Colleagues know me best as a real estate professional, loving father, proud grandparent, and football fanatic.

They tend to find it remarkable, therefore, that I developed ProAPOD® Real Estate Investment Software. After all, most of my friends and colleagues know me as (shall we say) just a normal guy, not a computer geek.

Truth is, though, that I am just a normal guy with a zest for creativity, a touch of perfectionism, and a love of teaching. Of course, I never imagined that those three attributes could find fulfillment in the development of real estate investment software. But it does.

ProAPOD® requires tons of creativity, from the software itself to its website, and elements that must work perfectly; my itch to teach is not as obvious, but I honestly do enjoy informing real estate agents and investors about real estate investing, and ways to evaluate investment real estate easily.

Okay, so how did it happen? How did a normal guy who played semi-pro baseball and later became a member of a garage band become a real estate professional, slash, real estate investment software developer?

It Started With a Spreadsheet

Shortly after purchasing my first computer in 1995, I discovered the power of spreadsheets thanks to Microsoft Excel. This in turn virtually opened my eyes to the possibilities of creating a software solution to assist me with my multifamily property real estate business. It was magical.

When colleagues begin to rave about my reports it got me to thinking. So I created a plan to develop real estate investment software that would accomplish three things: Omit the weaknesses I discovered in other software; capture the benefits I discovered in other software; sell more affordably than other software.

ProAPOD® Real Estate Investment Software was born and distributed six exhausting months later.

Since that time ProAPOD® has been featured by REALTOR®Magazine (May 2003), is used by real estate agents and investors nationwide from Manhattan to Hawaii, was selected by Southwestern College (Kansas) to provide calculator software to its Corporate Finance students, and more recently distributed real estate investment software solutions to users in Switzerland, Canada, Jordan, and China.

It’s not always easy, and you won’t read about me in Forbes, but it is fun. Thank you for your support, customers. Here’s to your success.

Southwestern College in Kansas has elected to use the Mortgage Calculator Software developed by ProAPOD Real Estate Investment Software for its Corporate Finance class again this fall.

Here’s what Lyle Weinert had to say about ProAPOD after introducing the software to his students last term.

“In teaching corporate finance I looked for software my students could use on their laptops that covered the time value of money calculations in a easy-to-use format and that was affordable to them.  After considering many different products, I found the software I needed in the Mortgage Calculator Software offered by ProAPOD Software. While the terminology on several of the worksheets differs from the terminology used in class, the students quickly adjusted to the software and its features. The fact I’m using the software again this year indicates how pleased I am with this software.”

ProAPOD Mortgage Calculator Software is an application for Excel that mimics a host of mortgage and financial computations found in HP calculators. But it’s easier, creates printable reports, and costs less. Retail price is just $19.95 and includes two downloads. Download it today at => http://www.proapod.com/TVM.asp

See for yourself what Southwestern College in Kansas already knows.

After all, ProAPOD has been a leading real estate investment software provider since 2000 and is used nationwide by real estate agents and investors for real estate cash flow and rate of return analysis. Discover ProAPOD at => http://www.proapod.com.

The term leverage means that you use a relatively small amount of cash to acquire or control a property.

Let’s say, for instance, you plan to buy a $200,000 rental property that produces a net operating income (NOI) of $20,000 a year. If you finance this unit with $20,000 down and borrow $180,000 (a loan-to-value ratio of 90 percent), you have highly leveraged your purchase.

Think of it this way. Though you put up only 10 percent of the purchase price, you virtually own and control a property. Whereas if you paid $200,000 cash for the property, you would not have used any leverage (i.e., other people’s money).

Okay, but here’s how differing amounts of leverage can magnify your cash-on-cash returns. We’ll consider the following four examples and calculate rates of return based on alternative down payments of $200,000 (an all-cash purchase), $100,000, $50,000, and $20,000. We’ll assume the financing at 8 percent for 30 years, or $7.34 a month for each $1,000 you borrow.

Example 1: $200,000 all-cash purchase

ROI (return on investment) = Income (NOI) / Cash investment

= $20,000 / $200,000

= 10%

Example 2: $100,000 down payment with $100,000 financed. Yearly mortgage payment equals $8,808 (100 x $7.34 x 12). Cash flow equals $11,192 ($20,000 NOI less $8,808).

ROI = $11,192 / $100,000 = 11.2%

Example 3: $50,000 down payment with $150,000 financed. Yearly mortgage payments equal $13,212 (150 x $7.34 x 12). Cash flow equals $6,788 ($20,000 NOI less $13,212).

ROI = $6,788 / $50,000 = 13.6%

Example 4: $20,000 down payment with $180,000 financed. Yearly mortgage payments equal $15,854 (180 x $7.34 x 12). Cash flow equals $4,146 ($20,000 NOI less $15,854).

ROI = $4,141 / $20,000 = 20.7%

As you can see with the figures in these examples, the highly leveraged (90 percent loan-to-value ratio) purchase yields a cash-on-cash rate of return double that of a cash purchase. In other words, the higher the leverage (the more other people’s money you use) the greater your rate of return.