Real Estate Investors: There’s An App For That

Whether you’re looking to buy and rent a single family home, duplex or apartment building or rehab and sell a property for a profit, chances are there’s an App that will save you endless hours with spreadsheets and calculators.

For residential rental property,  I’ve become fond of Property Evaluator – Real Estate Investment Calculator. Available for free from iTunes (there are upgrades available, but the free version may be plenty for most users), it allows you to enter all relevant data for an investment property spreadsheet.

With that information, it automatically calculates your cash flow, rate of return, cap rate and even a gross rent multiplier. This helps you decide in an instant whether a property is worthy of acquisition, and also, whether you should keep it in your portfolio after you own it.

If you’d like to earn a little sweat equity as well, there’s an app called Real Estate Flip – Investing Calculator. This app requires slightly more math than the first one. For example, it doesn’t allow you to calculate your down payment as a percentage, what the remaining balance on a note would be, or what your closing costs might be based on commission and county tax percentages (you have to manually enter the actual amount).

It does, however, automatically calculate your payments and holding costs. It also has a list of common repair items, like windows, for example. It will give you an average of what they’ll cost based on the type (casement vs. double hung) and number.

Everybody has different tastes. The good news is Apps aren’t that expensive. Play around with them. You just might discover one that will make you a fortune.