Published Friday June 13, 2008
NP Dodge Web site goes mobile
BY CHRISTINE LAUE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
One Omaha real estate company is hoping to sell more homes by using cells.
NP Dodge Co. has rolled out a new Web-enabled cell phone program that allows real estate agents and house-hunters to access information on for-sale homes in the Omaha metro area while on the go.
"It gives all the key data that one can get from our Web site on your mobile phone," said Nate Dodge, executive vice president of NP Dodge Co.
Say you're driving and notice a for-sale home. Rather than having to write down the address and look it up later on the office or home computer or on a laptop, you now can type in mobile.npdodge.com on your Web-enabled mobile phone or hand-held WiFi device and punch in an exact or partial address.
(If the address is 123 Main Street, you can type in "123" and it will bring up all listings starting with "123," or you can type in "Main Street" for all houses on Main Street.)
Once you find the exact house, you select it, and the program will list the home's data, such as number of bedrooms, school district, asking price and square footage.
Dodge said the goal of the program is to give NP Dodge agents an edge by providing data quickly and on-site so they don't have to tell clients "I'll get back to you."
"It's a huge timesaver," he said.
But Mike Riedmann, NP Dodge's president of residential sales, said it's also a great tool for the consumer.
The new application, which debuted Thursday, provides instant on-the-go access to the more than 6,000 homes listed with real estate agents in the Omaha area - not just NP Dodge agents, he said.
House-hunters also can click one button to contact an NP Dodge agent to schedule a showing, he said.
While they can search all listings, they also can limit their search to new listings in the past 24 hours so they don't have to scroll through homes they've already seen, he said. And they can search for open houses while out on a weekend.
Web-enabled phones allow users to look up the NP Dodge Web site or other real estate companies' Web sites, but Riedmann said the new application is specifically formatted to accommodate the smaller screen of a personal digital assistant or cell phone.
It's also easier to navigate, he said. Web sites are meant to be navigated with a mouse and keyboard, while mobile content typically is navigated with thumbs, he said.
Riedmann said he knew of only two other companies, both in other states, that offered similar programs.
"There is no other brokerage in Nebraska or Iowa that we know of that has a mobile-based Web page that was designed to work on a Web phone or PDA," he said.
• Contact the writer: 444-1183, christine.laue@owh.com
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