If you are aspiring to become a rental property investor in 2021, you must be looking for the best real estate software that will meet all your needs.
Well, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article we are going to take a look at why Mashvisor is the only real estate investment software that you need and how it helps you make profitable real estate investing decisions, quickly and confidently.
Real Estate Market Analysis Software
The first tool that both beginner and experienced real estate investors need is an online platform that helps them identify the best places to buy rental property. Generally speaking, the real estate market is very dynamic, being affected by various economic, financial, political, ecological, and other factors. This is even more so at the time of a global pandemic like the Coronavirus.
What this means is that investors have to be constantly on the lookout for the best places to invest in real estate, whether considering a traditional or an Airbnb rental property. After all, what was a top market 5 years ago might no longer be your best bet.
Thus, the best real estate software needs to feature a tool which helps property buyers discover the most profitable locations for buying rental property in 2021.
Best Markets for Real Estate Investing
There are a number of different ways in which Mashvisor highlights not only the top markets for investing in short-term and long-term rental properties but also the best cities for house hacking, the best cities to flip houses, and for other real estate investment strategies.
Real Estate Blog
First and foremost, you can read the Markets section on the Mashvisor real estate blog in order to get access to regular updates on the states, cities, and neighborhoods within the US housing market which will bring you the highest rate of return.
These rankings are based on Mashvisor’s own real estate market analysis. To do that, our platform collects real estate data from dozens of reliable publicly available sources such as the MLS, Zillow, and Airbnb.com, to name a few. After that, we apply our machine-learning algorithms to this big data in order to calculate the median property price, the average price per square foot, traditional and Airbnb rental income, Airbnb daily rate, Airbnb occupancy rate, price to rent ratio, traditional and Airbnb cash on cash return, and traditional and Airbnb cap rate.
In this way, you can always identify the best locations for investing in rental properties, whether you are looking at expensive places such as the California real estate market or more affordable states to buy a house such as the Iowa real estate market or the North Dakota housing market.
Top Housing Markets
Another place where you can find some of the most profitable locations for rental properties in the US market is the Top Housing Markets link in the footer of our real estate software website. Clicking on it will take you to the Best Places to Invest in Real Estate section of our platform.
In this section, you will find detailed analysis of the overall condition, the current trends, and the best investment opportunities in the ever-green markets in residential real estate investing. These include locations like the Dallas housing market, the New York real estate market, and the Charlotte housing market.
In spite of various changes, shifts, and turmoils within the US housing market in recent decades, these markets have always been top-performing places for investing in real estate. And they promise to retain this status in the coming years as well.
Best Neighborhoods for Investing in Rental Properties
One of the first things to learn in real estate investing for beginners is that not all areas within the same city are created equal when it comes to buying rental properties. In the same city you can find a neighborhood which is guaranteed to bring you positive cash flow and good cash on cash return, right next to a neighborhood where you will be struggling to barely break even with your income property.
That’s why the best real estate software in 2021 should help you identify the top areas for buying an investment property for sale, to rent out traditionally or on Airbnb.
There are two distinct real estate investment tools which cover neighborhood analysis on the Mashvisor platform:
Real Estate Heatmap
The first tool which helps investors quickly and easily identify the top areas for buying an income property in any US city is the so-called real estate heatmap. Like any other heatmap, this tool constitutes a color-coded, visual representation of the neighborhoods in a city based on a number of different real estate metrics. These include:
- Average listing price
- Traditional rental income
- Traditional cash on cash return
- Airbnb rental income
- Airbnb cash on cash return
- Airbnb occupancy rate
Mashvisor’s Real Estate Heatmap: Analysis of Neighborhoods in Charlotte by Listing Price
The areas marked in red signify low values, while the areas colored in green signify high values. So, for example, savvy investors are attracted to red areas for home values (looking for affordable real estate listings) and green areas for rental income and return on investment (looking for profitable investment opportunities).
While the heatmap available on the Mashvisor real estate investment software does not necessarily give you all the information and numbers that you need to make the best real estate investments, it is a great start.
From there, you can shortlist a few neighborhoods which match your expectations in terms of property price and rate of return so that you deepen your real estate analysis of them.
Neighborhood Analysis Pages
The second tool which turns neighborhood analysis in real estate into a piece of cake is the Neighborhood Analysis Pages. Once you’ve chosen a few areas which match your investment requirements through the heatmap analysis, you can expend your research on them.
The Mashvisor software platform hosts a page for every neighborhood in the US real estate market. There you can find all the data and numbers that you need in order to decide if this is a good location for investing in a rental property or not. The available real estate and rental data includes:
- Mashmeter score: Mashvisor’s unique valuation of the investment potential of this neighborhood based on the average performance of traditional and Airbnb rentals. If you’d base your investment decision for a neighborhood on just one number, that’s the number to look at.
