The best apartment rental app can help you find a suitable investment property that can offer high income and a solid return on investment.
Real estate is one of the most robust investments in 2022, just as it was for millennia. New investment vehicles like Bitcoin are immensely volatile, and traditional spot markets are prone to fluctuations, albeit with less unpredictability. The real estate market, on the other hand, will always grow in price save for a global crisis like in 2008. This makes real estate a sure investment, even though it is rather long-term.
However, the length of time needed for the investment to pay for itself is not the only thing that makes real estate a difficult thing to invest in. Each real estate investment property is unique and has different maintenance requirements, different access to infrastructure, and different ROI.
That’s why figuring out what’s the best investment requires time, effort, and often skills of a real estate agent. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be a real estate agent to find a suitable investment property. You can use a rental app like Mashvisor to search for investment properties that can offer a decent return on investment.
Are you thinking about getting into real estate or you’re an investor with a sizeable portfolio who’s looking for new additions to it? Carry on with this article to learn why Mashvisor is the best apartment rental app and why you need one.
Why Do You Need a Rental App Like Mashvisor?
Whether you’re a first-time investor or a real estate agent, finding rental homes is pretty easy. It’s finding rentals that you can pack with tenants pretty fast and turn a profit on that’s difficult. Once you’ve found a couple of properties that seem profitable, you need to manually check a lot of things. You have to know what is the situation with rentals in the neighborhood, how many days per year the rentals are booked, and what’s the average rent you can expect to charge.
Related: The Ultimate Investment Property Search Tool
Gathering and comparing all that data can take a lot of time, and if you end up concluding that the property at hand does not fit your criteria, you will have to do it all over again for each rental. Few people have the time to do all that, especially considering the fact that most investors who use Mashvisor do not plan on purchasing more than a couple of properties.
A rental app like Mashvisor can provide people who have the money but don’t have the time or the expertise with rental analysis and a source of off-market properties to choose from. It makes it really easy to filter out the types of real estate that you or your client wants. On top of that, Mashvisor has a vast database of owners’ contact information and a real estate CRM.
Below are five reasons why Mashvisor should be your first choice if you’re looking for the best apartment rental app.
1. Rental Income Comparison
Any investment has profit as the end goal. In the case of property, investors typically want the monthly rent payments to cover the mortgage with a profit on top of it. That’s easy to imagine, but much harder to calculate. When trying to figure this out on your own, you will need to aggregate hundreds upon hundreds of listings into one comprehensive database. From there, you can judge what your rental income in any given area can be.
But that’s way too complex for an average investor. What you can do instead, is use an already existing database that Mashvisor gathers. Mashvisor uses data from Airbnb and traditional sources to anticipate the average monthly rental income of a property if it was turned into either a short-term rental or a traditional rental.
If you’re wondering how to find rental comps as a novice investor, Mashvisor can aggregate the average price of rent for all types of properties in the area across multiple neighborhoods. Calculating prices can be a bit more difficult with Airbnb rentals, but Mashvisor is one of the best apartment rental apps so it gives the most correct estimate. The algorithm in use at Mashvisor calculates the average occupancy rate of Airbnb rentals in the area and the average price per day. That creates an approximate monthly income estimate.
If you’re into rental arbitrage, you can take these two estimates of a single area and see how much you can expect to get by renting long-term and subleasing the apartment to Airbnb renters.
Each property listing on Mashvisor has a section on comparable properties to show their average demand, rental income, and other important metrics.
2. Neighborhood Research
If you know how to invest in real estate, you should know that the neighborhood is just as important as the quality of the construction of the investment property. If the house you’re purchasing has a great renovation but the infrastructure around the neighborhood is poor and criminality is high, you won’t be able to charge high rent.
Estimating how good a neighborhood is can take a long time if you’re doing it manually. Hiring a real estate appraiser can cost a fortune, especially if you’re looking in a financially well-off neighborhood. A good alternative to both of these options is to use Mashvisor’s Investment Property Search tool.
This tool helps real estate investors estimate what neighborhoods meet their demands best. You can compare multiple neighborhoods on the interactive map, and get cash on cash return and cap rate approximations on each property.
If you want to see a quick comparison between neighborhoods in the area, you can activate the real estate heatmap. This mode makes Mashvisor one of the best apartment rental apps on the market. It shows all neighborhoods in immediate proximity with an overlay. Neighborhoods are highlighted with colors from green to red according to how well they’re performing in terms of ROI. You can look around to find one that is highlighted in green, and then dig deeper for more details.
Related: This Heatmap Will Show You Where to Invest in Real Estate
Mashvisor features a real estate heatmap that gives you a quick overview of the city of your interest, highlighting which parts meet your criteria and which ones do not.
3. Multiple Cities Queries
With location being the most important factor when it comes to getting good cash on cash return on investment in the real estate market, Mashvisor provides all you need to make a good judgment call. Apart from the option to see important real estate comps on the neighborhoods, you can sort through rentals in up to 5 cities.
This gives investors a good understanding of the rental market and allows them to find a better opportunity to multiply their funds. Unless you want to purchase a rental that is in your city for maintenance purposes, comparing multiple cities is a feature that the best apartment rental app must have.
