admin Real estate is one of the best way to invest money to make more money for the average individual investor in the US. The benefits are many including the fact that real estate investing requires only little prior knowledge, no previous experience, and relatively little initial capital and can be turned into a passive income investment opportunity. However, finding a profitable deal is a real challenge for first-time real estate investors who are not familiar with the US market and the opportunities there. In this case, having access to the best real estate investment tools for beginner investors is crucially important. Founded in 2014, Mashvisor has quickly emerged as the top real estate data analytics platform for analyzing the profitability of both entire neighborhoods and individual rental properties in the US housing market.
What Does Mashvisor Do for Real Estate Investors?
In brief, Mashvisor is a real estate data analytics platform which eliminates the need for conducting manual real estate market analysis, neighborhood analysis, and investment property analysis. The platform provides investors in the US real estate market with readily available analysis of the performance of neighborhoods and properties in any city and town. The types of properties listed on Mashvisor’s platform include:
- MLS listings obtained from reliable sources such as ListHub
- Foreclosures, bank-owned homes, and short sales from Auction.com
- Off-market properties listed by other users which can be accessed through the Property Marketplace on the Mashboard
Unlike other real estate websites, Mashvisor provides analysis of both traditional rental properties (those rented out on a monthly or annual basis) and Airbnb rentals (those rented out on a nightly basis). The data for long-term rental properties is obtained from various trustworthy sources such as HotPads and Rent Jungle, while the Airbnb data comes straight from Airbnb, reflecting the 12-month performance of actual Airbnb listings. Furthermore, the rest of the necessary data such as local property tax rates, income tax rates, cleaning fees, property management fees, walkability, and others is obtained from sources like Realtor.com, Walk Score, and public record sources.
Neighborhood Analysis
One of the two main types of real estate analysis which Mashvisor offers is the neighborhood analysis. It covers the following aspects:
- Mashmeter: This is one of the most important components. The Mashmeter shows the overall performance of a neighborhood for investing in rental properties. The evaluation is presented as a percentage. The higher, the better.
- Median Property Price
- Average Property Price per Square Foot
- Average Cash on Cash Return for Traditional and Airbnb Rentals
- Average Rental Income for Traditional and Airbnb Rentals
- Number of Property Listings for Sale
- Number of Traditional Rental Listings
- Number of Airbnb Listings
- Average Airbnb Occupancy Rate
- Optimal Rental Strategy: Traditional vs. Airbnb
- Walk Score
- Real Estate Comps: These are properties which have been recently sold in the neighborhood.
- Airbnb Rental Comps: These are actual listings on Airbnb.com in the neighborhood.
- Traditional Rental Comps: These are actual long-term rental listings in the neighborhood.
- Optimal Property Type: This shows what property type – single family home, condo, apartment, townhouse, multi family home, etc. – yields the highest return on investment in the neighborhood.
- Optimal Number of Bedrooms: This shows properties with how many bedrooms offer the highest return in this neighborhood.
Property Analysis
In addition to analyzing neighborhoods, real estate investors can use Mashvisor to analyze the rental performance of individual properties for sale listed on the platform as well as a property which they add on their own. The investment property analysis includes the following information and metrics:
- Property Address
- List Price
- Property Description
- Property Characteristics
- Property Type: Single family home, condo, apartment, townhouse, multi family home, or other
- Days on Market
- Year Built
- Parking: The type and number of parking spaces
- HOA: This applies to condos and other housing types with a homeowners association.
- Owner Occupied: This shows whether the owner currently lives in the property or not.
- MLS ID: This applies to MLS listings.
- Number of Bedrooms
- Number of Bathrooms
- Heating: This shows the type of heating system available in the property.
- Cooling: This shows the type of cooling system available in the home.
Comparable Rental Income
This is an estimate of how much money you can expect to collect from your tenants or Airbnb guests on a monthly basis based on actual rental rates in the area for comparable rental properties (same property type, same number of bedrooms and bathrooms, similar size, etc.).
Monthly Expenses
- Property Insurance
- Utilities
- Property Management: This is how much you should expect to pay in monthly fees if you decide to hire a professional property manager to turn your investment property into a source of passive income.
- Property Maintenance: This shows you how much you can expect to spend on average on keeping your property in a good shape.
- Property Tax
- HOA Dues: These dues apply only for condos and other homes with a homeowners association.
Rental Income Taxes
- Cleaning Fees: These fees apply to Airbnb rental properties which are managed by a company rather than the Airbnb host.
- Cash Flow: Mashvisor’s rental property cash flow calculator estimates the difference between the monthly rental income and the monthly rental expenses to calculate the cash flow. Always aim for positive cash flow properties to make money from real estate.
