The best real estate tools that investors use will always depend on the investor’s personal preferences, experiences, and needs. However, there are a number of real estate investing tools which are used more often than others due to the utility that they provide, their potential to save time and effort, their ability to improve your investment, or for simply providing services which no other tools can provide.
Below is a list of the best real estate tools organized by category and use, with examples of the top real estate investing tools to be used within each category.
Related: 7 Tools Modernizing Real Estate Investing
Learning Tools
The first and foremost tool that any real estate investor needs to have in order to make a profitable investment is knowledge. Before making any further steps towards your real estate investment venture, you will first need to learn about the basics of real estate investing, in addition to the more advanced mechanics, functions, and “complications” of the housing market.
Some of the best real estate tools from which you can learn about this business come in the form of websites. There are multiple useful websites which can help educate you and help you learn about the different aspects of property investment to get you started on your real estate business:
- BiggerPockets is a great example of such a learning tool as it provides you with blogs, guides, and podcasts related to all the different aspects of the real estate market. This involves podcasts with real estate experts where they give insights about the housing market, giving you the chance to learn from the experts in the field.
- Mashvisor is another great example for very similar reasons, as it provides you with blogs and guides about the ins and outs of the real estate investment business. This website is relatively new, and it is smaller than BiggerPockets, but it also provides other services and tools that can be used for more than just gaining knowledge and education about the real estate market, but to also help you in your process of investing, which will be further expanded upon in the following sections of this blog.
Financing Tools
Some of the best real estate tools come in the form of money lending organizations. Naturally, and in most cases, you cannot make a real estate investment without money. Usually, people who are looking to invest in real estate will not have enough cash to buy a property without acquiring external financing for their investment. Some of the best real estate tools that are used for financing your investment include:
- Portfolio lenders are among the best real estate tools for financing your investment due to their flexibility when it comes to loan terms and qualifying standards. This allows institutions and banks that are considered as portfolio lenders to offer funds with less restrictive qualifications than a traditional lender.
- 203K Loans is another example of the best real estate tools used for financing your investment. This is because 203K Loans offer loans for property purchase for a low down payment of 3.5%. This tool, however, has a restriction to it: you have to live in the property that you purchase. Nevertheless, you could get your finances from 203K Loans to invest in a duplex or a triplex for example, live in one apartment, and rent out the other ones. This allows you to still make a rental income from renting out your property while also residing in it to fulfill the condition of the loan.
Finding Properties
If you’re looking to invest in real estate, then you will also need to find the best property to invest in. Thus, some of the best real estate tools come in the form of search engines designed to help you find the perfect real estate property for your investment.
There are several great options for you to choose from when it comes to finding the perfect investment property, and below are some of the best examples:
- Zillow and Trulia are two of the best real estate tools that investors use when trying to find the perfect investment property. These websites offer millions of online listings of properties for purchase and for rent. They also offer apps such as Zillow app and Trulia Mobile, giving investors a powerful tool for finding the best investment properties that can fit in their pockets.
- Mashvisor is also one of the best real estate tools for finding the perfect property for your investment. In addition to showing you a large number of properties that are available across the US, Mashvisor also gives you invaluable comparative and predictive analytics. This makes it a great tool for finding the perfect property, in addition to doing the necessary calculations for the success of your investment, as will be further clarified below.
Calculating Tools
When it comes to real estate investing, you’re going to be dealing with A LOT of numbers. Although a normal calculator is still one of the best real estate tools to be used when it comes to calculations, there are other types of calculators that are more efficient and time-saving than any normal calculator could ever be.
The best real estate tools that are used for calculations include:
- The Goodmortgage Calculator is an excellent example of an investment property calculator as it is simple, fast, and easy to use. It can be combined with the traditional spreadsheet method of calculation in order to save time and mental effort, and to avoid any calculation mistakes which could lead your investment to total failure.
- As mentioned before, Mashvisor could be used for finding the perfect property to invest in. However, what makes Mashvisor one of the best real estate tools is that it not only gives you a list of properties depending on your area and type preferences, but it also includes a rental property calculator. This is integrated into the search function in order to provide data for all the properties that you need to base your investment decisions on, such as cap rate and cash on cash return, as well as other sets of data that you otherwise would have to calculate on your own. It will also analyze and compare the numbers with those for other similar properties in the same area to help you find the PERFECT property for your investment.
Related: Why Investment Property Calculator Is Better Than Spreadsheets
Marketing Tools
The World Wide Web offers you some of the best real estate tools when it comes to marketing your investment property. The number of tools which can be used for marketing by real estate investors are too many for a single investor to use. However, and like with all the other tools, if you choose the BEST real estate tools, then you won’t have to use ALL of them.
When it comes to marketing your investment property, consider the following tools:
- Airbnb is one of the best real estate tools in our time. It allows you to market your rental property on a global scale without having to leave the comfort of your house. It also offers advantages to successful hosts in order to help them build a large pool of potential tenants for their rental property, which effectively improves their cash flow and gives them a wider range of tenants to choose from with detailed applications. This means that you as a host can choose the right guest for your property in order to reduce certain expenses such as reparation costs which could arise from choosing the wrong tenants for your property.
- Social media in general is THE BEST real estate marketing tool. Websites such as Facebook and Craigslist offer you a medium through which you can reach millions (billions in the case of Facebook) to market your property.
Related: How to Deal with Bad Income Property Tenants
Management Tools
When it comes to managing your rental property, there is a very wide variety of tools that could be used by any real estate investor depending on the type of management that he/she is looking for. Some of the best real estate tools which could be used for property management come from advancements in technology.
Here we will not list management tools as there isn’t a single aspect that could be considered more important than the others when it comes to property management. But the importance of the function that you’re looking for as an investor is decided based on your own personal preferences and your property’s unique characteristics.
Bottom Line…
The best real estate tools without which no real estate investor could make it come in many forms and serve several different functions. A successful real estate investor will know which the best real estate tools to use are and will make the best use of them in order to optimize his/her investment.
Not all real estate investing tools have the same importance to all investors, as some are more relevant to certain investors than others. However, if you are to become a successful real estate investor, you will choose the best real estate tools for each aspect of your investment and make the most use out of ALL of them.
Nevertheless, there is one real estate investing tool which you could and should use for all aspects of your real estate investment business: give Mashvisor a look before any of the other tools as it will serve as a tool for knowledge and learning, finding the perfect property, and calculating and providing the numbers and data that you need for the success of your investment.