Hi Tina,
Here are some of the apps I and my team use categorized in all the different areas of the business:
These are online marketing tools very handy for grouping niches, interests, or businesses. I use these social media tools for my real estate business to engage, aid, and interact with likeminded professionals and potential clients.
- Facebook Pages
- LinkedIn
- Twitter
- Hootsuite – is a tool I use to manage all the above social media tools. It is a place where I can enter my publications and could be posted to all my accounts at once. This saves me lots of valuable time.
- MyREINSpace
- Bagorio.com (powered by WordPress)– Company website to establish even further our online presences. A site where our partners and clients can read our blogs, and get more information about the business and who we are.
When filling vacancies today… Gone are the days of the paper form advertising. The internet is where all of us are looking for anything we need. With our mobile devices, it made thing very accessible.
- RentFaster
- RentBoard
- Kijiji
For communication we use phone, email and texting for most case because it is quick and easy. But for more involved situations, at times it is still better to have the old fashion personable way of a face to face communication.
For managing our files or documents these tools are very handy for accessing and sharing anywhere. It enables us to be more agile by providing us with a virtual office.
- MyCloud – a personal cloud that can be set up in your internal network at home/office and it can be securely accessed anywhere via all of your preferred devices like your smart phone, PC, or laptop. This is to guaranty that you have a full handle of your important and confidential files in your own server and network.
- Google Drive and Drop box are also a good way for storing and sharing your less critical documents. I use this mainly for sharing less secured and non confidential stuff. For example:
- Spreadsheet of a To Do list for all of the properties that my team (PM, contractors, helpers, admins, cleaners, etc…) can access. Perfect of managing and delegating work.
- Sharing files to other professional team members like mortgage brokers, lawyer, and accountants. One good example, in maintaining an up-to-date investor’s binder, I scan the documents that my mortgage brokers and bankers needs and upload them regularly.
For bookkeeping and financial reporting we use the following tools:
- Quicken Rental Property Manager – Not only for keeping tract of our Rent Incomes and Expenses, but we also use this tool for managing our properties per door and the tenants it contains.
- We can also generate accounting and financial data for our tax filing, and as well for reports attached to our quarterly reporting for our JV partners.
For banking tools, we are very thankful for the mobile apps that most banks now provide for download. No more rushing and lining up to depositing rent checks at the first of the month by visiting the bank tellers in near by branch. Just take pictures of the cheque and deposit using your smart phone. One other thing that we love is with the instant eTransfer or interact transfer for rent payments. Very cool and convenient…Deposits can now be done anywhere any time in the comfort of your living room.
For doing analysis for the business (due diligence during acquisitions, operational, or management in general) we mostly use Microsoft Excel. This tool is very handy and easy to use for some of our calculations, data mining, and reporting. It is quick and easy to use for doing simple business analytics from its Descriptive, Diagnostic, and Prescriptive sense to aid us in our future projection and direction.