MS Access, LibreOffice Base, etc. -- Making my own databases for mah biz

[Max M.]

So I originally thought using these types of database programs would require weeks of my time to get working for taking care of my organizations requirements for tracking all the stuff I need to track for creative real estate stuff. I was originally going to use just spreadsheets.

However I played around a bit with LibreOffice Base today and it seems a lot easier than I thought, plus I found an excellent wikia site dedicated to both the abstract concept of databases and specific database implementations and definitions, so I'm gonna keep messing around with it, because it seems to me like maintaining and using a spreadsheet is a much more difficult and clunky affair than maintaining and using a database.

I plan on marketing super heavy in the next few months as well as possibly forming tons and tons of business relationships in real estate, and I cannot afford to be disorganized. I'm very finicky when it comes to systems that I use all the time.

I've investigated the various CRMs and all that and either they cost money or they're ugly monstrosities and web based. Plus there's no true customization except for Podio and Podio makes me want to remove my eyeballs out of their sockets with a fork. This database stuff seems awesome and I don't mind spending a few days creating a database system for myself. In fact, if it turns out to be a powerful enough tool I might not think anything of spending 2+ weeks.

What I'm wondering is if anyone around here has experience using these types of programs and what their experience has been? Because this stuff seems like it could be super powerful. Plus with these databases in the future there could always be ways to interface them to networks/web stuff since its all standard stuff