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The best real estate investing apps <\/strong>are ones you could not live without. Whether you\u2019re a full-time real estate investor, managing a few properties, or still trying to get your first deal done<\/strong>, these apps can help you find, manage, and <\/strong>cash flow<\/strong><\/a> your rentals quicker<\/strong>. Ashley and Tony both use these apps daily and probably couldn\u2019t run their real estate investment portfolios<\/a> without them.<\/p>\n To help you scale up your real estate investing<\/strong>, Ashley and Tony have written down their most-used <\/strong>real estate investing<\/strong><\/a> apps<\/strong>. Now, anytime you see a potential deal, need to chat with a team member, or simply want to time how long you\u2019ve been working at a rental property, you can. Most of these apps are free<\/strong>, so you can download them today, try them out, and buy your first (or next) deal<\/a> faster!<\/p>\n If you want Ashley and Tony to answer a real estate question, you can post in the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group<\/a>! Or, call us at the Rookie Request Line (1-888-5-ROOKIE).<\/p>\n Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Ashley: Ashley: Ashley: Ashley: Ashley: Tony: Tony: Tony: Tony: Tony: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: Tony: Ashley: \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Interested in learning more about today\u2019s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Check out our\u00a0<\/i>sponsor page<\/a><\/i>!<\/i><\/p>\n
This is Real Estate Rookie, episode 194. My name is Ashley Kehr, and I\u2019m here with my co-host, Tony Robinson.<\/p>\n
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where every week, twice a week, we bring you the inspiration, information and education you need to kickstart your real estate investing career. So Ashley Kehr, what is going on today. I see you don\u2019t have your typical hip hop T-shirt on. You got some country on today. Felt like switching it up, I see.<\/p>\n
Yeah. You know what? I feel like everybody knows my gangster side, so I got to show my countryside a little bit here.<\/p>\n
Got to represent both sides.<\/p>\n
Got my Kenny Chesney, she thinks my tractor\u2019s sexy, T-shirt on. Yeah, so I actually found the other day, this bin in our basement and it\u2019s all my husband\u2019s old T-shirts from when\u2026 I mean, he\u2019s a, don\u2019t want to brag, and I\u2019m a lot younger than him, so he has all these \u201990s T-shirts from concerts he went to. So I was going through all of them, I\u2019m like, \u201cGeez, some of these are cool, vintage, country T-shirts,\u201d so I might start-<\/p>\n
There you go.<\/p>\n
\u2026 throwing them out here on the podcast.<\/p>\n
You got your own thrift shop. Yeah, you got your own thrift shop in your basement.<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
I love that. Well, what else is new Ash? What\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n
So my business partner, Joe, who\u2019s actually been on the podcast before, he\u2019s been pretty stagnant, shall I say, in his real estate investing in the past, probably, year and a half. He built his own house. He had a baby, so he\u2019s been super busy. Well, he has been talking to me a little bit more about getting another deal, working on a project and today, I was so proud. He sent me a property and he said, \u201cI set up the showing and we\u2019re going at 5:30 today.\u201d I said, \u201cI am so proud of you for finding the deal, getting us to showing. Now, how are you going to pay for it?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cWell, I\u2019m poor, so you got to pay that out.\u201d But, I was super happy for him that he is ready to get back into investing and taking some initiative after taking some time off. He has a full time landscaping business that he runs, so it is still his side hustle that he does, but yeah. Excited for him to get back into it.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s awesome. What kind of property is it? Is it a single family or duplex?<\/p>\n
Yeah, it\u2019s a single family and it\u2019s actually right near his house where we\u2019ve also purchased a property before. This area, there\u2019s actually a waste management dump site. I don\u2019t even know, a landfill, I guess that\u2019s what it\u2019s called, and in that town\u2026 So he lives on the far end of the town and the landfill is on the other side of the town, so we purchase properties near his side because the landfill, they actually pay the majority of the property taxes.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something to do with, oh, because of the smell of the garbage. Well, you can\u2019t smell it at all when you\u2019re on the other side of the town. So the property taxes, I mean, are ridiculously cheap, especially in New York State, so we find that very attractive to purchase in this area.<\/p>\n
Tip for new investors, always look for the landfills. That\u2019s where you\u2019ll find the best deals going forward. No, cool. I\u2019m excited for you guys. Keep us posted on how that deal turns out and I\u2019m glad to see Joe back in the game.<\/p>\n
Yeah. I don\u2019t know. Joe was on one episode. We did a partnership. It was with Sarah too. We had her on talking about partnerships, so you guys will have to go back and find that in the one of our past episodes and take a listen.<\/p>\n
Yeah. Cool. Well, glad things are moving along. I mean, we\u2019re busy, busy, busy, right now, but one of the things we did most recently that has been tremendously helpful is we hired some folks onto our teams. So we have four people that we added to our operations team.<\/p>\n
