While buying rental property can be a lucrative investment option, not everyone that tries it becomes successful. In fact, most beginner real estate investors fail within the first few years. However, savvy real estate investors know that making money in real estate boils down to finding the best rental properties in terms of their return on investment (ROI).
Even so, finding the best rental properties in a massive real estate market is not as easy as it sounds. You will also be competing with other real estate investors looking to be the first to find the best real estate deals too. So, how do you find rental properties with good ROI potential?
Well, there are many sites for finding rental properties and many online tools that one can use. However, they aren’t all made the same. The best way to find rental properties for sale in the US housing market is to use Mashvisor.
Why Use Mashvisor to Find the Best Rental Properties?
Mashvisor is real estate investment software that helps real estate investors to find profitable investment properties in the most efficient way. This real estate analytics platform will enable you to make timely and accurate investment decisions.
The process of researching different markets, collecting property data, and analyzing multiple investment properties can be very time-consuming if you try to do it manually. However, Mashvisor provides investors with a number of user-friendly tools that use big data and predictive analytics to find investment properties that match their investment goals in a matter of minutes. It does this for both traditional and Airbnb rental properties.
If you are looking to buy an investment property today, be sure to use Mashvisor’s real estate investment tools to find the best rental properties. Without further ado, let’s look at Mashvisor’s tools and see how real estate investors can use them to improve their decision-making.
Mashvisor’s Real Estate Investment Tools
1. Real Estate Heatmap
The process of finding the best rental properties begins with finding top rental markets. In fact, location is the most important variable when looking for the best income properties. No matter how good your investment property is, you won’t be able to generate a good return if it is in a poor location. Location will also determine what investment property you can actually afford. Therefore, even before you begin your property search, you should find a profitable real estate market.
To find the best markets for rental properties, there are some key real estate metrics that you need to analyze. The most common ones include listing price, rental income, cash flow, return on investment, and vacancy rates.
Considering all this data and the number of potential housing markets you may need to research, it’s evident that the exercise would take a lot of time and effort. But it doesn’t have to. With Mashvisor’s real estate heatmap, you can analyze real estate markets in a matter of minutes.
The heatmap analysis tool uses different colors to show the performance of different neighborhoods in your city of choice. You simply select the metric you want to use in your neighborhood analysis and the heatmap will present data for each area using different colors.
The best-performing neighborhoods based on the selected metric are highlighted in green while those with the lowest values are highlighted in red. Areas with moderate performance are marked in yellow and orange. This way, the performance of the neighborhoods is easier to interpret.
Mashvisor’s Real Estate Heatmap
The heatmap tool essentially helps you to narrow down a massive real estate market to a smaller profitable area where you can focus your investment property search. You can customize your neighborhood analysis based on the following metrics:
- Listing Price
- Rental Income (Airbnb & traditional)
- Cash on Cash Return (Airbnb & traditional)
- Airbnb Occupancy Rate
2. Rental Property Finder
After you have identified a profitable neighborhood, the next step is to search for rental properties for sale. However, you can’t just look at a few rental properties for sale within your reach and expect to find the best rental properties. So, how do you find the best rental investment properties for sale in the area without having to analyze numerous properties?
Mashvisor helps to eliminate this problem using the Rental Property Finder tool. This tool helps investors to find the best rental properties in their market of choice with just a few clicks.
By using a wide range of analytics, ROI metrics, rental comps, and the latest machine-learning algorithms, this tool is capable of finding you investment properties for sale that not only match your search criteria but also have the highest potential for profits.
So, how do you use it? Well, it’s quite simple. The tool comes with a number of filters that help you to customize your search. You simply set the filters and you will get a list of the best rental properties matching your criteria. Here are the filters that come with this tool:
- Location (Cities and Miles)
- Budget
- Rental strategy (Airbnb/traditional)
- Property type
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bedrooms
In essence, the property finder enables you to narrow down your property search to only the best rental properties to buy in the location of your choice.
Mashvisor’s Property Finder
3. Rental Property Calculator
As discussed, the property finder helps you find the best rental properties in the market you are interested in, in terms of performance and personal preference. However, you don’t want to make an offer on an investment property just yet.
Savvy real estate investors always do an in-depth rental property analysis to ensure that the numbers make financial sense. This is the time to put your emotions aside and focus on the numbers. As you have probably heard before, real estate investing is a numbers game.
But what is the best way to get these numbers? While you can still do your own due diligence and use spreadsheets for analysis, it’s likely to take you a lot of time. And by the time you are completing your research, you may have lost the property to another investor. This is the last thing any real estate investor would want.
The most reliable tool to use for your investment property analysis is Mashvisor’s rental property calculator. This tool provides investors with some key pre-calculated metrics such as:
- Rental income
- Cash flow
- Cap rate
- Cash on cash return
- Airbnb occupancy rate
To get these numbers, the user is expected to key in some basic data relating to their property financing and property expenses. While the tool provides pre-calculated real estate data for common rental expenses, you can alter them or enter your own expenses to fine-tune your investment property analysis.
Mashvisor’s Rental Property Calculator
If you want to find cash flow properties for sale (which is highly recommended), this is the best tool to use. Positive cash flow properties are the best rental properties to own because of a number of reasons. Apart from the fact that you won’t need to take money out of your pocket to offset some rental expenses, you can use surplus cash flow to upgrade the property or invest in other assets.
What Makes Mashvisor’s Rental Property Calculator Unique?
One unique feature of Mashvisor’s rental property calculator that sets it apart from the rest in the market is that it allows investors to find the optimal rental strategy for an investment property for sale. The tool provides the numbers for both Airbnb and traditional strategies, making it possible for one to do a comparison and choose the most lucrative strategy. For investors who want to buy Airbnb investment properties, this tool is sometimes referred to as the Airbnb Profitability Calculator.
Moreover, this investment tool allows you to do a quick comparative market analysis. It can provide you with a list of other similar rentals in the area (rental comps). The rental comps will help you know the fair market value of the rental property for sale you are analyzing. This way, you will avoid overpaying for the property. Comps will also help you determine how much to charge for rent when you buy the investment property.
The Bottom Line
Buying investment property doesn’t have to be complicated. Mashvisor’s real estate investment app makes everything easy for you. You will be able to find the best places to buy rental property and the best rental properties for sale in a matter of minutes. For those looking to purchase rental properties , make sure you add our real estate investment tools to your toolbox. Start out your 7-day free trial with Mashvisor now.