- Median price
- Average price per square foot
- Traditional cash on cash return
- Airbnb cash on cash return
- Traditional rental income
- Airbnb rental income
- Number of available real estate listings for sale
- Number of traditional rental listings
- Number of Airbnb rental listings
- Airbnb occupancy rate
- Optimal rental strategy: traditional vs. Airbnb
- Walk Score
- Historical traditional and Airbnb rental income analysis (past 12 months) by property type and number of bedrooms
- Historical Airbnb occupancy rate analysis (past 12 months) by property type and number of bedrooms
- Real estate comps
- Optimal property type
- Optimal number of bedrooms
All this neighborhood-level data is calculated based on actual recent property sales (real estate comps) and comparable traditional and Airbnb listings (rental comps).
That’s what makes it highly accurate and reliable.
Real Estate Database Software
Once you’ve identified the ideal city and neighborhood for buying a rental property, it’s time to get to the next step of the rental property investing process: the investment property search.
Once again, the top real estate software has the right tools to let you search for different types of rental properties for sale, based on your individual requirements and expectations.
Property Search Engine
As soon as you open the Mashvisor platform, you can start looking for various real estate listings by the following:
- City
- Neighborhood
- Zip code
- Address
Within Mashvisor’s investment property search engine, you can narrow down your search to match your exact needs as a real estate investor. You can use over a dozen filters including:
- Location: city, neighborhood, zip code, or street address
- Financing method: cash vs. mortgage
- Expected cash on cash return
- Expected cap rate
- Budget
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
- Year built
- Square footage
- Expected traditional rental income
- Expected Airbnb rental income
- Property type: single-family home, townhouse, condo, multi-family home, or other residential real estate property type
- Property status: for sale, pending, foreclosure, or sold
As soon as you enter your specific requirements and hit Search, the Mashvisor search engine will provide you with a list of all available properties for sale available on our online marketplace that match your expectations.
That’s not all. You can organize these properties by:
- Mashvisor Score
- Increasing or decreasing price
- Increasing or decreasing square footage
- Increasing or decreasing number of bedrooms
- Increasing or decreasing number of bathrooms
- Increasing or decreasing Airbnb CoC return
- Increasing or decreasing Airbnb rental income
- Increasing or decreasing Airbnb cap rate
- Increasing or decreasing traditional CoC return
- Increasing or decreasing traditional rental income
- Increasing or decreasing traditional cap rate
In this way, our real estate investment software helps you get quick access to the best investment properties for sale based on your own criteria.
Mashvisor is not only one of the best house hunting apps, it is the top online property marketplace. Unlike other online marketplaces that show you available real estate listings and leave you at that, our platform goes a step further. We provide detailed, reliable investment property analysis for every single property available on our real estate website as well as for any residential property whose address you enter. So, you are not limited to analyzing the investment potential only of listings available on our platform. You can analyze any house or apartment in the US residential real estate market.
Speaking of rental properties for sale on our platform, savvy investors are probably wondering where we get the listings posted on our website.
The vast majority of them comprise of MLS listings, so this means that with Mashvisor you can get access to the MLS database without a real estate license. MLS listings are something that is usually reserved for real estate agents, but with our software you can search through these for sale properties without being an agent or a realtor.
Furthermore, we have some foreclosures, bank owned homes, short sales, and REOs. While some investors stay away from buying foreclosed properties, sometimes they make for the best real estate investments. Usually such houses are sold at a discounted price as the lender is in a hurry to recover its cost by selling the property. Buying cheap real estate is a proven technique to push up your return on investment, as long as the property is not in a poor state requiring excessive fixes and repairs. But if done smartly and carefully, investing in a foreclosed home can be a very profitable real estate investing strategy.
Property Finder
The second real estate investment tool available on the Mashvisor platform which enables you to search for top-performing income properties for sale is the Property Finder.
This is an AI-driven real estate database software search tool with which you can look for available properties in up to 5 markets of your choice. Once again, you can set up a few different filters to ensure that the properties which get shortlisted for you meet your exact criteria. These filters include:
- City or cities
- Distance from the city
- Budget
- Rental strategy: Airbnb vs. renting
- Type of property: single-family home, multi-family home, condo, or other
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
Mashvisor’s Property Finder: Searching for Lucrative Rental Properties in Charlotte
As soon as you’ve selected your search criteria, our machine-learning algorithms will provide you with a list of all available properties for sale which match your expectations.
So, the rental property finder is another way to search through our property database, in a more visual manner.