Wow.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019ve been ramping them up over the last couple of weeks, and it has been like a life changing experience to have some other people to manage all the different pieces of the operational aspect. We\u2019ve got some virtual assistants that we hired for the front end guest communication, then we hired an operation\u2019s manager that manages those VAs and deals with the bigger, more strategic issues that pop up. So me, Sarah and Omid are slowly getting some of our time back, so that way we\u2019re not so much in the weeds and we can continue to focus on growing the business. Busy training people, but also, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel that it\u2019s going to be one of the best decisions we\u2019ve ever made.<\/p>\n
Yeah. I remember Sarah did this Instagram reel where you guys went to Disneyland, I think. It was like, a day in the life of an investor at Disneyland, and it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, got to take care of this call. Got to shoot this interview message.\u201d<\/p>\n
Totally. All that was so real. People were asking, it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, is that staged, where you guys\u2026\u201d And I\u2019d be like, \u201cLiterally that is the life that we live.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been with them places, and I know it\u2019s real.<\/p>\n
Yeah, so excited to start building the team out so we can grow this into an actual business and not just a job for ourselves.<\/p>\n
Awesome. Well, today we want to talk about, actually, some apps today that help manage your business easier, too. We both created a list of different apps that we use every day for different things in our business, and we thought maybe these would help you guys, be an interest of you. As real estate investors, we\u2019re usually always on the go and we don\u2019t always have time to sit down, at a computer, and pull up software or to go onto our computers and try different things out, so with apps, you do everything from your phone.<\/p>\n
Some of the apps that I use when I am looking for deals, the first one, pretty obvious, is Zillow or realtor.com. Those apps just to scroll listings. The next is LandGlide, so this is an app that shows you parcel information, so you can input an address, or you can search, maybe if you\u2019re driving around and you see a house, you can pull it up on the map, see who the owner is, the mailing address. PropStream is another one that is similar to that, and then there\u2019s also onX Hunt. This is my favorite one. It\u2019s actually a hunting app, so you can pull up information about the property too, but it also tells you, and LandGlide does this too, as to how much of the property of the parcel is maybe forest, how much is field? How much is the actual building? Are there other buildings on it? I think that\u2019s really cool too, especially if you\u2019re looking for vacant land deals or lots of acreage, you can find out what exactly that acreage is composed of.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s also DealCheck, which is just a way to analyze the property and will actually pull information from the Amalas, such as Zillow, into the calculator for you when you input the address. Then there is Homesnap, where you can actually take a picture of the property, and it will actually pull it up for you, the information on it, so it uses your GPS tracking on your phone, so you have to have all those location services turned on. But these apps also tell you too, the outline, the survey of the property. They\u2019re not 100% accurate, but if you\u2019re walking a property, I like to be able to see where the actual lines are, where the property ends and starts. Those are my big ones for finding deals.<\/p>\n
The next ones that I use are more just to keep my head in place, and the first one is Personal Capital. So this is where I can link all of my bank accounts, all of my credit cards, even my investment accounts, and I can just open it every day and I can see just a little dashboard of what all my balances are on all of them. Then I use Easy Calculator, so this is a free app with so many different calculators. So I use it to compute interest only payments. I use it to compute principle and interest payments to pull up an amortization schedule. And then I also, sometimes when I think about, \u201cOkay, if I put this much into my kids\u2019 savings account, or their investment account,\u201d and I see on average, it takes 9%, I like to see in 10 years how much money will kids have in their invested account. So those different calculators I like to use and they come handy. They\u2019re so quick to open up.<\/p>\n
Then the next thing is Google Tasks. So this links with all my other Google products, so Google Calendar, Google Docs, all these. So Google Tasks is just a really easy way to input things I need to do on the go and you can set them so they\u2019re actually on your calendar to remind you. You just check it when you\u2019re done and it disappears, but you can always go back and look at what you\u2019ve actually accomplished for your day.<\/p>\n
Then the last app that I\u2019ve used is Hours Tracker. And I\u2019ve used this two different ways, so Hours Tracker, I\u2019ve used it as time tracking to see where my time is going, where I\u2019ll just log in and log out as to, \u201cOkay, I worked on my business for three hours here, and then I made lunch for an hour, and then I scrolled social media for an hour,\u201d and it\u2019s like, \u201cOkay, there\u2019s where my time is wasted. There\u2019s where my time is productive.\u201d But I\u2019ve also done it to track different projects. Darrell that I work with, he\u2019s used this too, is to like, \u201cOkay, he\u2019s working on managing this rehab just so we can get an idea too, of where his time is actually going.\u201d So I found that app, Hours Tracker, very valuable. And those are the main apps that I use throughout the day, besides my text messages and my mail. Actually, I don\u2019t even respond to text messages, so I wouldn\u2019t even include that one.<\/p>\n
