Use Apps to Drive Your Investment

While investing in remote real estate markets can present certain challenges, there's a range of technology out there to provide support. By leveraging a variety of apps you can simplify your workflow, from your search for the perfect property to paying contractors.

Finding properties

To successfully invest in up-and-coming 18-hour markets, you need the inside scoop on available properties. This often means doing a little digging to find a local hook-up, and it's one of the reasons a realtor is so valuable. But apps can be incredibly useful, as long as you understand their scope and limitations.

As one example, Realtor.com refreshes listings often, but in many markets, it's far from the first to get them. There's often a local or regional search option that's used more consistently than some of the bigs.

Look at Indianapolis. New listings will often hit local site MIBOR.com a day or two before they go live on Realtor.com. Indy realtors are also making use of Facebook to showcase listings in neighborhoods where they specialize. One good example of this is Deb Kent Realty, which focuses on Irvington: a rapidly-developing, strollable eastside neighborhood that's attracting investors in single-family real estate and multi-use development, as well. This agency regularly posts teaser photos of upcoming listings on their page. Word of mouth leads to multiple scheduled showings. Sometimes the house even sells before the listing goes live.

If you've used the popular Auction.com site, note that it's recently rebranded and broadened its scope. Its Ten-X app now offers both commercial and residential search platforms, while the company still maintains Auction.com as a bidding tool for investors.

Assessing properties

Homesnap might be the most interesting investment-shopping app out there. It uses GPS technology to identify any house you snap a photo of, then pulls tax and MLS data, including real estate listings and interior photos. There's a pro version for real estate agents, and it includes a messaging feature. So whether you're on a fact-finding trip, or you simply want to be able to bounce investment prospects back and forth with your realtor, it's a great option.

Don't overlook options like Google maps and Google street view. While these apps may not offer hard numbers, your instincts and the excellent view Google provides can help you spot potential blights in a neighborhood, as well as positives that might be selling points. Keep in mind that Street View will be more current in the most hopping areas. If a neighborhood is experiencing a Renaissance, fresh renos may look dilapidated on Street View, which is why a good realtor is also a must for remote investment.

A word of caution: Zillow is extremely popular with investors, but the data on which it bases its estimates is more difficult to capture in certain states. Zillow's margin of error in these areas is higher than its national average of 5.1%. Zillow lists county-by-county tables for each state, so you can see how accurate Zestimates are in an area where you invest. In the Cincinnati area, Zillow's median margin of error is 6.1%. In Indiana, Zillow's Zestimates are based solely on the tax assessor's value. And as savvy investors know, assessments don't always keep up with a neighborhood in transition. Redfin, which bases its estimates on 100% of current MLS listings, claims a much lower median margin of error-- 1.79%.

Property Evaluator is a popular app for mobile, tablet or desktop that can help you move from estimating current value to After Repair Value (ARV.) This tool can assess one property, or compare multiple properties simultaneously. Entering some basic data allows you to take a look at detailed financial projections from cap rate to NOI. The data shifts easily in response to a sliding holding period between 1 and 30 years. It also renders attractive reports that can be forwarded on to lenders or partners.

Sharing/Signing documents

If you're still emailing, faxing or even overnighting documents back and forth, you're overcomplicating things. Again, this may be a function of how your real estate professionals do business. Lean on them to move into the digital age. Dotloop and Docusign are probably the most popular apps out there for this purpose. Both allow you to put your virtual John Hancock on contracts and addendums, making the back and forth with realtors, brokers and banks much easier.

If you're looking to make documents editable and sharable by multiple parties, use Google docs or Dropbox, instead, but keep in mind that it may actually be easier to use several of the specialized platforms we describe than to shoehorn a more general application to serve multiple purposes.

Planning and implementing renovations

When it comes to planning and pricing out renovations, there are a variety of popular apps to streamline the process, such as HammerPoint. This app is focused on helping you do your own cost estimation. It allows you to browse through menus of materials, choose SKUs, and estimate labor. You may even find that the contractors you hire use an app of their own, like our Brizzo. Brizzo makes it easy for contractors to create and send estimates, with photos attached so you can see what they're talking about. Change orders are likewise simple to implement, and we're particularly proud of our regional pricing databases, which ensure that you're getting realistic estimates for the region in which you're investing.

Tracking and Showcasing your properties

Once you've renovated a property and are ready to turn it around, there are nifty little apps out there to help you showcase it properly. MagicPlan, for example, uses your smartphone's camera to generate accurate floor plans. Property Tracker is designed to help you maximize your profit on properties you already own, by generating the data that will help you make smart decisions about when to sell. It can help you save on taxes, as well!

If you prefer to keep and manage rental properties, Property Buddy allows you to track rent due/payments, photograph, and email rent receipts, send past due notices, track expenses, and generate reports.

Apps keep it simple

The more investment properties you're tracking, the more you'll appreciate the need to streamline your operations. The great thing about these apps is you don't have to be in front of your desktop to review information. They're cloud-based and optimized for multiple platforms, so you can access and update them from any location. They're designed to have simple and intuitive user interfaces, and yet they do incredibly complex work. When you're passing on information to your lender, accountant or lawyer, they're going to love your tidy record-keeping and the high-quality reports you've generated. Apps empower you with the tools to make smart, strategic decisions while other investors are still spinning their wheels.