Property Marketplace
Last but not least, we offer you one more way to search for investment properties for sale on our platform. The Mashvisor Property Marketplace is where you can find various off market properties.
Many real estate investors are interested in buying an off market property because of the major advantages which it offers. For example, properties that are not officially listed for sale usually sell below market value, face less competition from other property buyers, and come with favorable terms. However, investors usually struggle to find such properties, exactly because they are off the market.
Our real estate software gives you quick and easy access to off market properties through the dedicated marketplace.
Similar to the other search engines available on our website, you can set up your own criteria to look for top-performing income properties in any US market. These include:
- City
- Miles from the city
- Budget
- Rental strategy: traditional or Airbnb
- Type of property: single-family home, multi-family home, condo, or other
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
- Minimum cash on cash return
- Minimum cap rate
- Type of listing: non-MLS, foreclosure, needs repairs, or tenant-occupied
Once you get a list of properties that match your criteria, you can start conducting rental property analysis on them.
Investment Property Calculator
The best real estate software should definitely help investors search for available properties for sale. But that’s not enough to be called the best. What savvy investors expect from a top real estate investing tool is to also help them evaluate whether a specific income property for sale will be profitable or not.
That’s where Mashvisor does not fail to satisfy your expectations.
The next tool which makes our real estate investment software the absolute best on the market is the investment property calculator, also known as the rental property calculator.
This is a tool which relies on big real estate data, predictive analytics, and machine-learning methods to evaluate the investment potential of rental properties based on the performance of traditional and Airbnb rental comps in the area.
No matter how you’ve found your list of investment properties for sale that you want to analyze – whether with the search engine, the property finder, or the property marketplace – you can conduct rental property analysis with our real estate calculator. Moreover, you can enter the address of any residential property in the US market, and we will provide you with the same level of analysis.
Basic Property Information
First of all, you will get all the basic property information that you expect to find on any of the top 10 real estate websites for property listings. This includes:
- Property address
- Property type
- Listing price
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
- Square footage
- Property description
- Days on market
- Year built
- Lot size
- Price per square foot
- Owner-occupied status
- MLS ID (if an MLS listing)
- Heating system
- Cooling system
- Tax history
Mashvisor’s Online Marketplace: Property Description and Information
Moreover, you will be able to view numerous photos of the listing, as provided on the original MLS website or foreclosure website.
If you’re buying a home, this information might be just about enough to decide if this property fits your expectations or not. However, this information does not suffice to make an informed, profitable real estate investment decision.
That’s why Mashvisor is not just one of the many house hunting apps available on the market – we are the only real estate investment software that you need to cover all your investor needs and requirements.
Detailed Rental Property Analysis
For each property, we provide you with a very comprehensive investment property analysis. This includes:
- Traditional and Airbnb comparable rental income
- Traditional and Airbnb cash flow
- Traditional and Airbnb cash on cash return
- Traditional and Airbnb cap rate
- Traditional and Airbnb occupancy rate: as number of days or a percentage
- One-time startup expenses:
- Home inspection
- Repair costs
- Furniture and appliances
- Closing costs
- Recurring monthly expenses:
- Home insurance
- Utilities
- Property management
- Property maintenance
- HOA dues
- Rental income tax
- Cleaning fees
Mashvisor’s Investment Property Calculator: Analysis of a Rental Property in Charlotte
It’s important to note that all numbers available on our investment property calculator are customizable and editable. Although they are based on the performance of rental comps in the neighborhood, you still have the ability to change them based on your own experience and needs.
For example, if you have excellent real estate marketing skills, you can expect to be able to push up the occupancy rate of your rental property. So you can adjust the number on our calculator.
Alternatively, you might be busy at your 9-to-5 job, so you may decide to opt for a professional property management company, and you would need to add this cost.
As soon as you’ve made any adjustments to the pre-set numbers, our rental property calculator will recalculate all the figures and provide you with the new estimates of your expected return on investment.
Moreover, we provide you with a list of recent comparable sales as well as active comparable traditional and Airbnb rental properties in the area.
For real estate comps, you can view:
- Property address
- Sale price
- Sale date
- Days on market
- Square footage
- Price per square foot
For the traditional comps, you can see:
- Similarity to the investment property for sale you are investigating
- Distance from the property
- Address
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
- Monthly rental rate
For the Airbnb comps, you can access:
- Similarity
- Distance
- Address
- Airbnb occupancy rate
- Nightly rate
- Monthly rental income
- Airbnb ratings and reviews
Mashvisor’s Rental Comps Software: Comparable Airbnb Listings in Charlotte
You can export the comps data to further your investment property analysis away from our online real estate software platform.