- Cash on Cash Return: The CoC return is one of the most popular metrics of return on investment in real estate as it shows how much profit you can make from a certain property based on the cash you have invested in it.
- Cap Rate: The capitalization rate is another important metric of profitability which shows your return based on the property’s sales price or its current market value.
- Occupancy Rate: This estimate shows you what percentage of the time you can expect your investment property to be rented out compared to the time it is listed for renting. The higher the occupancy rate, the higher your return.
One Time Startup Costs:
- Inspection
- Total Repair Costs
- Furniture and Appliances
- Closing Costs
Investment Payback Balance
- Contact Form for getting in touch with a top-performing real estate agent in the area who can help you purchase this property
All of the available real estate data analysis is conducted for both rental strategies: traditional and Airbnb. This helps investors not only find a profitable income property but also decide whether to rent it out on a long term or a short term basis to make more money.
Furthermore, the platform is very interactive. While the provided estimates are based on the actual performance of comparable rental properties in the neighborhood, users can choose to change any values which they believe will be different, based on their own analysis and knowledge. As soon as they enter the new values, all calculations will be automatically updated to show what return on investment to expect. In addition, investors can choose different types of financing: cash or mortgage. The Mortgage Calculator offers the option to choose a fixed mortgage rate, an interest only mortgage, or an adjustable mortgage. The loan term can be either 15 years or 30 years. The interest rate is preset to reflect the local rate. Once again, switching financing options will lead to automatic recalculation of all values available in the investment property analysis.
Real Estate Investor Tools
Mashvisor’s platform provides a number of tools which help even beginner real estate investors find and analyze top-performing investment properties in the US real estate market. These include:
Heatmap
The heatmap tool allows investors to have a quick look at a neighborhood map in their selected housing market (city). The analysis map is color-coded to show neighborhoods based on the average listing price, traditional rental income, traditional cash on cash return, Airbnb rental income, Airbnb cash on cash return, and Airbnb occupancy rate. This allows investors to find neighborhoods within their budget with high return for their preferred rental strategy.
Property Finder
Using the available Property Finder tool is the fastest and most efficient way to find a top-performing rental property for sale within your budget in any US city or town which matches your criteria such as preferred rental strategy, property type, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms.
Investment Property Calculator
Also called a rental property calculator, this tool performs detailed analysis of the expected performance of any property listed on the platform as well as any property which a user inputs as long as it is located in the US. The analysis will include all the components listed in detail in the Investment Property Analysis section.
Mashboard
Mashvisor released this tool relatively recently. The Mashboard allows both beginner and experienced real estate investors to:
- Quickly find an investment property which matches their location, budget, preferred rental strategy, property type, and return on investment;
- Immediately get a comprehensive investment property analysis for any property listed on the platform and download a property analysis report;
- Easily find property owner data for off-market properties;
- Efficiently connect with property owners through an easy-to-use communication platform to enquire and negotiate about possible deals.
The Mashboard can also be used by real estate agents and property managers to grow their business quickly and efficiently.
Pros
The most important advantage of Mashvisor is that it turns 3 months of research into 15 minutes. It gives beginner real estate investors the opportunity to compete with experienced investors on an equal footing. Experienced real estate investors no longer have the upper hand in the US real estate investment market and get all the best deals. Now first-time investors are able to find and analyze properties for sale just as fast and accurately. Another important benefit of this platform is that it contains data and analysis for both traditional and Airbnb rentals. This allows investors to not only find a profitable deal but also decide on the optimal rental strategy for any location and property. Moreover, the data comes from reliable sources, while the analysis is done with the help of big data, predictive analytics, and machine learning algorithms. This means that Mashvisor’s tools not only evaluate the past performance of neighborhoods and rental properties but also predict how well they will do in the future based on past performance. Another great thing about Mashvisor is the real estate blog section which contains thousands of articles to help new investors get started. All blog posts are written in an accessible, easy-to-understand language and add real value to the experience of investors. Some of the most useful articles include those about buying an investment property and those focusing on the most profitable locations for real estate investing based on Mashvisor’s own data analysis. There are also special sections for real estate investors and property managers. Last but not least, Mashvisor is affordable for all real estate investors. The Basic Plan costs $29.99 when billed quarterly and $24.99 when billed annually, while the Professional Plan costs $58.33 when billed quarterly and $49.92 when billed annually. There is also an Expert Plan which costs $93.33 when billed quarterly and $79.17 when billed annually.
Cons
The main disadvantage of Mashvisor’s real estate data analytics platform is that is covers only the US market.
