Hello... I NEED HELP!... but how much should it really cost?

[Bill D.]

Hello everyone!  My name is Bill and I am a real estate addict ;)  I found BP about 2 years ago but just started logging in regularly this month.  I NEED HELP!

Timing... I have always been interested in real estate since I was 14 years old and my parents moved across town in northern NJ; they kept the older home as a rental. Out of college I bought a REO condo in 1994. In 1995 I got my real estate license in NJ. In 1998 relocated to the Denver, CO area where I still live today. Saved Aggressively. Managed to do one flip in a ski resort town in 2004. In 2007 after reading the Millionaire Real Estate Investor and the deals started showing up, went all-in on the SFR market here. Buying in a down / scared market allowed me to make money without being exceptionally detailed in my property analysis. I did my best with Excel spreadsheets based on the book to cover all the bases.

Now it is 7 years later and I have a portfolio of 6 income producing (as best as I can tell ;) ) properties. Now I am on a mission to create systems that allow me to organize and optimize that portfolio (then I will think about acquiring more).  Quicken, Excel and a wall covered with white boards are my only tools today and I feel that I am not keeping up.

I am seriously considering making the move to Quickbooks, but in a prior career I was a software consultant and I can't help but be skeptical of how much value will Quickbooks bring to the table considering the purchase cost, education, set-up consultations, hardware upgrades, security, etc...

Currently reading "The Real Estate Investor's Pocket Calculator" and trying to decifer which calculations I should be using to evaluate my properties and make better decisions regarding improvements and rents.

I am VERY OPEN MINDED and WILLING to investigate any direction or leads you might suggest regarding software and/or services to help me get my business optimized (or at least running more efficiently with better data). Maybe I need to create it but... it seems to me that there are a lot of real estate investors who continue to re-invent the wheel.  Shouldn't there be a piece of software where you can just input some of the details of the property and it gives you all the analysis and metrics you need to decide if it will be profitable as well as how to keep it profitable (What-if scenarios)?

Thanks in advance fellow investors!

-Bill