Mortgage Calculator
Our investment property calculator has an in-built mortgage calculator. The method of financing has a major impact on the rate of return on a rental property, as reflected in the cash on cash return metric. Thus, real estate investors should be able to see how paying in cash vs. taking a mortgage loan will affect the profitability of their rental property.
Mashvisor’s mortgage calculator allows you to set up:
- Down payment: as a sum or a percentage of the property price
- Mortgage type: fixed rate mortgage, interest only mortgage, or adjustable mortgage
- Loan term: 15 years fixed or 30 years fixed
- Interest rate
When you have your investment property loans terms set, our calculator will show you how this impacts your cash on cash return.
Investment Payback Balance Table
Moreover, our investment property analysis software shows you how long it will take to recover the cost of your investment and start gaining profit.
The available Investment Payback Balance Table displays:
- Adjusted gross revenue: gross rental revenue and vacancy
- Total expenses: recurring costs and mortgage
- Cash flow
- Startup cost
- Investment payback balance
You can view these numbers for both rental strategies: traditional and Airbnb rental property.
All in all, our real estate investment software gives you all the data and information that you need to make a profitable investment decision, within a few short minutes.
Real Estate Agent Directories
Once you’ve decided on a rental property to invest in, you will need a real estate agent, especially if you are a first-time investor or an out-of-state investor. The Mashvisor real estate software has you covered once again.
We have Real Estate Agent Directories which list all licensed agents across the country. You can search for a top-performing real estate agent in any state and city to help you make an offer, negotiate a price, and close the deal.
While buying an investment property without a realtor is doable, generally speaking, it is really hard – and suboptimal – in 2021. The current residential real estate market is a hot, seller’s market, where property sellers – whether homeowners or investors – have the upper hand. There is an inventory shortage, listings get gone within days, and houses sell above listing prices. You don’t have a chance of scoring a good deal unless you have significant experience in the housing market. That’s why you are better off hiring a buyer’s agent.
Real Estate Data
Any expert will tell you that a real estate software platform is only as good as its data. And the quality of our real estate data is exactly one of the main reasons why Mashvisor is the best real estate app for savvy investors looking for lucrative deals.
As briefly mentioned above, we get our data from numerous reliable sources which are publicly available. These include but are not limited to the MLS, Zillow, and Redfin.
Meanwhile, the Airbnb data comes directly from Airbnb.com. Our Data Team compares our estimates and forecasts with actual Airbnb hosts on a regular basis to confirm the accuracy of our data and algorithms.
Is Mashvisor’s Real Estate Software Good Only for Investors?
If you work within the real estate industry but are not an investor, you are probably wondering if the Mashvisor software platform helps only investors or other real estate professionals as well.
Indeed, our tools help both real estate agents and property managers grow their business at an unprecedented pace.
Best CRM for Real Estate Agents
There are a number of different ways in which real estate agents and brokers can use the Mashvisor platform:
Rental Property Search and Analysis
Smart real estate agents know that working with investors – rather than homeowners – means repeat business. While an average homeowner lives in his/her home for a few decades, an investor might be able to buy multiple rental properties in a single year while building his/her investment portfolio.
If you want to be able to attract investors as real estate clients, you need to have the best investment property analysis tools on the market to help your clients find lucrative deals. So, searching for and analyzing rental properties is one way that you can add Mashvisor to your arsenal of realtor tools.
Lead Generation
With Professional subscription to Mashvisor, you get access to the Mashboard. This is a realtor dashboard that helps you look for property owners. You can use your real estate experience and knowledge to shortlist the owners who are most likely to want to buy their home and buy a new one as well as those who are most likely to be interested in investing in real estate.
In this way you can easily leverage the power of our software to turn your Mashboard into one of the best real estate websites for lead generation.
Real Estate CRM Software
Last but not least, the Mashboard functions as a real estate CRM platform for agents. You can not only search for properties and clients, but you can also send emails to your leads straight from the platform.
Top Solution for Real Estate Rental Property Managers
Experienced property managers know that real estate investing is a serial business. Once you own a rental property, you look for the next opportunity to buy another one, and then another one, and so on.
As a property manager, you should aim to help your investor clients buy more properties so that you can manage the new rentals for them. This is an easy way to grow your rental property management business.
You can use the Mashvisor real estate software platform to search for investment properties for sale for your existing clients. They will appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into helping them grow their property portfolio and will keep their business with you.
These are all the reasons why Mashvisor is the only real estate software that you’ll need as an investor to make profitable and confident investment decisions. Moreover, the platform can be used by real estate agents and property managers as well to grow their business in a sustainable manner. All that’s left to do now is to sign up for a 7-day free trial of Mashvisor.