Well, Ash, that was like an encyclopedia of real estate investing apps, so it\u2019ll be hard for me to top that, but I have a couple that I think are cool. The first one that I\u2019ll talk about isn\u2019t even about real estate investing. It\u2019s about content creation and I\u2019m starting with this one first because I think so many people can benefit from sharing their journey about investing on social media and other platforms. One of the apps that I was using is called Splice, so S-P-L-I-C-E, and it\u2019s a really easy to use social media editing app, and it allows you to export in the reels or TikTok sized format. You can add captions and music and all kinds of other things, so it\u2019s a really easy way to take your normal content, spruce it up a little bit, so it gets a little bit more love on social.<\/p>\n
The next one I use, similar to the Hour Tracker one, but it\u2019s called Time, and this one directly integrates with QuickBooks, so that\u2019s why I like that one. My CPA recommended it. I was using it more so for the real estate professional status, so you have to track your hours to show how much time you\u2019re putting into the business, so we were using it for that reason, so time by QuickBooks. MileIQ is another one that I really like, so that one helps you track mileage on your vehicles. I can\u2019t remember if that one integrates with QuickBooks or not, but QuickBooks has another version of a mile tracker app that\u2019s really helpful.<\/p>\n
The next app that I use is the Schlage app, so at all of our short-term rentals, we have a keyless entry pad and we\u2019re able to remotely unlock or lock that using the Schlage app, and then we can also create, delete and edit unique codes for all of our guests using that app as well, so the Schlage app is super helpful as a short term rental owner. The next app we use for the short term rentals is the Ring app. The Ring video doorbell, they have a whole suite of security devices. They also have the Ring floodlight camera, which we have at every single one of our properties, and that\u2019s cool because you can check and see who\u2019s coming in, who\u2019s coming out. If you ever need to scare someone off of your property, you can make the alarms go off. We\u2019ve had to do that once or twice, so the Ring gap is definitely a helpful one.<\/p>\n
Then the last one I\u2019ll mention that\u2019s productivity base or, probably not even productivity based, but the next one I\u2019ll mention is the Loom mobile app, so if you guys don\u2019t know, Loom is a screen recording website where you can go and take quick screen recordings of what you\u2019re doing to give video instructions to someone, but they also have a mobile app. I found that to be super helpful because sometimes we\u2019re out or we\u2019re doing stuff on our phone and you can record a quick Loom on your phone as well, so that\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n
Then the last two I\u2019ll mention, these ones are strictly productivity. First is monday.com, so we\u2019re big on trying to have project management software for our business. We used to use Wrike, we\u2019ve since switched over to monday.com. There\u2019s a little bit more customization you can do there, but if we\u2019re ever on the fly, we need to take track of something while we\u2019re on the go, the monday.com app is super helpful.<\/p>\n
Then the last one is a Miro, so M-I-R-O. Miro is a brainstorming app where you can do\u2026 What are those things called? Little thing with the\u2026 Why can\u2019t I remember what they\u2019re called?<\/p>\n
Like a-<\/p>\n
Anyway, it\u2019s a brainstorming thing.<\/p>\n
An organization chart?<\/p>\n
Or you can put-<\/p>\n
Like a brain dump?<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
Or a chart. Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n
Basically think of a white board-<\/p>\n
You guys know what we\u2019re talking about, right?<\/p>\n
\u2026 with Post-it notes thrown up all over it.<\/p>\n
Yeah. It\u2019s going to drive me crazy that I can\u2019t think of what the heck that diagram with the lines. I don\u2019t know why I can\u2019t think of what this is called.<\/p>\n
Yeah. Tony, actually just got me started using that too, when we started brain dumping ideas for the podcast. I have to say, I really enjoy it too, because right now, I actually have this huge whiteboard sitting in my living room and I think that this app is finally going to get me away from whiteboards.<\/p>\n
The whiteboard? Yeah, it\u2019s a mind map.<\/p>\n
Mind map.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what it\u2019s called. A mind map.<\/p>\n
Yeah. Okay.<\/p>\n
Yeah, so you can make mind maps, flow charts, all kinds of other things and just any brainstorming. For most people that are entrepreneurial, they have a thousand ideas a day, and it\u2019s easy to let those ideas slip and you have this great idea and you never execute on it because it came and then it went, so for me, I love having the Miro mobile app because anytime I have an idea about any part of my business, I open up Miro. We have a board for that specific idea. I drop a little note on there, that way I can come back to it later when it\u2019s time to execute, so the Miro app is something I use really regularly as well. So I think that\u2019s everything on my side Ash. Those are all the big ones that we use on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
Yeah. I\u2019m definitely, pretty sure, I\u2019m going to switch to that Time one, because I like that it integrates with QuickBooks because that\u2019s what I use. Then I didn\u2019t know that Loom had an app too, so I\u2019m definitely going to download them.<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
Yeah, so thanks Tony.<\/p>\n
There you go.<\/p>\n
Thank you guys for joining us this week for this week\u2019s Rookie Reply. I\u2019m Ashley at Welcome Rentals and he\u2019s Tony at Tony J Robinson on Instagram. We will see you guys on Wednesday.<\/p>\n