It’s never been easier to manage your real estate portfolio, and that’s due in large part to technology. The best apps for real estate investors give you an unprecedented level of control over your investment: here are eight of the very best we’ve run across.
The 8 Best Apps for Real Estate Investors
1. Keep an Eye on Listings With Homesnap
Homesnap is a nifty little app that lets you keep up with listings as easily as any agent. Use the app to search for a property and get real-time updates on new properties in the zip codes you’re interested in. The MLS listings update in real-time, so it has plenty of information. However, the app lacks some of the more robust features of others on our list when it comes to analyzing that information for you.
This might be one of the best apps for real estate investors who are working with a spouse or friends as fellow-investors. The messaging and sharing ability make it simple to connect if you’ve got a team of people. Even if the person you’re sharing with isn’t on the app at the time you alert them, their email reply will go straight to the app, so your whole conversation is right there and easy to access.
2. Find Out the Real Deal With Property Evaluator
In some ways, tracking down properties for sale is the easy part. Possibly the most difficult thing is making sure it’s the best investment. Property Evaluator allows you to take the guesswork out of figuring out what an investment is really worth.
This app allows you to compare costs and rents with other properties in the area, estimate income and expenses accurately before you buy, project cash flow, tax savings, and gross equity income, and compare loan options at a glance. You just answer a few questions and then compare multiple investment options to pick the best deal. Best of all, the app will generate and email a branded PDF performance projection to anyone you need to send it to, from lenders to partners to clients.
3. Get a Handle on Construction Costs With Construction Cost Estimator
You need to be able to quickly estimate construction costs when you’re comparing properties and have to make quick decisions. But eventually, you’re going to want the ability to drill down and create on-site estimates of costs. With Construction Cost Estimator, you can save time and money by quickly creating estimates that you can email as a professional report. All it takes is a few quick taps to add cost items, update quantities, or calculate a removal project. Buy Craftsman cost books within the app so you can get accurate labor and material costs for tens of thousands of items.
4. Keep It All in One Place With Property Tracker
If you want to evaluate potential properties while also keeping track of the properties you already own, you can get it all with Property Tracker. This handy app tracks your vacancy rates and lease expirations, monthly income, and expenses, and generates detailed performance reports on every property you own. It also offers online document storage and lets you keep contacts and correspondence, so it’s easy to keep everything together.
You get monthly updates of your key financial indicators, too, so you can maximize profits and tax savings and know when to refinance, sell, or remove your PMI. This is the most comprehensive of the apps we reviewed and offers a lot of features that you’d otherwise need a couple of apps to keep track of.
5. Stay Up-to-Date on Rent With Rentometer
Rentometer is a simple app that’s especially useful for single-family home investors, though it underperforms just a bit if you’ve got whole apartment buildings to keep track of. Basically, once you input the address and number of bedrooms in your property, it continuously shows you comparable lease comps. If you’re buying a property with a tenant already in place, what they’re paying often doesn’t reflect the current local trend. You can get this feature in other apps on this list, but some people will appreciate having a stand-alone way to keep track of real-time lease comps.
6. Run Accurate Flip Analyses With Property Fixer
Anyone interested in flipping properties will enjoy this handy app. In just 5 minutes, Property Fixer gives you an accurate profit and return flip analysis. There’s no need to interrupt your property search to go home and crunch a lot of numbers on a spreadsheet, leaving the door open for someone else to grab a deal while you’re still running numbers.
This app makes it easy to adjust your holding period so you can automatically see how a change will affect your profit. Evaluate and save multiple properties, add in unlimited expenses to calculate, keep photos of the properties, and produce professional, branded PDF reports. It even allows you to estimate costs in international currencies and units and itemize your closing costs. If you’re a serious investor, once you use this app, you won’t remember how you ever got anything done before.
7. See What Everyone Else Is Seeing With Zillow
Zillow is one of the biggest names in real estate, and the Zillow app is worth a mention. It lets you see rental rates and home values in the area, create alerts for the types of properties you’re looking for, and track your estimated property value over time while estimating the potential sale price into the future.
Zillow’s strength is also its greatest weakness. On the positive side, it’s not reliant only on MLS data feeds and has information about just about every single property in the entire United States. The downside is that Zillow has a lot of old, outdated, incorrect, and sometimes even completely fake listings, though the last is thankfully fairly rare. Zillow is definitely worth consulting, especially early on in the process, but it might not be the best app to rely on when you’re actually getting into the nitty-gritty of making decisions and investments.
8. Check Out The Area First With Google Maps
Google Maps is a great tool that allows you to see the street view of a property, as well as neighboring homes, railroads, schools, and more. It allows you to walk down your street without ever setting foot in the area. Satellite images can also be helpful when looking at a property, and it’s surrounding areas.
Choose Your App
So there you have it: seven of the best apps for real estate investors. These apps will save you time and money, and, best of all, make it easier to succeed in investment.
