As someone who’s spent hours and hours (and hours…) of my life house-hunting, I know how tedious the process can be. So to make life a whole lot easier we have 9 really useful apps for the iPhone to hopefully speed up the process and help you find your dream home in no time at all…

Please do take a look at the 9 applications below and then let us know what you think of them, is there one mentioned below that you are using already? If you are using one of these please do post a mini review in our commenting area.

1. Zillow
The Zillow real estate app offers you a wealth of knowledge when it comes to finding a new home. It includes pictures of houses, all the details you’ll need and it comes with not only a mortgage app, but also a built-in GPS so you can find the place to take a look at it first-hand.

2. Trulia
The Trulia app offers the similar benefits as the Zillow app and both apps are well recognized in the real estate business as being really helpful. A GPS system will help you find properties that are new on the market, recently sold or available to rent in the tap of a button.

Image by 401 (K) 2012

3. ServiceMagic
An incredible app for when you’ve finally found your dream home, it gives you the contact information for reputable contractors and maintenance workers in your area. It also checks the people it links to, and you can read honest reviews written by other people.

4. My Scr. app. book
An app that helps you prepare for the worst, you create an inventory of all of your possessions in this app for insurance purposes. It was created by insurance regulators and you can even store pictures of all of your bits and bobs along with their title and cost, so you won’t forget a thing when filing an insurance claim.

5. PadMapper
An app for renters, PadMapper lets you give specifications for what kind of apartment you are looking for and then finds and maps them for you.

6. MyNewPlace
MyNewPlace is like Zillow or Trulia, but specifically built for apartment searches. It also lets you take pictures whilst you’re looking around, and then annotate those pictures so you can remember the small details of the place.

Image by Philip Taylor PT

7. AroundMe
A great app for both those people moving and those staying in their current homes, AroundMe gives you all the information you could ask for about your current or new neighbourhood. It lists restaurants, cash machines and bars, amongst other things. So if you’re considering a particular house, you might want to check that it’s in a convenient location first.

8. Crime Mapping
Another great app for homeowners as well as those house-hunting, this app clearly shows you how much crime occurs in a given area, and what kind of crimes they were. You can have the app only show you certain crimes such as assault or theft too if there’s something that particularly worries you.

9. Offender
The Offender Locater app is a hugely controversial app, but some of you out there will have kids and want to look for a neighbourhood with the lowest number of sex offenders possible, and that’s where this app comes in handy.

Are there any apps I’ve missed that you found helpful in your new home search?

James Duval works in IT by day and blogs by night for eMoov, the internet estate agents who can help you find your dream home.