With Realtor.com, simply taking a photo unlocks a wealth of info about a home

By Lulu Chang Published January 18, 2017

Window shopping for houses never looked quite so … real. Thanks to two new features now found in Realtor.com‘s Android app, you’ll be able to leverage image recognition and augmented reality to make your homebuying experience more immersive than it’s ever been. With the new tools — Sign Snap and Street Peek — you’ll be able glean more information than ever before on your potential new postal code.

First up is Sign Snap, which provides critical information about a prospective home. Everything from specs like square footage, number of bathrooms, and the size of the backyard, to photos and agent contact information can be accessed simply by snapping a photo of the home’s for rent or for sale sign. So even if your potential dream home doesn’t come with a flier on the sign’s post, there’s no need to worry — just take a photo and let Realtor.com do the rest. The feature makes use of image-recognition technology, GPS, and the Google Cloud Vision API to search the Realtor.com database for necessary information.

Then there’s the augmented reality-based Street Peek, which will give you a wealth of information about a home by simply pointing your smartphone’s camera at its facade and taking a photo. Regardless of whether or not a house is on the market, if it’s been in the Realtor.com database, you can check out key information. Whether you want to see the latest asking price or the estimated value, Street Peek will get that information for you. And if you’re looking to size up a neighborhood, you can get the same data for groups of homes — just make sure multiple houses are in your smartphone camera’s frame.

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“In a market where actionable information can make all the difference between landing the home of your dreams or losing it, we are empowering consumers with quick and accessible property information in the palm of their hands,” said Nate Johnson, chief marketing officer at Realtor.com.

Sign Snap is available beginning Tuesday, while Street Peek will make its debut in the spring. Android users will be able to enjoy these new features first, with iOS soon to follow.

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