Real Estate Software 7

Affordable Real Estate Investment Software (Part VII)

Some people are old fashioned, and that term isn’t being used in a negative way. Sometimes what works, works, and when trying to reinvent the wheel results in a mash of inconsistency, nothing but new-fangled versions of the original blueprint are created, and are usually lacking. Improvements on an original model are always good, but marketing plays a big role in what is necessary and what is just fluff when it comes to real estate investment software. A smallish portion of real estate investors today still rely on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to determine their ROI, and still consider it to be a tried and true way of manually crunching numbers, creating a strong portfolio.

However, it takes someone incredibly proficient in math, exceptionally organized and someone who is extremely familiar with financial analysis models and equations to accurately piece together the correct information in accordance with an accurate prediction of an ROI possibility for real estate investing.

One software option that has ear mocks of the spreadsheet mentality but has been given a facelift is the ROI Forecaster. The ROI Forecaster has the ability to take “1,000 combinations of a given investment scenario over eight different variables simultaneously to provide you with a full understanding of the likelihood of achieving a given level of financial performance for the investment being considered.” It claims that it is easy to use despite the complicated numbers it is able to produce.

This product offered by Real Estate Informatics is called ROI forecaster. This is a software program that includes all types of investor’s needs, and is self described as a tool that will assist in making any investment easier to diffuse and dissect whether it is an “investment is a single family home, a multi-family unit, an apartment building, an industrial property or an office building.”

Most real estate investment programs say that they can offer anywhere from 5-20 year analysis of operating data (APOD), for an investor to generate an investment conclusion from. But the ROI Forecaster says that this is simply not a broad enough perspective. The ROI Forecaster offers the investor the ability to collect investment analysis data over the course of X many years, and can invariably calculate what a “lifetime” APOD may look like for an investment property. While this may or may not be of appeal to those realism investors, who take into account that the market values are too volatile to compartmentalize, may find the ROI Forecaster intriguing for its lofty self-proclaimed proclamations, if not anything else.

Another thing to consider when investing in any real estate software program is how many different types of software they offer the consumer. The reason this is important to take into consideration is that sometimes they will structure their investment software like a pyramid. Meaning that after purchase of the first “level” of software, you may find yourself forced to purchase the next “level” up, since the software you initially purchased may be limited.

Whether or not that is the case with ROI Forecaster is a matter of debate and can only be determined by research and or user testimonials. What isn’t of debate is that they do break down their software into “levels” and that can be a cautionary sign that their programs may or may not be “all-inclusive”. The pricing for the ROI Forecaster breaks down as follow: Advanced Risk Analysis, $229.95, Professional Edition, $179.95, Standard Edition, $129.95.