Where to Find Property Data Online

 

While there are many ways to find property data online, not all of them are equally time- and cost-efficient. If you’d like to optimize your investment property search and enhance it with accurate, reliable, and comprehensive, sign up for Mashvisor.

Let’s have a look at all the types of real estate property data which our platform provides for real estate investors, agents, and property managers:

Property Listing Price

When buying an investment property, the first piece of information that you need to consider is the property price or property value. After all, you have to make sure that the rental property fits within your budget as that’s one of the prerequisites for a successful real estate investment and a must for avoiding foreclosure. Moreover, it factors in all of the calculations of return on investment including cap rate and cash on cash return.

As soon as you enter a city, a neighborhood, or a Zip code on our search page, you will get a list of MLS listings as well as foreclosures in this location with the listing price for each one of them in addition to the price per square foot. Furthermore, the neighborhood analysis pages allow you to see the median property price in any neighborhood in any US real estate market. In that way you don’t have to conduct neighborhood analysis to figure out which areas are within your budget as a first-time real estate investor.

Another way to access the average prices of homes for sale in a neighborhood is through Mashvisor’s heatmap. This real estate investing tool provides investors and agents with a property values map in any US city or town, where neighborhoods with low listing prices are colored in red, while those with high values are marked in green.

Below you can have a look at the cheapest and most expensive neighborhoods for buying an investment property in the Chicago real estate market.

Property Description and Property Characteristics Data

Another type of property data that you can find online is general information about the house including:

• Property address
• Property type (single family home, multi family home, townhouse, condo, apartment, or other)
• Property size in square feet
• Property age
• Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
• Type of heating and cooling
• Availability and number of parking spaces
• Days on market

All these property details are particularly important when you are buying a home, but they are also significant for investing in rental properties. Having this property data online helps you choose an income property which fits the profile of the most profitable investment properties in the location. Mashvisor’s investment property search tools help investors narrow down their search by property type and number of bedrooms and bathrooms to filter out any properties which don’t respond to their expectations.

Comparable Rental Income: Traditional and Airbnb

Finding general property data online is not easy, but finding reliable data specific to the profit that your rental property will be able to generate is even harder. That is, unless you use Mashvisor. Our investment property calculator shows the traditional rental income as well as the Airbnb rental income to be expected from any property in the US housing market. The estimates are based on actual rental comps from the area calculated by property type and by number of bedrooms.

Furthermore, the neighborhood analysis pages reveal the average rental income in the area for either rental strategy: long term rental properties or short term rentals. Once again, you can get a visual representation of the neighborhoods with lowest to highest traditional and Airbnb rental income with the help of the heatmap.

Traditional and Airbnb Cash Flow

Investing in real estate is all about making money, and this is achieved through positive cash flow. Can you imagine how much time and effort it will take you to gather data on all expenses associated with owning a rental property in addition to an estimate of the monthly rental income to calculate cash flow on an income property? More experienced real estate investors are well aware of this process. Now, however, you can access cash flow property data online, with the click of a few buttons. The investment property analysis comprises estimates of the cash flow when a property is rented out traditionally or on Airbnb.

Traditional Cash on Cash Return and Airbnb Cash on Cash Return

Cash on cash return is one of the two most popular metrics of rate of return which real estate investors use. A few years ago data on cash on cash return was not readily available, so investors had to calculate it on their own. Knowing what return on investment to expect is a crucial factor in a real estate investment decision. On Mashvisor’s platform investors have access to property data online for the cash on cash return which rental properties are expected to generate based on the rental income and the costs. Moreover, with the investment property calculator, you can narrow down your property search to rentals within your required cash on cash return. In addition, you can find out what traditional and Airbnb cash on cash return the different neighborhoods in a real estate market offer with the heatmap tool.

Cap Rate: Traditional and Airbnb

The second most significant rate of return measure in real estate investing is the capitalization rate, or cap rate for short. It is similar to the cash on cash return but does not take the method of financing into consideration. Nevertheless, it is important to have both these metrics at your disposal when buying rental property. The rental property analysis tool on our platform shows real estate investors what cap rate to expect for any property. The calculations are provided for both long term and short term rental properties.

Traditional and Airbnb Occupancy Rate

The occupancy rate is one of the two factors which affect how much money you will make in real estate on monthly basis, besides the rental rate. The best places to invest in real estate are those which have high occupancy rates and low vacancy rates as vacancy is a cost in the eyes of investors. Finding property data online for this metric is also possible with Mashvisor.

