Whether or not you happen to be a real estate professional who works with income-producing properties, or a real estate investor seeking to purchase multifamily or commercial property, crunching the numbers to determine a rental property’s profitability requires time and effort.
This is why real estate investing software was developed. To make rental property cash flow, rates of return and profitability analysis fast, easy, and (most importantly) accurate for those engaged in rental property analysis.
Of course, having the luxury of a good software program to do the work was not always the case before personal computers came along, so allow me to explain the types of issues that those of us engaged in real estate investing back in those early days were confronted with, and software now addresses fluently.
1) The Data – Back in the days long before computers and any sort of software programs, the numbers were crunched manually. This presented two problems. Time had to be spent doing it, and even more, you had to make sure that the data was complete and correct enough for a buyer or property owner to make a wise investment decision. Concerns about whether the data you include in your rental property analysis is complete and accurate is no longer an issue with a real estate software solution.
2) The Formulas – Given the enormous amount of data required for real estate investment analysis, you no longer are required to learn the computations and formulas to present that data accurately. With investment real estate software, you never need to learn the formulas. So you never have to worry about forfeiting the race before you even get started.
3) The Presentations – Perhaps you haven’t thought much about it, but the reports you use to present your analysis data is a big deal. The data must, of course, be complete and accurate, but at the same time it must be displayed well. The reports must be constructed so the facts and figures are easy to read and understand as well as sharp looking (especially when you plan to present them to customers, colleagues, partners, or lenders). Reports are routinely created for you automatically by real estate investing software.
4) The Spreadsheet Application – Computer hardware along with spreadsheet software programs definitely made it easier. Formulas can be programmed, reports can be formatted, and data can be entered and afterward printed out with the click of a computer mouse. Even so, as beneficial as spreadsheets were (and are) for investment real estate analysis, at the same time they present an obstacle. The user must understand the spreadsheet application properly enough to suitably create a cash flow presentation that looks good and is sure to integrate all of the correct analysis data and formulas. The frustrations of having to cope with spreadsheets becomes a thing of the past with investment analysis software.
The Software Advantage
Making use of real estate property investment software is simply a smart and cost effective opportunity for any person looking to hammer out a sound rental property analysis. It’s simple, succinct, and it will free you from a great deal of hours which in turn you are able to devote preparing for additional ways to to improve your real estate operation.
This is certainly the benefit of real estate investment software. Instead of just reinventing the wheel (or worse yet, disregarding the actual necessity to crunch the numbers altogether) brokers and real estate investors can potentially work through and evaluate multifamily property cash flows, rates of return, and profits easily and quickly. There is certainly never any formulas to figure out or reports to format because in the majority of instances the software program provides you user-friendly forms. So you merely just enter the property cash flow information and print.
The Software Checklist
1) The software product must be easy even for a novice to use.
2) It should come complete with crucial computations for rates of return, ratios and measures, along with quality reports.
3) It should include a reliable customer support policy.
4) Other functions you might hunt for (depending on your individual professional requirements) are calculations for tax shelter and time value of money, analysis and marketing reports, both USA and Canadian mortgage amortization, and the capability to apply a currency symbol other than the dollar symbol. Most softwares display a list of their features, so take a few minutes and look them over.
The good news is that it’s all out there for you to start taking advantage of. Due to the worldwide web and numerous search engines, you can locate, buy, and download a real estate investing software solution right from your computer. And best of all, given all the advantages you gain by having it, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
