Remember the Real Estate Connect conference in New York we mentioned last week? In addition to talking about the options opened up by Augmented Reality, the show also took a wider look at mobile technology and how it will impact real estate in 2012.

We all know about the growing number of people using mobile phones to access the internet, via browsers or apps. It’s something that property advertisers need to keep a tab on, at the very least to make sure that their portal is accessible to the maximum number of buyers.

But there are some thought-provoking statistics that have been revealed by the National Association of Realtors. For example, iPad and iPhone users respectively are 160 percent and 300 percent more likely to contact an agent than a user on a computer. In addition, an Adobe study also found that tablet visitors spent 54 per cent more than smartphone users in 2011 – again, a higher amount than those browsing with a desktop computer.

These usage stats – and the different profiles of tablet and phone users – have led to a new debate in mobile presentation for property portals: web apps or native apps?

Native apps, designed specifically for an operating system or platform (typically iPhone vs Android), cost money to implement and require targeting an isolated segment of your target audience.

But thanks to HTML5, web apps can be designed to work on all mobile browsers with a responsive design at a lower cost.

A few contrasting opinions to consider:

“I do see there is a transition from the native app on these mobile devices to a Web app. You’re going to see a lot of these Web applications that are going to rival the native apps.”

- Justin La Joie, vice president of industry solutions at Zillow and Diverse Solutions.

“HTML5 is becoming more robust … but we don’t see not developing (native) mobile apps for the foreseeable future…”

- Jamie Wilson, vice president of technology at ZipRealty

“[If you only give me a web app on an iPad] you’re insulting me by not giving me an experience that I paid so much money for.”

-John Lim, president and CEO of mobile technology and marketing company Mobile Card Cast.

Lim suggests the first step you should take in making your decision:

“Look at analytics. Where is your traffic from: iPhone or Android?”

For the full debate, read the article here:

Mobile real estate trends in 2012 – InMan News