A local company that brings residential real estate listings to a buyer’s smartphone is tweaking its service for use by military personnel.
 
XiLi, which allows people to see what homes are for sale in any neighborhood they happen to be visiting, is offering the new feature to make house hunting easier for military families on the move.
 
“As a United States Marine veteran myself, I wanted XiLi to do something beneficial for the men and women of the United States Armed Forces,” company spokesman Chris Colin said in an email. 
 
“All they need to do is send a text message with their branch to the short code 86789, and XiLi will show them all of the property details (pictures, details, price, and Realtor contact info) of the 10 closest listings to them based on the current GPS location of their smart phone or tablet,” Colin explained. 
 
For example, he said, a Marine driving around a new community would text “Marines” to 86789 to get a list of nearby homes for sale. Someone in the Army would text “Army.” There is a keyword for each branch of the service. For active service personnel or veterans interested in rentals, the text keyword is RENT4VETS.
 
Each nearby property on the resulting list is shown with photo, price and address. By clicking on a listing, the user gets detailed description of the property, a photo gallery and the agent contact. A signal is sent to the listing agent, who can then contact the prospective buyer or renter to see if they want more information or a showing.
 
Colin said that military XiLi users can get a jump on house hunting from afar by texting to 86789 the MLS numbers of homes they’re interested in.
 
“For example,” Colin explained, “If an MLS number was TR234, then you would text TR234 to 86789.”
 
XiLi listings remain in the user’s phone archive so they can be accessed again later.
 
XiLi, which began to take shape in early 2012, is used locally by many agents with Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage. The real estate texting service, which makes its money through real estate agent subscriptions, is now available in all 50 states, Colin said.