New Technology Input

[Brad B.]

Hello all;

I'm in an fun situation at the moment and wanted to solicit some input from the collective experience and input of the BP community.

I'm coming to the end of a venture I've been a part of for several years now as my part winds down. I'm looking for a new project to build up and see where it goes.

My professional experience is in software development and I've decided to stay with what I know. As I've been lurking around this industry and seeing what's offered and what's available, I see some opportunities for adding value to this whole real estate investment business through new or improved technology. I've got some ideas and thoughts on what I want to do, but as I've learned so often in the past, it's not good to do things in a vacuum. So, I'm posting here.

I'd like your thoughts.

As a real estate investor, you know what it is that you do and how you do it. You may manage your operations using sticky-notes, you may use a collection of spreadsheets, you may have a custom database in Access or the like, or you may subscribe to a full blown SaaS solution. Whatever you use, you know there are things you like and things you don't. You know there are times when you say to yourself or others, "I wish I had..." or, "You know what would be great...".

That's what I'm interested in. Hearing your thoughts on what you want, need, or just would like to see improved. This is, for lack of a better term, "big-picture" stuff. I'm not too concerned at this point with things like, "In salesforce.com I wish I could drag this widget to this box and have it do whatever". Instead, I'd like to hear your big wish list like, "I wish I could have a portal that would list all pre-foreclosed properties in my target areas and do a lookup to identify the current names and addresses of the owner."

For me, this is a feasibility study of sorts. My observations say that there is a lack of GOOD tools available today and that people are continually having to solve the same problems over and over again. But, my observations could be way off base. I also think there are a lot of ways to leverage data to make the investor's life easier and streamline this process.

So, if you could have a system that could do anything you would want, what would it do for you?

Thanks

Brad