New Rocket Homes Feature For Apple CarPlay Steers Home Buyers To Houses For Sale

Hitting The Road To Shop For A Home? New Rocket Homes Feature For Apple CarPlay Can Help

Kennedy Edgerton is an Updates Editor on the Mortgages and Loans team, leveraging his passion for writing and personal finance to produce stimulating content that empowers readers to enhance their lives through advised decision-making. He has written for several publications, including college newspapers, websites, and blogs on topics relating to politics, music, sports and film. Kennedy is a graduate of Morehouse College with a degree in Cinema, Television and Emerging Media Studies.

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Dawn NiciDeputy Editor, Consumer Finance

Dawn Nici is the deputy editor for consumer finance at Forbes Advisor. Her more than 20 years of experience in financial and business reporting includes coverage of the New York Stock Exchange and other major economic stories in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. She spent six years as a financial news radio anchor and host.

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Dawn Nici

Dawn NiciDeputy Editor, Consumer Finance

Deputy Editor, Consumer Finance

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Updated: Dec 19, 2023, 8:40am

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Hitting The Road To Shop For A Home? New Rocket Homes Feature For Apple CarPlay Can Help

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Would-be home buyers have a new way to go house hunting—without leaving the comfort of their car.

Rocket Homes, an online-based real estate platform that’s part of Rocket Companies, has updated its iOS app for use on vehicle-based infotainment systems through Apple CarPlay. It uses artificial intelligence, or AI, to show prospective buyers homes listed for sale as they drive through a neighborhood.

“When looking for a new home, the search never stops—even when you are driving around town. That was the thought that led to this feature,” said Rocket Homes CEO Doug Seabolt in a press release.

You can download the app for free from the Apple App Store.

How Does This New Feature Work?

The new CarPlay feature allows you to use GPS technology to locate home listings using the “Nearby” tab, get directions to the property and call a real estate agent for more information, according to Rockey Homes. When you arrive, you can view photos and other details before adding the property to your “Favorites” tab for future reference.

Once you save multiple listings to your “Favorites” tab, AI steps in. With machine learning capabilities, AI examines your home preferences in CarPlay or on the mobile app. With that information, the app offers new listings tailored to your needs, Rocket Homes said in a news release.

CarPlay is available in more than 800 vehicle models, according to Apple. It allows users to access directions using GPS, make calls, exchange text messages and listen to music.

What Else Does Rocket Homes Offer?

Rocket Homes is a tech-based real estate service provider and home search site. It gives users access to local market reports that display market conditions, home prices and buying trends.

The company hosts a network of partner agents in all 50 states who help consumers search for homes and obtain mortgage loans through its sister company Rocket Mortgage.

Do Other Real Estate Platforms Leverage AI?

As technology evolves, AI is serving an increasingly important role in the real estate industry for home buyers and sellers. Here are a few ways that AI is being used across various platforms in real estate:

Property evaluation. Artificial intelligence can be used to analyze several details including the location, size and condition of a property to determine its value.
Home buying. Prospective home buyers can use AI to locate properties that fit their budget, allowing them to find the best prices for buying a home.
Property management. Sellers can use AI to automate several processes, including rent payments, maintenance and more.

Earlier this year, Zillow, another online real estate platform, improved its home search feature by using AI to integrate what it calls a “natural language search” into its iOS app. It analyzes a user’s search queries to locate properties based on “human-like sentences.”

However, Rocket Homes says it is the only platform to combine AI and CarPlay for mobile house hunting.