If you are interested in buying an Airbnb investment property, you can start your property search by identifying the neighborhoods with the highest average Airbnb occupancy rate. Then you can check out the occupancy rate of specific properties in the best neighborhoods. The values are calculated by Mashvisor’s machine-learning algorithms which use actual data from Airbnb.com for the past 12 months as well as predictive analytics.

To see some of the power of Mashvisor’s rental property calculator, have a look at the screenshot below. Here you can see part of the investment property analysis of a rental property in the Dallas real estate market including rental income, occupancy rate, cash on cash return, and cap rate for renting out traditionally and on Airbnb.

Startup Costs

It is also possible to find real estate assessment data related to the cost of buying investment properties online. You don’t have to talk to agents or other real estate professionals to obtain this type of property data online. This comprehensive data includes:

• Home inspection
• Closing costs
• Repair costs
• Furniture

Knowing how much you will spend on your income property – in addition to the actual purchase price – is needed for calculating the return on investment.

Monthly Expenses

The startup costs are not the only expenses associated with real estate investments. Owning a rental property entails recurring monthly expenses including:

• Property tax
• Property insurance
• HOA fees if you invest in a condo
• Cleaning fees if you invest in an Airbnb rental
• Utilities if you buy an Airbnb investment property
• Rental income tax
• Property management if you want to enjoy passive income from real estate
• Property maintenance

While all these costs are pre-calculated on Mashvisor’s online directory for each and every available property, you can also add custom expenses which might apply to your particular case as a real estate investor.

Real Estate Comps Data

Investors and agents used to spend weeks conducting comparative market analysis to get real estate comps. This will not be necessary when they can find real estate comps property data online. As part of the investment property search, Mashvisor’s real estate investment tools offer recent sales of similar properties. This property information allows investors to estimate the current market value of the rental they want to buy and evaluate how close it is to the listing price.

Rental Comps Data

Rental comps are another type of real estate comparables which help investors decide how much to charge for rent. They show what monthly rental income other similar properties generate in the surrounding area. Similar to real estate comps, rental comps are traditionally obtained through rental market analysis. However, property investors can find them readily available online. These include both traditional listings and Airbnb listings in the neighborhood.

Have a look at the traditional and Airbnb rental comps for this investment property in the Phoenix real estate market.

MLS Listings Data

If you are a part of the real estate industry, you must know that only agents and brokers have access to the MLS. Well, real estate investors and others will also be able to view MLS listings property data online. The vast majority of investment properties for sale listed on Mashvisor come from the MLS. They are all equipped with investment property analysis to locate the most profitable real estate investments quickly and efficiently.

Foreclosed Homes Data

Investing in a foreclosure is an excellent way to increase your rate of return in terms of both cap rate and cash on cash return. Foreclosed homes, bank owned homes, and short sales usually sell for a portion of their fair market value as the lending institutions are in a hurry to sell them and recover the remaining part of the mortgage loan.

Finding foreclosures for sale in the traditional way requires visiting various real estate websites, reading local newspapers, stopping by county offices, going to live auctions, and attending online auctions. Still, even after having done all this, you would have no idea what return on investment to expect from an REO property.

Well, now all the property data and information that you need to make an informed real estate investment decision is available online, on Mashvisor’s platform. In addition to MLS listings, Mashvisor has a record online of foreclosed properties, bank owned homes, and short sales.

Off Market Properties Data

Off market properties are another great way to invest in real estate. As they are not publicly listed, fewer property buyers have access to them, which means that frequently you can score a good deal with an off market property for sale. However, since they are off market, finding property data on such investments is even harder than finding data on MLS listings.

Don’t despair. Our investment property calculator and Property Finder include property data online on off market properties listed by other users.

Property Owner Data

Having access to property ownership records is important for agents as it can help them generate real estate leads of potential property sellers. For investors it’s also beneficial to know who owns this property they’ve seen down the street if it fits with all their requirements for an investment property.

So, how to find who owns a house? With our Mashboard. Signing up for Mashvisor now gives you the opportunity to do property owner lookup.

Conducting real estate market analysis and performing public records search is not the way to do real estate business. The way forward in real estate investing is finding property data online – within a matter of minutes instead of months. If you plan to buy an investment property or you want to give your real estate career a boost, sign up for Mashvisor now. Here you will find all the data and information you need to make informed and smart real estate investment decisions.