Like any other business in the 21st century, the world of property investment can be a fast, furious and stressful place. Unless you are extremely organised in all areas of your profession, life can seem a little overwhelming, so it’s smart to leverage everything that’s at your disposal.
Thankfully, the app market offers some amazing time-saving tools to streamline and fast-track all areas of the property buying, letting and maintenance processes.
I recently put out a request to the Progressive Property community to list some of the best apps that can assist in the day-to-day reality of buy to let property investment. Members were only too happy to offer their two pennies, and the apps listed below were said to be the most effective at liberating property investors from the day-to-day drudge, saving time, and making a difference to a truly leveraged lifestyle.
The Property Apps
1. Rightmove/Zoopla/Onthemarket/Primelocation
These should be common knowledge for everyone even considering moving into property investment. Great for researching areas for potential investment, updates on opportunities, purchasing, renting out to tenants, plus keeping up with market news and legislation. These are nothing less than essential tools that property investors like you should be using every day.
2. Office365
Most will have upgraded from Microsoft Office to Office 365 by now, but if not, the benefits are incalculable. Like any good app worth its salt, Office365 is accessible from anywhere, and provides perfect coordination with the Microsoft Office programmes we are all familiar with, as well as many other advantages. Like Dropbox, Office 365 saves documents to the cloud by default, but also enables you to broadcast PowerPoint presentations, simplify collaborations with the option of creating a password-protected online portal, and provide a consistent experience across all devices. It is also constantly being updated, with new and helpful features that make life just a little easier.
3. Mindmup
Mind maps are an eternally useful way to display workflows, plans, and new ideas, so it makes sense that there should be a great app to speed up and simplify the process. Mindmup is a great, easy-to-use app for creating quick mind maps that can be transferred to most mediums and devices. Mindmup provides large buttons and a very user-friendly interface, with good integration with Google Drive. It will also convert mind maps into PDF and PowerPoint formats easily, and will let you publish and share the maps online.
4. iAuditor
iAuditor lets you tailor audits in any way you choose, from any place, at any moment, and to get their analytics in real time. While iAuditor bills itself as a safety auditing app, it can be used to generate just about any kind of audit report that a property investor is likely to need.
The flexible way this app can be programmed is one of its greatest strengths, as well as the numerous options with which to customise the fields using arrows, diagrams and sketches to help standardise your audits. Companies including Emirates, Volvo and Hilton Worldwide put their faith in SafetyCulture’s iAuditor app.
5. Dropbox
Dropbox is perfect for sharing large documents and files with colleagues, employees and property tenants, as well as saving work in the cloud while you on the go. It should go without saying how useful such a service is, which makes Dropbox an app that many of us use on a regular basis.
6. Bizzby
Bizzby is for those times that an issue emerges unexpectedly or needs a solution without delay. Using this app, you can arrange for professional services such as cleaners, electricians, plumbers, etc, to the door without any advanced booking.
Bizzby is unique in that it truly is an “on demand” service – you can’t book in advance, and you can only make contact at the time you need the service. Perfect for last-minute hiccups or even emergencies at your rental properties or those you are investing in.
7. Checkatrade
For less urgent problems, this app helps buy to let property investors find great contractors for great prices, alongside all-important customer ratings. The rating system is a pretty reliable guide to go by, and like any website or app with a review system, Checkatrade encourages members to offer the best services they can, for fear of receiving poor ratings.
8. Trello
For keeping track of projects both large and small, and systematising your tasks and to-do lists. Trello creates a board to aid team collaboration, helping you to see information at a glance as well as in detail when you need to delve deeper.
Trello offers a tiered membership arrangement, providing free users with a useful yet basic productivity platform, or premium users with a much more configurable interface. In saying this, some users complain about how limited the free version is, so if you are seeking a more wide-ranging app with an emphasis placed on customisation, you may want to trial the free app while considering the premier version.
9. Convertizo
This app converts just about any units in the known universe! Conversions are extremely easy to produce, and the app even includes currency exchange using live rates. There is also the option for other conversions useful to buy to let property investors such as energy, distance, area, time etc.
Convertizo is quick, it looks good, it’s highly versatile, and it’s well worth £2.99.
10. Nest
This app gives property investors, landlords and landladies greater control over the thermostat from a distance. Using sensors and algorithms, Nest can alert you to when a property becomes too cold, or you can programme the heating to work at certain times remotely, or simply turn it on and off using your own device whenever you please. There are also options for security cameras and control of local alarms, as well as performing safety checks without any need for ladders using various options found within the app.
11. Xero
This accounting software allows property investors to reconcile bank accounts, check transfers, and know precisely where your finances stand from anywhere you please.
The interface can at times appear a little complicated, particularly when it opens multiple task windows, but in general this is a solid, carefully considered app that has received strong reviews.
12. Pipedrive
This is essentially a mobile CRM app, with a few extra bells and whistles. As well as monitoring your pipeline remotely, you can take notes and create emails and calls on the go, linking them to the relevant deal as soon as they are created. While it may use a fair amount of battery power, the app company has promised to improve this as soon as they can. With all things considered Pipedrive has an intuitive build as far as CRM systems go, and offers users powerful, customisable features.
13. Omnifocus
Omnifocus is a widely used, heavyweight project management app. It is best used for prioritising tasks and keeping track of large-scale projects, or when you have numerous tasks underway that require close monitoring and have strictly held deadlines. Notifications can be programmed to appear on your devices without even opening the app, making it an organic part of your day’s workflow.
Do you agree with our selections? Which apps do you find most useful? Which do you use most frequently? Which are most intuitive to use, and which are the most difficult?
Comment below, or get in touch via the Progressive Property Facebook Community, which you can find here.
