How do I open a home someone has sent me a code to — and can I edit it?
If a seller, an estate agent or a friend has sent you a code for a home, you can usually pull the whole floor plan and 3D model onto your own phone. But you can rarely change anything — that kind of sharing is read-only for good reasons.
Short answer: open the app, find the field for redeeming a code, and enter the code you were given. The home — floor plan, measurements, 3D model — is pulled in so you can look through it, without having scanned anything yourself. You usually can't edit it, because it's the owner's data, not your own: you see everything, but you can't change anything.
What is a home-sharing code?
A sharing code is a short code — often a couple of groups of letters and numbers — that gives access to one particular home, without you needing an account or an email invitation. The owner of the home creates the code in their app and sends it to you, for example as a text message or an email. The code works like a key: as long as you have it, you can open the home; lose it, or let it expire, and access closes again.
That makes the code easy to share by voice or in writing, without the sender having to give you access to their whole account or all of their homes — only the one the code points to.
How do you actually redeem the code?
The steps are usually the same regardless of the system: open the app, find the feature for pulling in a shared home — often labelled something like "have you been sent a code?" — and enter the code exactly as you received it. If the app itself doesn't handle the code but you were sent a link instead, it works the same way: the link opens the app directly with the home ready to be pulled in.
If you don't already have the app installed, you'll normally need to download it first. The code on its own isn't a web page you can open in a browser and see everything there — it's built to be redeemed inside the app.
What can you see in a shared home?
Typically you get access to exactly what the owner chose to share: the floor plan with measurements, the area of each room and of the whole home, and a 3D model you can look around in. What you don't normally get is the owner's private data from the scanning process itself — their own photos, internal notes or budget figures they haven't chosen to share. A shared home is a curated data set, not a full copy of the owner's app.
Can you edit a home you've been sent?
No, usually not. A shared home is read-only — you can see everything you've been given access to, but you can't move a wall, correct a measurement or change anything in the drawing. The app typically says so directly: "Shared with you — you can see everything, but the owner edits." That's a deliberate limitation, not a shortcoming: two people who could both change the same home at once from their own phones would quickly produce conflicting data.
If you spot something you'd want to fix yourself — say, an error in a measurement — the right move is to flag it to the owner, so they can correct it in their own copy, after which the change (depending on the system) may flow through to you too.
Why are shared homes read-only?
Because the home has one owner of the data — the person who scanned or drew it — and the shared version is a view of their work, not a shared workspace. If shared homes could be edited by every recipient, a home's measurements could shift depending on whoever last touched them, without the owner necessarily knowing. Read-only access keeps responsibility for the data's accuracy in one place.
It's the same principle you know from being sent a document to review, as opposed to a shared document several people edit together: one type is for reading, the other is for working in together. Home sharing belongs to the first kind.
What happens if the owner updates the home afterwards?
It depends on the system, but in many setups the shared view updates automatically the next time you open it, because it pulls data straight from the source rather than storing a fixed copy on your end. If the owner corrects a measurement or adds a room after you've received the code, you may well find the home looks different the next time you look — without you having done anything yourself.
If you want a fixed snapshot that doesn't change — for example, to compare against a later version — it's worth exporting a PDF or another document from the shared home, if the app allows it, rather than relying on the view staying the same over time.
What happens if the code expires while you're looking at it?
Codes usually carry an expiry date. If it has run out while you're still interested, you lose access — the app or viewer will typically tell you so directly rather than just showing an error. The fix is to ask the sender for a new code; the old one can rarely be revived, but a new one for the same home is usually quick to create at the other end.
What HouseSense does
In HouseSense you'll find the feature "Have you been sent a code for a home?" on the front page — enter the code, and the home is pulled in. It's read-only: the app clearly shows "Shared with you — you can see everything, but the owner edits." You don't need an Estate subscription yourself to receive and view a shared home — that limitation sits with whoever creates the share, not with you as the recipient.
Can you save your own copy of what you've received?
It depends on what the app allows for shared homes — some systems let you export a PDF or other files of what you have access to, for as long as you have that access; others limit you to viewing inside the app alone. If it matters to you to have a fixed document you can keep independently of whether the code later expires, it's worth sorting that out while you still have access — not afterwards, once the code has closed.
Decision list
- Have you been sent a code? Redeem it in the app's feature for shared homes — it takes a few seconds.
- Do you want to change something in the home? Contact the owner — shared homes are read-only.
- Do you need a fixed document from the shared home? Export it while access is still active.
- Has the code stopped working? Ask for a new one — the old one can rarely be revived.