate auction activities online. The software pretty much does what goes on in offline bidding events. However, it is gaining popularity in the real estate market for providing a hassle-free option to commence an auction without going anywhere. This software lets buyers view homes/ properties online and bid for the one they’re interested in buying. An auction house usually orchestrates these auctions.  

In a real estate auction platform, there are typically three types of users – sellers, buyers, and a moderator (platform owners). Let’sLet’s understand what each means for the software:  

Sellers: The sellers are real estate agents, homeowners, or homeowners.

Buyers: Buyers on an online real estate platform are individuals who are willing to purchase properties. The role also refers to real estate agents, brokers, or investors who buy a property to sell it later to make a profit. 

Moderator: A moderator is the owner of an online auction software who manages the platform and looks after various activities such as transactions, sales, purchases, user verification, etc.

Types of Properties on Real Estate Auction Software

While you plan real estate auction software development, you must understand what type of platform you’ll be using. Take a look at the three types of real estate bidding software listed below:  

Increment auction: Increment auction is one of the most popular auctions. With this type of real estate bidding software development, you will be able to help people increase the price only by a specific number. The increment, in this case, refers to a minimum amount one can raise each time.  

Reserve price auction: Reserve price auction software allows the sellers to set the minimum price they want for the property. It is important to note that this price is usually hidden, and buyers can only see if the price has been met or not. Once the bidding is completed, the highest bid becomes the winner.   

Automatic auction: Automatic auction platforms allow the buyers to set the highest price they’re ready to pay for the property. The system bids on behalf of the buyer automatically. If another bidder’s offers are more elevated, it will outbid the previous bidder. 

Also Read- Top Custom AI Real Estate Solutions that Every Business Must Have in 2023 and Beyond

Types of Properties Listed on Auction Platforms  

Online home auctions work with a variety of real estate segments. There are different types of auctions for other sorts of properties. Let us take a look at the list of the most common types of properties and homes listed on online real estate auction software:

Short-sale properties: A short sale is a property purchase that a homeowner commences selling their home for less than the outstanding mortgage. This property purchase benefits the lender as they can avoid repossessing property and save time. It is also advantageous for borrowers as it allows them to avoid bankruptcy or credit card spending. 

Foreclosed properties: Foreclosure is the legal process wherein a lender tries to recover the amount he owes for a defaulted loan.

Bank-owned properties: Bank-owned properties are the ones that are taken into a bank’s ownership after an individual fails to commence a foreclosure sale purchase.

Flipped properties: Flipped property sale involves homes and properties owned by the investor and renovated.

Retail properties: Retail properties are common among investors and business professionals. For example – shops, offices, etc.

How to Monetize Your Real Estate Auction Software?  

With real estate bidding software development, you are providing your users a platform where they can easily take part in property auctions and make money more easily. How do you monetize this software to your benefit? If you’re planning to monetize your real estate auction software to earn money with it, the below-mentioned revenue models will guide you to your most suitable option:  

Premium fee for buyers: The real estate auction platform generally requires the final buyer to pay a fee to close their bid and finally buy the property. This commission will deliver to your venue to connect the buyer and the seller.  

Listing fee for sellers: Certain real estate auction platforms require the sellers to pay a fee for each property they list on their software. This fee is calculated as a percentage of the property cost and is non-refundable.   

Closing fee: Real estate auction platforms only ask their sellers to pay a fee before auctioning a property. On the other hand, some venues require payments from both sellers and buyers. The price is charged after the final auction of the property.  

Transfer tax: This fee is paid after the seller transfers the property’s ownership to the auction winner once the bidding is closed.  

Must-Have Features of a Real Estate Auction Software

Before you begin with real estate auction platform development, you must decide the core functions that are going to be in your software. Listed below are the most important features of real estate bidding software. Let’sLet’s take a look.  

User Registration  

User registration is a primary feature to remember during your real estate auction platform development. This feature is essential for your users and investors to sign up and create a personal profile.

The registration process will require users to mention personal details such as name, address, zip code, contact number, email address, social media handles, etc. Regarding users, such as investors and agents, your platform may need the details like title, real estate license number, company name, etc.  

Property Listing  

The listing feature enables the sellers on your platform to create a new property listing. The feature should also allow them to edit the information about the property they’ve listed. Using this option, they can write a description of the property. This must-have description details amenities, the total number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, suburbs, etc. Moreover, they can post photos of the property that should be of high quality. It will allow people to gain knowledge about the property.  

Home auction registration

When users have signed up for your online real estate auction platform and can go through the properties, they should have an option to start bidding. Users can provide their credit/ debit card information by registering for auctions. This information is required to carry out payments related to the platform’s services, including fees and property purchases. To enable online payments, you must integrate payment software into your real estate auction platform. 

Auction timer  

In an online real estate auction platform development, the auction timer is one of the essential features. This feature shows the date of an upcoming auction event and the time left before an auction starts. It also indicates the time bidders have for bidding before an auction ends. This feature allows the buyers to plan their participation and check the actual time for bidding once an auction starts. 

Virtual tour

With present technologies such as VR and AR, you can easily understand how to build auction software for the real estate business. Aren’tAren’t things that simple today? This kind of availability takes you right to the implementation of 3D tours. Real estate businesses use these modern approaches to help buyers scan the property well. Using it in your online auction platform won’t have to keep explaining the property features like layout, size, and interior design, and your users will feel more relaxed while deciding on their take.

