Modesto realtor lets you find a home with iPhone

Northern San Joaquin Valley house hunters have a new option for getting quick information about homes for sale or rent in the region.

Modesto-based PMZ Real Estate has created a free application for Apple iPhones that provides on-the-spot home data for people driving through neighborhoods.

The program merges the phone's GPS location capabilities with information from housing databases. So someone cruising along a street can automatically see details about available homes around them or nearby.

"It's very advanced for our industry," said Mike Zagaris, president of PMZ. He said he doesn't know of any other real estate company offering such a free service.

The program was designed by PMZ staff members Jason Adams and Kevin Azeltine. It became available for download from Apple's Web site this week.

The application works on all iPhones and iPod Touch devices equipped with global positioning system technology.

Besides searching for homes around the user's current location, the application can search for homes by city, price, number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Searches can be limited to bank-owned foreclosed properties.

It includes homes for sale throughout Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Merced and Tuolumne counties, along with parts of the East Bay. The program includes homes listed for sale by other realty companies, not just PMZ.

It displays photos of available houses, maps and full descriptions of each property. Real estate agents can be contacted directly from the application.

The program also displays information about rental homes listed with Liberty Property Management, which is part of PMZ.

Bee staff writer J.N. Sbranti can be reached at jsbranti@modbee.com or 578-2396.