Best Apps for Investing in Real Estate
The best real estate apps for investors in 2021 are great tools for you to have access to if you want to be successful!
There are so many real estate apps floating around, and it can be overwhelming to decide which are worth using in your business. To make matters worse, if you search “best real estate apps” on Google, most of the top articles just regurgitate “Realtor, Zillow, Redfin, Trulia, LoopNet, Xome, and maybe one unique app on top of them.
While these apps are great—and I included one of them in this list—they are focused on buying a home through an agent. These apps aren’t specific to investors, and they won’t help you find off-market deals or build your business.
For that reason, I wanted to let you in on a few of the apps I have personally used as a real estate investor, and why I like them!
Best Apps for Finding Real Estate Deals
These are the real estate apps you’ll probably be most interested in, and I can’t say I blame you. Finding leads and deals online is very exciting, and without leads you’ll never be a successful real estate investor, haha.
Propstream 
Propstream is the most all-inclusive real estate app for investors, and I cannot recommend it enough. Think of this as the investors version of MLS access—on steroids!
Propstream allows you to search for properties, pull lists of homes to market to, skip trace leads, pull tax information on properties, see how many properties a potential seller owns, and so much more.
Propstream has been an absolute god-send for me as I’ve been ramping up my marketing for deals, and I will be using it for years to come.
Not only can you find almost any information you could ever want on a property—and run accurate comps on them—but you can even send postcards directly from their system!
Oh, and you can see all properties—on and off market—not just properties listed on the MLS!
Deal Machine
Deal Machine is somewhat similar to Propstream, but instead of operating like the MLS, it operates more like a customer relationship management (CRM) software, that was built around driving for dollars.
If you plan to drive for dollars, Deal Machine is a must have app that I used with a friend while I was stationed in Hawaii.
I haven’t used it as much over the last year or two because I’m not investing locally, but if you want to drive around looking for properties, I don’t think there is a better app. You can even build a team on the app, and use it to allow bird dogs—people who scout properties for you—access to it to find deals.
Deal Machine allows you to drive up to a property, take a picture of it, and with the click of a button send them a postcard, or automated mailing sequence! This absolutely increases your success rate, because it is all to easy to send a letter, and then forget to follow up—or worse yet, forget to send the first letter, haha.
Realtor
Realtor.com is one of several online platforms (they also have an app) for looking at properties that are listed on the MLS.
I like realtor because it is simple to use, and doesn’t give you super-misleading “Zestimates” like Zillow does.
Realtor isn’t anything special, but you can setup automatic searches that will shoot you an email, or phone notification, anytime a new listing hits the market that meets your criteria.
Given that this real estate app is free, and simple, to use I think it is a no brainer!
Complimentary Apps for Your Business As A Real Estate Investor
These are applications I use to enhance my real estate investing business. They are simple tools that will make your life a little easier!
REsimpli
REsimpli is the real estate CRM I personally use to track all of my deals. From the moment a lead calls in, until the moment I buy (or offload) their property, it is tracked through REsimpli.
There is simply no way I would ever be able to keep track of my leads without this CRM. The more leads you bring in, the busier your life will become, and the harder it will be to follow up with leads appropriately.
REsimpli not only tracks all of the leads that come in, and allows me to follow them along the lead pipeline, but it allows me to setup automatic text-message follow up systems too! I love this, because I can set a lead that “ghosted” me on an automatic drip, and stay in touch until they ask to be taken off the list—without taking any time away from working my more promising leads.
To drive home how powerful this is, this Saturday my team is meeting a lady at her property (two homes on one parcel) to look at it for me to give her a cash offer. The price she is asking is very tempting, and unless there is something very wrong with the property, I think this will be a solid deal. This lady, was one of the first three leads I ever input into REsimpli, and has been on an automatic drip from me for almost a year now.
If it hadn’t been for the automatic drip follow up system, I wouldn’t have been the person she called when she finally decided to look into selling the home!
Assuming this deal goes through, that follow up system will singlehandedly pay for my REsimpli subscription for at least the next 2-3 years.
ICBA – Community Bank Locator
ICBA, or the Community Bank Locator app is one of my favorite free tools!
