The real estate market is quite strong nowadays, with an average ROI of 31%. Sure, many people are putting all of their hopes in stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrency, effectively increasing their fortune. That being said, there are other areas out there that are just as effective – namely, real estate.
As a real estate investor, you need all the help that you can get to stay at the top of your game. Luckily, multiple tools can help you succeed in the era of technology. If you aspire to be an investor, here are a few tools to help you out.
Investment Property Calculators
Getting the right property won’t always guarantee that it will be a success in the future. To make sure that you get a positive cash return, you need a way to determine exactly how much money you can make from the house.
The best way to do that is to get a free rent estimator by Ofirio. These apps will use rental comps to do a property analysis within a specific market, and you will get a good idea of how much a home is worth, its occupancy rate, and how likely it is to be rented out.
This app is particularly useful if you are buying the property using investment money (loans, etc.). The rent calculator can help you figure out how much you can charge for rent. You can compare that value with the other costs that cover your home (i.e., taxes, insurance, maintenance), and you can determine whether the investment is worth it or not.
Online Property Finders
You can go around it the classic way to try and find investment property, using the newspaper or the “For Sale” signs on people’s lawns. While this should be taken advantage of upon opportunity, you should not rely entirely on it, and if you do, you risk other investors reaching the desired property before you do.
In this case, online property finders like Ofirio can be very efficient. These websites help you find the best properties based on your budget, property type, size, and the real estate market you wish to enter.
Online property finders offer you listings in real-time based on predictive analytics and various algorithms. All you have to do is add the filters for your perfect property, and the finder tool will provide a list of homes that meet your criteria.
Real Estate Education Tools
Technically speaking, you do not need a degree to invest in property. However, we all know that knowledge is power. If you make a good decision about a certain investment, there is a chance you will reap more from its appreciation in the future.
There are plenty of online education tools that you may use. Podcasts, social media insights, and even books may help you down this road. Training tools such as EdApp can offer you some insight into how to buy the perfect property and make it grow.
Real estate education is particularly useful if you are barely starting as a real estate investor and have yet to learn the ropes. Go for apps that can teach you about comparative market analysis, as this can help you buy the right investment property.
Real Estate Heatmaps
Heatmaps are probably a concept that you are not entirely unfamiliar with. These tools will use colors to visually represent the best property. Profitable locations will show up as red, whereas average non-heat zones will show up as green.
Heatmap tools make sure that the home you buy is not in a dead area with no potential for growth. These tools often use the following filters to show the best properties:
- The listing price of the average property
- Average Airbnb rental income and cash return
- Average traditional income and cash return
- Airbnb occupancy rate
Other filters are used to find the hot zones. The higher the demand is for a specific property in a certain location, the more returns it is likely to bring.
Property Management Tools
Once you buy a property, you must make sure that it is properly maintained. You need to find the appropriate tenants, keep a budget for expenses, and maximize the return. You can hire a property manager for that, but modern tools can help you in this regard. Most of these apps have features for expense tracking, income automation, and tax reports. By analyzing this data, you can improve the investment property to maximize any potential returns.
The Bottom Line
The right tool can help you find the perfect property that can make you successful as an investor. There are plenty of options out there, so you just need to find the one that works best for you.
