There’s no doubt that investing in residential real estate properties is one of the best ways to make money. However, in order to succeed in the investing business, you must always make sure to find investment properties that yield high returns on investment. And this depends on how well you carry out your real estate investing property search.
Starting a property search can be overwhelming, especially for a beginner investor. There are millions of rental properties for sale on the market to choose from. Additionally, more and more people are joining the real estate investing industry, and as a result, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to find a profitable real estate deal before the next investor snatches it first.
Thanks to the ever-developing technologies, real estate investors now have access to a number of investment property search tools that can help them find what they’re looking for and make smart investment decisions. While it is still possible to invest without these real estate search tools, it can’t guarantee that you’ll find profitable investment properties. In this article, we discuss the 4 best property search tools for investors so you can learn how to search for real estate efficiently.
Top Property Search Tools for Investors Today
1) Real Estate Heatmap
The first and most important step in the process of how to find investment property for sale is finding a profitable location. This requires you to run a real estate market analysis to find a city that has the best investment performance, and then move on to a neighborhood analysis which will help you to find a neighborhood within that city that has the best potential for returns. Normally, these analyses can take days and even weeks to perform as you need to collect data on the real estate market and investment properties, and then carry out all the necessary calculations using Excel spreadsheets. The good news is that you won’t have to do all that work anymore! A real estate heatmap will help you to run all the necessary analyses at the city and neighborhood levels in a quick and efficient way.
A real estate heatmap is a tool that displays real estate data in a visual form, rather than a numerical form. It uses a system of color-coding to represent different values, allowing investors to see which areas on the map have good performance according to specific real estate metrics. Areas that have the highest rates of the selected metric will typically appear in green, while the areas with the lower rates will appear in red. This simple color scheme helps investors greatly in their investment property search, as they’ll be able to easily identify the areas with good and bad stats for the different real estate metrics.
Using Mashvisor’s Heatmap, you can quickly figure out the best neighborhoods for real estate investing in any city across the US, for both traditional and Airbnb rental properties, based on the following real estate metrics:
- Property Listing Price
- Rental Income (Traditional and Airbnb)
- Cash on Cash Return (Traditional and Airbnb)
- Airbnb Occupancy Rate
In order to find the right neighborhood, you’ll have to target the red color for the property listing price and the green color for rental income, cash on cash return, and occupancy rate.
Related: Finding Income Properties in 2020 with a Heatmap
2) Property Finder
After finding the right neighborhood, your next job as a real estate investor is to find an investment property in that neighborhood that is suitable for you and that meets your investment goals. What type of investment property do you want to acquire? How much money are you willing to invest? How much cash flow are you aiming to generate? These are all questions you should be asking yourself when finding income properties. You can of course still do your real estate search the traditional way, by looking at newspapers, or by driving around the neighborhood and searching for “For Sale” signs. However, a rental property finder is one of the best property search tools for investors to use for that purpose.
A rental property finder, or investment property deal finder, is an online tool used to find investment properties based on the user’s preferences and search criteria. You can think of it as a customizable search engine for homes for sale. Using Mashvisor’s Property Finder, you can search for and find investment properties using various filters such as:
- Desired Location (you can choose up to 5 cities)
- Type of Investment Property (Condo, Single Family Home, Multi Family Home, etc.)
- Preferred Rental Strategy (Traditional or Airbnb)
- Number of Bedroom and Bathrooms
- Budget
The unique thing about Mashvisor’s Property Finder is that it uses machine-learning algorithms and predictive analytics to find properties with the highest potential for profits. So, after setting the filters, the Property Finder will display the listings of all the best performing income properties that match your search criteria in the location of your choice.
Related: How to Find Investment Properties Using a Property Finder Tool
3) Investment Property Calculator
Finding a bunch of income properties for sale that match your requirements does not mean you’re done with your real estate property search. Your final job is to evaluate the different properties so as to choose the most profitable property out of the ones listed. For this, you need another one of the best property search tools for investors to help you estimate how much your return on investment will be for each of the listed properties. This tool is the investment property calculator.
An investment property calculator is an online tool that is used to calculate all the important real estate metrics needed to assess the profitability of an investment property. You can use Mashvisor’s Investment Property Calculator to get these metrics for each of the listed properties. It’s actually very simple to use. All you need to do is input some basic data such as your financing method and your cash down payment. Using real estate comps data and predictive analytics, Mashvisor’s calculator will then provide you with the following numbers:
- Projected Rental Income
- Projected Rental Expenses
- Projected Return on Investment (Cash on Cash Return and Cap Rate)
- Projected Occupancy Rate
This analysis is done for each listed property. This allows you to make quick comparisons between the different properties based on these metrics, and choose the one that has the best potential for returns.
Another interesting thing about Mashvisor’s calculator is that the metrics mentioned above are provided for both the traditional and Airbnb rental strategies, which allows you to determine which rental strategy is optimal for your investment property.
Related: Mashvisor’s Investment Property Calculator: Real Estate Investing Made Easier
4) Property Marketplace
Now, we can’t ignore the fact that many of the best real estate deals take place off market. In fact, a lot of houses are sold every month without ever being listed on the MLS. These off market deals are a great source for savvy investors who are looking for the best investment opportunities. The only problem is that it’s not always easy to find data for off market properties online. Fortunately, Mashvisor’s Property Marketplace solves this problem. It is one of the best property search tools for investors to find off market properties today.
This tool provides a vast supply of off market listings in the US real estate market, including bank owned homes, foreclosures, short sales, and more. You can narrow down your search to match your investment criteria using filters such as:
- Location
- Miles (Search Radius)
- Type of Investment Property
- Preferred Rental Strategy
- And Your Budget
Here also, you can analyze the investment potential of the different properties based on the real estate metrics mentioned previously (rental income, rental expenses, cash on cash return, cap rate, and occupancy rate). Finally, you can directly connect with the property owners through the platform to quickly start negotiations and finalize deals.
Visit Mashvisor’s Property Marketplace to start searching for and analyzing the best off market properties in your city and neighborhood of choice.
As you can see, the best property search tools for investors are all about optimizing the property search process.
Conclusion
Whether you’re an experienced investor or someone who’s just getting started in real estate, you should always make sure to have the best real estate investment tools at your disposal. Using the 4 property search tools for investors mentioned above will help you find the most profitable income properties and make the best investing decisions right now.
To get access to our real estate investment tools, sign up for a 7-day free trial of Mashvisor today, followed by 15% off for life.