iPhone App review – Agent Calculator

There’s no denying that the Apple iPhone has dominated the mobile telephone market in recent times and tech heads seem to have created apps for pretty much every purpose imaginable. Now an app has been released suitable for Australian real estate agents to perform quick calculations.

Agent Calculator has been developed by Tasmanian real estate agent, Patrick Berry in association with Panotasmania.com

Agent Calculator gives four categories of calculations; Agents Commission, Stamp Duty, Area Conversion and Rental Yield calculator.

When you first start the app you select which State you’re operating in (the app also supports New Zealand) and the state can be changed at any time.

The app is very easy to use and navigate with just four ‘menu’ choices at the bottom of the screen to switch between the four types of calculation.

The Commission calculator is quite basic, providing a total package including commission, GST and advertising costs. The only downside I see to this calculation is that the App assumes that all commission rates you enter are GST exclusive, so adds GST on. I’d suggest a tick box be added where you can select whether the commission percentage you’ve entered is GST inclusive or exclusive, this would be handy for agents charging say three percent including GST. The commission calculator provides different options for different states ie. Allows for a sliding scale commission rate for Queensland for example. There are two commission calculators for New Zealand, fixed percentage and sliding scale.

The Stamp Duty calculator allows different options reflecting the various differences between states. For NSW, the calculator asks whether the purchase is for a ‘first home buyer’ and whether the home is a ‘brand new home’ in order to give a correct total. In Victoria, the app asks whether the property is to be the ‘principal residence’.

The Area Converters are again basic as they should be. Squares to Square Metres and Acres to Hectares. Each calculation can of course be done in reverse.

The Rental Yield calculator is the function I liked best as I, like many agents are hopeless when it comes to anything more difficult than simple arithmatic. Simply enter the property price, the rent and whether the rent is weekly, fortnightly, monthly or yearly and you get the yield. The Rental Yield calculator is simple, clean and completed in a second.

The cost to download Agent Calculator is just $1.99. I think the app would provide value to many agents and let’s face it, you can’t get much for under two dollars that’ll provide any productivity benefit. Clearly, Apple feels the same way, ranking the app as ‘new and noteworthy’ and there have reportedly been plenty of downloads so far with the app being featured as one of the top 5 paid apps within 3 days of its release.

With more and more agents using iPhones and a huge predicted take-up of the iPad amongst agents over the coming year, tools like Agent Calculator could be seen as almost ‘necessary’.

All in all, Agent Calculator is a very useful app that does everything it claims to do!

Agent Calculator can be downloaded at the app store http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/agent-calculator/id443102280?mt=8#