Deciding whether or not it’s time to buy real estate investment software is not unlike wondering whether it’s time to get a hair cut. If it needs it, get it. If it needs it and will make you look better, get it. If it needs it and will make you look better and doesn’t require the inheritance to your first-born, get it.

Ask Yourself This

1. Do I work with rental income property?

2. Do I want to work with rental income property?

3. Do I want the opportunity to work with rental income property?

If so on any point and you don’t currently own a real estate investment software solution then, yes, it’s time for you to purchase one.

Why? Because rental property solutions like ProAPOD guarantee greater accuracy, generate superior reports, and achieve better results. Plus, it will do all the computations and include all essential returns for you automatically. So you don’t have to be an investment expert to start looking like one.

One of the most frequent customer feedbacks I receive about ProAPOD is just how impressed customers were when presented with its reports. One customer put it best when he said “ProAPOD enabled me to WOW customers within the first week..”

Naturally I’m sold on ProAPOD because I developed it. But after working with residential income property for thirty years, I do understand the nances of rental property, and more importantly, the need for real estate agents to have a tool that makes it easy for them to work with rental property, too.

Is it time for you to purchase a real estate investment software program? If you want to work with rental property, yes. And don’t wait until you need it to buy it. Afterall, when do you get your hair cut? Before or after you meet the customer? Impression is everything. So “tool up” now and be prepared to meet your next customer-investor. You will thank me later, I assure you.

Okay, you just drove by a rental property of interest and would like to contact the owner. What do you do?

Foremost, you don’t stop and start walking around the property hoping to locate someone that will give you the owner’s name. Owners don’t appreciate it when their onsite managers or tenants are approached by outsiders asking questions about the property unless it might lead to a possible rental of one of the units.

In other words, unless you plan to rent a unit, don’t nose around the property. It can easily alienate an owner and subsequently jeopardize any further contact.

The best way to obtain the owner’s name is simply to jot down the property address and look up the name in the county tax record. If you’re a real estate agent you probably have computer access through your local MLS. If not, ask a local title company to look it up for you. If that fails, call or visit the tax accessor’s office and obtain the name yourself.

Sometimes there is a phone number along with an address, and sometimes there’s just an address. Either way, whether you call or write, you’re willingness not to alarm the owner’s onsite manager or tenants will go a long way with the owner and undoubtedly get you heard.

As stated in an earlier article, a rental property’s sale price (Value) and net operating income (NOI) are used to calculate an income investment’s capitalization rate (cap rate). Namely, NOI divided by Value equals cap rate.

The formula, however, also can be transposed to calculate the property value. Let’s say (for example) you have a cap rate rate and NOI and want to determine a property value, you simply divide the NOI by the cap rate to determine the price.

FORMULA: NOI/CAP RATE = VALUE

EXAMPLE: $10,000/10.0% = $100,000

When would you use this?

Suppose you’re trying to advise a seller the most reasonable market value for the seller’s rental income property. And based upon your research you find that recent sales of comparable properties average a 10.0% cap rate. Moreover, from information supplied to you by the seller, you know that the seller’s property would reasonably generate a net operating income of $10,000 annually. Viola! You divide the net operating income by the average cap and in turn advise the seller that a reasonable selling price for the property would be $100,000.

Obviously you can use the same approach to advise a buyer what you determine would be a reasonable price for an income property the buyer has an interest in. Either way, knowing how to transpose the cap rate formula to determine property price is an invaulable tool for any real estate agent or investor that works with income producing property.