HomeFinder.com, which connects home buyers, sellers and real estate professionals locally and nationally, has announced the launch of "Open Houses," which company officials describe as an iPhone (News - Alert) app for helping home buyers find open houses and connect with a qualified local Realtor.

As one company official remarked, "Mobile applications are best when they focus on one thing very well. Home buyers will always want to tour homes, and sellers and their agents will always want to be found. Our Open Houses app makes that happen without the clutter that plagues so many mobile real estate applications."

The free app can be downloaded from the iPhone App Store, and it'll run on the iPod Touch too. Company officials say HomeFinder.com's listing database has over 3.5 million homes for sale, so if you can't find anything you like maybe you should re-examine your checklist.

It already has partnerships with 130+ local newspapers across the country, which gives it a lot of listings: "The Open Houses app will be marketed aggressively to active home buyers," company officials say.

It features one click access to open houses around a user's location through the iPhone's native location-aware technology, plus search filtering to pinpoint the areas, price range and property types for a particular search.

And as you no doubt guessed, there's access to contacting selling agents via e-mail or phone about a specific property from within the application, integrated mapping and point-to-point driving directions through Google (News - Alert) Maps.

It's impossible to keep up with all the cool iPhone apps coming out. One of this reporter's favorites recently was featured by TMC's (News - Alert) Raja Chaudhary in October:

"Mozes, a company that makes mobile applications for the masses, has introduced a free application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that puts fans in touch with 15,000 exclusive promotions from more than 5,000 famous bands, brands, artists, sports teams, organizations and causes."