What is a Property Finder tool, and how can I use it for finding investment properties for sale in real estate? A Property Finder tool, as the name suggests, is a tool that allows you to find properties. However, what kind of properties does a Property Finder help you find?
Naturally, and in order for the Property Finder to be a useful tool, it has to find you properties that you’re interested in finding. In real estate investing, these would be investment properties that are up for sale.
But depending on the Property Finder that you use, and in order for the tool to provide the best value, it must have a certain criteria when selecting the properties that it wants you to find, otherwise you’d end up with random lists of tens of thousands of properties that you would need to evaluate and analyze, which would eliminate the whole purpose of the tool.
So, what is the purpose of a Property Finder tool? The purpose of it is to provide you with a list of properties that match your search criteria and that can help you achieve your investment goals.
You might ask, however: why would I use a Property Finder if I can find these properties on my own by conducting an online property search?
Basically, you could say that a Property Finder is a tool that conducts the property search process on your behalf, saving you numerous valuable hours which you would otherwise spend on analyzing and comparing properties that are not even worth your investment.
Now, let’s have a quick look at the stages that you need to conduct when searching for a property traditionally vs using the Property Finder tool.
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Traditional Property Search
The traditional method for searching for an investment property online is to use any of the standard property search tools that are available.
For this, let’s use Mashvisor’s property search page as an example. Although this page is a very efficient and comprehensive tool that allows you to find investment properties drastically faster than several other real estate investment tools, and certainly faster than driving around and scouting for properties, you would still have to conduct the different stages of a traditional property search such as finding properties, analyzing them individually, then comparing them to determine the ones with the most promising performance.
When using the traditional property search tools, there are certain types of info that you will need to gather about each property and about each neighborhood that you’re searching in. These include:
- The property’s price
- The neighborhood’s median price
- The property’s rental income
- The neighborhood’s median rental income
- The property’s occupancy rate
- The neighborhood’s average occupancy rate
This is just a small sample of the kind of data that you will need to gather, or that you will at least need to consider, calculate, and compare when searching for an investment property online.
After gathering this data, you will have to calculate all the data, including the expenses and the method of financing that you intend on using, in order to come up with accurate projections for the return on investment that you can generate from investing in each of these properties.
Of course, any smart real estate investor will also have to consider other aspects of each property such as its size, age, number of rooms…etc.
Also Read: Finding Income Properties Using a Heatmap
Although some property search tools, such as Mashvisor’s, can provide you with all of this data and calculations for every investment property for sale that you see on the map while using the tool, you will still have to search through all of the markets that you have an interest in to find the best neighborhood within each market, as well as to compare all of your results in order to find the few properties that perfectly match your criteria and that can help you achieve your investment goals.
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Using a Property Finder Tool
Alternatively, a new type of technology has emerged that can drastically cut down on the time needed to conduct all of these steps, and that will provide you with a list of the top performing properties within your markets of interest and based on your own search criteria and investment goals.
The Property Finder utilizes the latest machine-learning algorithms and AI technologies to provide you with a list of properties that are guaranteed to generate profits when invested in, and they will be sorted out for you from best to worst to save you the trouble of having to compare all of the properties on a spreadsheet in order to identify the best ones.
Mashvisor’s Property Finder tool even takes it to a whole new level by taking into consideration your historical use of the platform as well as the history of other users, or real estate investors, who shared similar interests and criteria when searching for investment properties. The AI will then take all of this info into account when suggesting the properties, which significantly improves its success rate and accuracy.
This also allows Mashvisor’s Property Finder to work perfectly well without having to rely on a large number of filters. By using a minimal number of filters, mostly related to your available budget and the rental strategy that you intend to use, using the tool can be seamless, efficient, and extremely fast.
Finally, one of the best aspects of Mashvisor’s Property Finder tool is your ability to search for properties in multiple cities or markets at once. By typing the names of up to 5 cities, the tool will scan all of the neighborhoods in all of these cities to provide you with property suggestions that are considered to be the best performers in these markets, and it can help you learn about your markets of choice and which of them have the best potential for investing in real estate.
Are you ready to give the Property Finder a try for free? Click here to access Mashvisor!
Bottom Line
If you haven’t used a Property Finder tool before, then you might not be aware of how fast and easy it is to actually find investment properties that will certainly be profitable investments in real estate.
Of course, this tool goes exceptionally well with Mashvisor’s other features, such as the search page, the property analytics page, or the neighborhood analytics page. When combined, all of these features can be used to help you make the best investment decisions based on professional-grade real estate analytics and accurate data.
Make sure to visit our Help Center to read more about these features and how to use them in order to become a successful real estate investor in no time!
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