How To Find Your Dream Home Faster With Rocket Homes℠ Explore Spaces Search Experience And Accessibility Features

Finding the perfect home within one's price range and preferences can be challenging. For many, the home buying process starts by browsing through tons of listings, comparing different features and using various apps and websites before deciding to even tour a home with a real estate agent. It’s easy to become overwhelmed in the current real estate market.

To help homebuyers hit the ground running this spring, Rocket Homes^sm has developed a few new search features that give those looking for a home a unique opportunity to search like no other real estate search platform available today. Let’s get into the details.

Explore Spaces Search Experience: The First Aesthetic Home Search Experience

The first of 4 new search tools being released is the Rocket Homes Explore Spaces search experience. This is the industry’s first aesthetic home search. This user-friendly tool makes browsing homes a more enjoyable, engaging, and efficient experience.

Real estate websites like Rocket Homes get property listings through various channels to provide one place for home buyers to search for their new home. They often partner directly with Multiple Listing Services (MLS), accessing a database of listings maintained by real estate agents and brokers. They also partner with real estate brokerages and other real estate platforms to help increase their inventory of real estate listings. With so many listings to go through, personalizing the home search makes finding the perfect place to call home less of a chore.

How Does The Rocket Homes Explore Spaces Experience Work?

The Explore Spaces search experience shows a user’s search results by photos of home features they prefer, such as bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms and more. With this search experience, home buyers can compare the features of a home they prefer side by side in one place rather than clicking back and forth from tab to tab and browser to browser.

For example, Zia is looking for a home with a chef’s kitchen. Instead of scrolling through a sea of listing photos to find the kitchen photo and evaluate if it’s the aesthetic they’re looking for, Zia simply selects the “kitchen” option and will now see photos of the kitchen of listings in the search results.

See this new search experience in action with this video demonstration.

Prioritized Photo

With the prioritized photo feature home buyers save time and energy by choosing their preferred room or feature to see first of each listing. By showing home buyers the rooms that matter most to them first, they don’t have to waste time scrolling through an entire real estate listing.

By showing homebuyers the rooms and features that matter most to them, they’re able to see more listings that actually meet their true needs and wants.

For example, Sabine is looking for a house with a spacious kitchen. They open the prioritized photo menu and select “kitchen” as the default room to see first when searching for homes. Now they can quickly scan through the kitchens of listings and find the ones that meet their criteria.

With the ability to prioritize which photo they see first from a listing, it’s easier for homebuyers to make decisions. They can focus on the properties that suit their needs and skip over the listings that don’t.

AI Generated Photo Captions: Accessibility And The Home Search 

With the assistance of AI generated photo captions, Rocket Homes has made listing photos more accessible to all home buyers. It’s critical that home buyers understand all a property’s details, both in the written description and the photos, to make an informed decision. With Rocket Homes, home buyers can see, read, and hear more.

Alt text captions are useful for people who have visual impairments, low vision or color blindness. As well as for people who prefer to listen rather than look at photos. Alt text captions help a viewer understand the features and details of a home that may not be obvious from the photos, such as the shape or material of an object.

How do audio captions improve the home search experience?

Home buyers who use accessibility features shouldn’t miss out an as much, if any, important property information that can only be seen in listing photos when house hunting. Home buyers can simply listen to the captions and get a comprehensive and accurate description of each photo.

For example, Luca has limited vision. They would like a home with a large living room with a stone fireplace. They find a listing with a large living room but they’re unable to see the details of the fireplace.

With captions generated by AI, the alt text caption may read aloud, “Living room with a stone fireplace and dark hardwood/wood style flooring”.

Luca can now contact their Rocket Homes Partner agent and set up a home tour to see the listing in person because they’re sure it has the stone fireplace and spacious living room they want.

Personalized Location Search

Users can draw several custom shaped boundaries directly on a map to focus their search on specific locations they prefer. By focusing on specific areas, users don’t have to waste time scrolling through listings that aren’t where they want to plant their roots.

For example, Erin is relocating to Kansas City for their new job. They really liked the Westport and Brookside areas. To focus their search, Erin draws custom shapes on the map, covering the areas that interest them the most. They can then see listings for both areas in their search results. From there they can compare listings in different boundaries and narrow down their options based on price, size, and amenities.

Gallery Pill Button Navigation

While searching for a home, users can simply click on a gallery pill button and see the corresponding room or features that matter to them first. Buttons on a website or app are essential for effective navigation by providing visual cues, consistency, and accessibility.

Rocket Homes gallery pill buttons are visually distinct from other elements and have proper labeling ensuring accessibility for all users. On mobile devices, pill buttons help create touch-friendly interactions in limited screen space.

For example, Zia’s first must have in their new home is a chef's kitchen. Their second priority is a spacious yard. Zia uses Rocket Homes gallery pill buttons to filter their search by kitchen and yard features. They can easily see the photos of the kitchens and yards of different listings and compare them based on their preferences in one organized and efficient search experience.

What else can Rocket Homes do? 

The following are a few of the existing Rocket Homes search features that can help home buyers find the perfect place to call home.

My Travel Times

Home buyers can personalize their home search by comparing travel times based on their location preferences. Users can compare how long it takes to get to their favorite destinations by car, bike or foot from every listing with their personalized unique Travel Time experience.

Search/Multi-Search by Commute

Home buyers can find homes near multiple frequently visited destinations important to them. They can include work commute by car, walk to daycare, biking to their parents’ house, or their buying partners' commute. No matter how they commute or how often, they can be notified when a new home hits the market within the ideal personalized commute distances.

Multi-Location based Saved Search Alerts

Rocket Homes is currently the only home search portal that allows user to search multiple cities, multiple drawn shapes, and multiple commute searches all at the same time. The user sets their search up once, and Rocket Homes will take it from there.

This means that users can keep track of new listings, changes in the sale price and other relevant updates in one search, where it would take 2, 3, or even 5+ individual searches on other home search websites. With email and push notifications, users never miss an opportunity to find the perfect home with personalized search alerts.

Rocket Homes App Through CarPlay

Rocket homes app through CarPlay is a new way to explore homes for sale while driving on the open road. With the Rocket Homes app through CarPlay, users can see nearby listings, get directions, contact agents and save their favorites. The app uses AI to learn their preferences and shows them homes that match their criteria. Rocket Homes app through CarPlay makes house hunting more convenient, fun and personalized.

With more than 98% of cars in the U.S. supporting CarPlay, and the majority of Americans with smartphones owning iPhones, the Rocket Homes app through CarPlay meets homebuyers where they spend 1,000 hours a year on average – driving in their cars.

Bottom Line 

Whether you’re a first-time home buyer or a pro, the real estate market moves quickly and all home buyers have to make swift, informed decisions to get their dream home. Accessibility shouldn’t be a luxury and Rocket Homes is committed to providing the most accurate information for every listing, so homebuyers can find the home that suits their needs and preferences however they search for homes.

Ready to rid your home search of endless scrolling? Download the Rocket Homes app today and enjoy browsing real estate listings from the comfort of your recliner.