Read More: How is Virtual Tour Transforming The Real Estate Industry? 

Search features  

Search features are must-have features of a real estate auction website. But how do you ensure it adds value to the user’s search activity? By refining their search based on their preferences, the users will have a quick time looking at the list of all property options. This advanced search feature lets your users narrow their search by filtering out the properties based on criteria such as price range, property location, amenities, number of bedrooms, square footage, etc.

You can simplify it more by providing the option to sort the search results for specific criteria such as popular properties, new properties, remaining auction time, price, size, date of the auction, etc.  

Recommendations 

Recommendations are a commonly used feature in real estate software, and they can help your users find their dream property. You can use the searches performed by the buyers to create personalized recommendations for each of them based on those previous searches. This feature can be impactful in enabling a smoother interaction between the users and the platform and ups the game of user experience.

Buy It Now 

The Buy It Now features in your real estate auction software will allow sellers to set a special price for which they’d be fine with selling a property. Thus, once the price meets the amount charged by the seller, the parcel will be sold automatically to the buyer. Additionally, the buyer can buy a property immediately by bidding on the price set by the seller right when the bidding starts at an auction.  

Automated Bidding  

The automated bidding feature is useful in letting the buyers bid even if they are not present during the process. The computerized bidding software will automatically place a bid on the buyer’s behalf. This feature ensures that a buyer is the highest bidder and wins the auction even if they are not participating in the process.  

Auction Calendar  

The auction calendar is useful for users in tracking the upcoming real estate auctions. This feature allows the users to look for the new auction events using different filters such as event name, event start or end dates, location, etc.  

Dashboard  

The dashboard feature makes it feasible for the buyers to save the properties they’d like to consider and return to the list without spending time searching for them again. As you build a real estate online auction platform, you must ensure that the buyers have all the ease to place bids. By providing the property dashboard and bidding management, they will be able to carry out activities more effectively. This feature is a brownie point for an incredible user experience.  

Reports and Analytics  

When building a real estate auction platform, you should keep it in mind to provide both buyers and sellers the option to take a glance at statistical reports and analytics. This feature will help the people who bid to analyze the data, read through a more practical analysis of their auction activities, make more informed decisions and buy a property.  

Push notifications 

If a mobile real estate auction application is your plan, then push notifications to have to be there. This feature is an integral part of mobile applications that ensure that your users interact with your platform daily. Real estate auction mobile applications offer alerts about upcoming sales, new bid properties, new listings, and various other updates. This feature will ensure that the users do not miss out on an opportunity to find or bid on a property.

Read More: Everything to Know About Auction App Development

Real-time Bidding  

The users can easily place their bids using the real-time bidding feature in your real estate auction application. They can also check the existing ones placed by others in real-time.   

Social Media Sharing  

Nowadays, mobile applications feature social sharing to make things more convenient for users who want to share their findings with others. In your real estate bidding application for mobile, you can use this feature to allow your users to share properties on social media. The users will not only be able to save the properties they like but also share them with other people interested in participating in the auction.  

Messaging  

What if your users want to show properties to their friends, family, or agents? By implementing an in-app messaging option, you will ensure that users conveniently share the properties they like and even communicate via messaging without leaving the app. This fantastic and basic feature will keep your users on the platform and help them avoid the fuss of switching between two media.

How to Build a Real Estate Auction Platform

Let us now take some important notes that are crucial to keeping in mind while you build a bidding software for real estate:

Do Your Research  

It’sIt’s a must to gear up your real estate auction software development process with thorough market and competitor research. Performing a discovery stage before the development process will shape your decision with a detailed and practical analysis of the product, the market demands, and the possible challenges and solutions. During the discovery phase, you must determine different nooks and crannies of your real estate bidding software development, including your core goals, features, technology stack, platform architecture, future scope, customer pain points, and challenges. Once this part is covered, you can create a better roadmap for the process. Not to mention, understanding every aspect of your plan will help you find a more suitable real estate auction software development company.  

Find the Right Development Partner

How to develop a real estate auction site? This question has a lot to do with the development partner you choose. It may not be easy to find a quick answer to that. This stage is crucial, and you must not hurry while finding the right real estate software development team. While looking for the right development partner, your focus should be on finding a group of real estate auction software developers backed by experienced project managers with strong expertise in the industry. It will save time and help you throughout the development process, from planning and road mapping to post-development errands.  

MVP Development  

When planning to build a real estate auction site that can reap the maximum benefits, starting the software development process with a minimum viable product (MVP) is imperative. It will greatly save you a great deal of time and money. On top of that, creating an MVP is a must when you want a faster time to market. The MVP facet of your product will involve only the most essential features, which will help you save money. It will also help you find out how your target users and investors are reacting to your software and what needs to be done to improve the product.  

Final Thoughts  

In this article, you read how an online real estate auction platform works and how you can build a real estate auction software. Real estate software is becoming more popular daily; thus, creating a venue of your own will simplify your work more efficiently.  

Not sure how to get started? We will help you. Matellio, as a leading real estate software development services company, enables you to streamline your real estate business operations with a feature-rich solution that offers a wealth of benefits. Connect with our experts over a free consultation call to know more about building real estate auction software for your business!