REI Tool/Software that doesn't exist?

Question

Hey All!

I'm new to the bigger pockets forums and the real estate investing world. I've been listening to the podcasts for the last few months trying to learn all that I can and they have been great so far. As a software engineer, I was wondering if there's any gap in current real estate investing tooling/software? I would be interested in hearing about pain points from the community and possibly developing solutions for these.

James W. · Answer

@Stephen Cirner I think there are  bunch of challenges more the mid-level portfolio. I've been looking for a while for something, and one of the real challenges seems to be people do not have a clear definition of what they are looking for on the software side. For example, some people focus on payments and tenant screening, others are more focused on accounting/depreciation/job order focused and yet others are into online marketing. From what I can tell, the use cases (or stories, if you prefer agile development terminology) are pretty well defined, but the terminology varies hugely among RE investors. YMMV.

John Knisely · Answer

Hey @Stephen Cirner, welcome to BP! That's a great question. I am not at the point in my investing where I am using any of the major property management tools such as Podio, Buildium, Appfolio etc. As an agent I have noticed there are some full service CRM and website options such as Boomtown and RealGeeks but they seem SUPER expensive. Right now I spend a lot of time analyzing deals and writing up offers (via Docusign, which I am generally happy with) and it'd be great to have something that could easily integrate and pull useful MLS data into an analysis sheet. The Biggerpockets analysis tools are pretty solid as well, definitely check them out for ideas. Another useful thing for me would be a CRM that integrates with email/calendar and such to stay on top of communication and deadlines.

Stephen Cirner · Answer

Right, I figured there were expensive SaaS solutions for larger real estate entities. I'm more interested in smaller scale tools that can provided value to the home gamers. Thanks for all of the great information. If anyone with specific ideas, feel free to message me.