When you open this simple app, you’re literally greeted with just a single search box to type in your zip code. When you hit search, it populates a list of—you guessed it—local community banks.
This app is how I found the bank that I’ve used for all of my transactions over the last three years.
Simply type in a zip code, click search, and then call all of the local banks in your area.
Local banks are much more flexible on lending terms—especially if they are a true portfolio lender—which means they will be able to work with you more on your deals.
You are also more likely to be able to build a relationship with a specific lender in that bank, which will even further enhance your ability to land better financing.
Zillow Mortgage Calculator
While I’m not a huge fan of Zillow because people put too much weight in the Zestimate value of their home—which is often way off the mark, I do like their mortgage calculator.
This is another simple, free tool you can use when analyzing a property. Simply type in the details of the loan you’re looking to get, and it will spit out your estimated monthly payment.
This can be as simple as plugging in the purchase price, estimated down payment, and zip code…or as complicated as plugging in your counties tax rate, and choosing your own interest rate.
This is just a simple tool, to give you an idea how much your principle, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI) will cost.
I use this tool all the time when analyzing rental properties!
Best Apps for Building Your Real Estate Business
Admittedly, these are not real estate specific apps, but they are still great apps for you to utilize in your business!
MileIQ
MileIQ has saved me (literally) thousands of dollars over the last two years, and I can’t believe no one told me about it sooner.
My current tax professional told me about this application on our first call, and it has singlehandedly managed to cover the cost of all of his services—including filing my tax returns for four LLC’s this year!
MileIQ is a very simple app, and a must have for every real estate investor, and business owner, alike.
Simply download the app, input your vehicle's information, and start driving. It automatically tracks when you’re driving, and then pops up a notification after the drive. You simply click on the notification, and swipe left for personal use, or right if it was a business-related drive.
At the end of the year you pull the annual report from MileIQ, and email it to your CPA.
It’s that simple!
To put in perspective how valuable this is, last year I was able to write off $3,796.96 last year.
This doesn’t mean I saved $3,796 in taxes, but at my tax rate from last year I did probably save $570 dollars with this simple app!
Calendly
Calendly is a life saver for me.
Calendly is a scheduling app that allows you to create several events in your calendar for other people to schedule.
For example, I have a Calendly event from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm every Wednesday night to record podcasts. When I have potential guests lined up for the show I can simply shoot them the scheduling link in a text, email, FB message, Carrier Pigeon, or whatever other medium you should decide to use and then they can schedule any of those times, on whatever date best fits their schedule.
I use this approach for scheduling investor calls, coaching calls, podcasts, and sometimes intro calls—although full disclosure, I’ve slowed down on those because people kept no-showing me—and it is a complete game changer.
Calendly has allowed me to systemize my meetings, and block schedule them ahead of time. I know that every Wednesday night is set aside for podcasts, and Saturday afternoon for investor phone calls!
I highly recommend that you setup a Calendly account in order to systemize your communication, and increase the amount of networking you can accomplish!
OnlineJobs.PH
I’ll be honest, I have no idea if OnlineJobs.PH has an app for their website.
Nonetheless, I wanted to include it in this list because this is the best platform I have ever used for hiring a virtual assistant (VA).
As your business grows, you may find yourself wanting to bring on a VA to handle a lot of the menial tasks. You may even want to use this person for marketing, and to reach out to more leads.
Check out this video I made about OnlineJobs.PH
Hopefully, it will answer all of your questions, and when the time comes, you’ll be ready to hire that first VA!
Zoom
Zoom has become a household name over the last year, and I’m sure you don’t need me to elaborate on it too much.
That being said, Zoom is very beneficial for networking with other investors, hosting virtual meetups, or even just share your screen with another investor to double-check the analysis you ran on a property.
Virtual networking opportunities gained a lot of traction in 2020, and I think it is safe to say they are here to stay!
TL;DR The Best Real Estate Apps for Investors
There are a ton of real estate apps for investors, and you owe it to yourself to play around with a few to see which ones best help improve your business.
The best real estate investing apps will vary based on your personal investing strategy, and what role(s) you play in the business. However, I believe these apps can absolutely help you scale your business—they have mine!
What real estate apps do you use for investing in real estate? Drop them in the comments below, I would love to learn about some new apps that could improve my business!