On top of searching multiple cities to find the best rental property to invest in, you can apply filters to find exactly the type of property you’re looking for.
4. Filter Out Properties That Do Not Fit
Using Mashvisor rental properties finder allows you to apply multiple filters to find the property that meets your requirements perfectly. You can choose a neighborhood, the number of rooms, price range, expected cash-on-cash return, and several other filters. Mashvisor’s search tool will present the most fitting options from the MLS database in all the cities you’ve chosen.
Even if there are no 100% matches, the best apartment rental app must show you investment options that at least partially meet the search criteria. With Mashvisor, your odds of finding a property that meets 80%-90% of requirements are rather high. This can allow you to focus on the few properties that match your expectations on cash on cash return and make your choice easier.
5. Expense Calculator
Any investment is all about ROI, and real estate is no exception. The problem with the real estate market is that it’s far more difficult to calculate return on investment than with, say, the stock market. The benefit that outweighs that is of course that real estate is never expected to decline in value unlike most of the stock market.
However, you still can calculate an approximate expected cash flow if you know all the inputs. Since Mashvisor is one of the best apartment rental apps, it already has a lot of data on investment properties all around the US, which makes the task much easier. You can calculate the approximate income by either getting an aggregate number based on the size of the property and the neighborhood or by calculating it based on the Airbnb occupancy rate. Then, with a couple of inputs, you can calculate monthly expenses and startup costs.
After running all your inputs through the Mashvisor calculator, you can see an approximate cash flow on each property to inform your decision even better.
Related: What Is the Best Rental Property Returns Calculator in 2022?
Secret Ingredient: Mashboard
Once you have found several properties that meet your or your client’s demands, you need to find a way of signing the best deal possible. Typically, the first question real estate agents and investors ask themselves is how to find out who owns the house that they’re willing to buy. This long and cumbersome process is made easy with Mashvisor.
Since the company has access to multiple MLS databases as well as off-market properties, users of the platform have the option to access Mashboard, a real estate dashboard. This is what makes Mashvisor one of the best apartment rental apps. The dashboard contains verified phones and emails of thousands of property owners that you can contact directly.
But Mashboard is a lot more than just a source of property owners’ contact information. You can use this tool as a full-scale CRM for managing your real estate business. Add or import leads from your practice and use Mashvisor’s email tool to share custom-generated reports with each of your clients.
It’s a goldmine for real estate agents. On top of having the ability to upload your own database and use Mashvisor as the CRM, you can find plenty of new leads on the platform. Since many users are beginners or even first-time investors, they will be looking for an experienced real estate agent who can help them with seeing the deal through. You can step in and make a commission.
The Mashboard even has the means to pre-qualify leads before you make a single call. Most real estate leads and property owners have a ton of data on them in the system. This allows real estate agents to filter out leads that do not meet their requirements and work with those that are most likely to close the deal with you.
5 Cities With Highest Cash on Cash Return
Now that you know what Mashvisor is capable of, let’s test its array of tools on five cities with the highest cash on cash return as of today.
Logan, AL
Alabama doesn’t sound like the best state to make a profit on real estate, but for small investors, it’s not about the absolute numbers. Profit is about cash on cash return, and that can be achieved with small rental income that covers an even smaller investment sum. With an estimated rent of $1,500, this yields a return of 7%, a very decent number.
Saxonburg, PA
Not far from Pittsburg, there’s a small old town of Saxonburg. It’s a short ride away which makes it a good place to stay if you want to work in the state capital. The town also looks great as it has a lot of historical buildings from the mid 19th century when it was founded. The average rent is only $800, but that is offset by the extremely low prices of rental units — around $80,000. Together, these two numbers yield an 8% cash on cash return.
Greenwood, MS
Referred to as a gem and a getaway, Greenwood is a small idyllic town in the center of Mississippi. It’s relatively far away from the major cities and the Mississippi river, granting it the status of a quiet city that’s perfect for a getaway. The median price of homes here is rather high at $300,000, but you can expect to get as high as 8% cash on cash return in this marvel of a city.
Suwannee, FL
Suwannee is situated in the north-western part of Florida, near a bend of the Suwannee River. The proximity to the river makes it a perfect place for people who love spending their time on a boat — there’s a huge marina, and the surrounding area is full of small streams and tributaries of Suwannee. The average home price is rather high, $400,000. However, considering the taxes and estimated rental income of around $2,000 in both traditional and Airbnb rental markets.
Spruce Pine, NC
This small and quiet town on the west of North Carolina may not seem like much, but despite the small size, it’s often full of people. The thing is, gem mining spots in the area serve as a constant attraction for tourists who flood the city quite often. Since it’s a great place to live and work, the price for an average home approaches half a million dollars. With the average rent charged being around $4,000, the investment pays for itself rather fast. It’s one of the most profitable towns that scores 9% in cash on cash returns.
Giving Rental Tech a Try
Mashvisor can become the instrument that you need for a breakthrough, whether you’re an investor or a real estate agent. If you want to make your life easier and find better real estate deals, give this platform a try. You can search for properties that fit your budget and needs for free before accessing premium features. Request a free demo or sign up for a free trial to see what the premium features in one of the best apartment rental apps can mean for your real estate career and see that getting real estate comps is easier than ever with Mashvisor.