What PropStream Software Does for Investors

Going into real estate means that you’ll be investing quite a sum of money into a property and expecting a good return from selling it or renting it out.

However, buying rental property can be a lengthy and thorough process (that is, if you do it manually). But thanks to new real estate investment tools and technology that keeps on evolving, investors who adopt it early obtain a greater competitive advantage than those who don’t. One of the tools that can be helpful in your investment journey is PropStream software. 

The new technologies typically fall into two categories: tools you can use to find the best deals on properties and software for property management. With real estate investing becoming mostly online nowadays, there are many tools at your disposal that offer different capabilities. Today, we will be taking a closer look at the PropStream software and its capabilities when it comes to real estate market analysis.

Let’s dive into it!

What Is PropStream Software?

In the real estate investment software market, PropStream is a platform that serves as a source of real estate data across the United States. It is targeted at brokers, realtors, real estate investors, and anyone else who’s in need of property data.

Its main features can be divided into three main categories:property research, lead identification, and marketing.

The platform offers information about newly listed properties in the target markets, and it further customizes those offerings using its detailed targeting criteria. These criteria allow investors to filter properties according to what they’re looking for.

Investors use PropStream real estate software to find property owners who are looking to sell. The platform’s database constantly adds new leads, including residential, industrial, commercial, and other types of real estate.

There’s a variety of filters investors can use to search for properties and narrow down their focus in the sea of property data. With the paid package, searches are unlimited and can be narrowed down more to show expired listings, involuntary liens, past transaction details, etc.

And then, there’s also the marketing feature. Investors can use it to reach out to prospective homebuyers, advertise (to a certain extent), and track marketing results and statistics.

Related: The Ultimate Investment Property Search Tool

Property Search with Comprehensive Nationwide Data

Finding investment property is considered the most time-consuming and challenging task in real estate. If done manually, it can take days or even weeks to find a property worth investing in. Looking in online directories, searching Facebook, looking up names on white pages, and rummaging through tax records can be quite tedious.

PropStream software comes with a built-in search tool to help investors find income properties for sale according to different criteria, such as office, residential, commercial, transportation, recreational, agricultural, industrial, and vacant land. They can also search by property type, like single-family houses, multi-family houses, townhouses, etc.

Finding Lucrative Airbnb Properties with PropStream

When looking to invest in a rental property that you plan to put on the Airbnb map, PropStream doesn’t really offer Airbnb data or properties with high rental potential. Instead, investors can use its property finder tool (for both rental and buy-and-hold deals) to locate undervalued or distressed properties. Distressed properties (those burdened by bankruptcy, preforeclosure, involuntary liens, or divorce) are an excellent way to get a discount on your Airbnb property.

However, PropStream software doesn’t provide the tools or data to find short-term rental properties that can bring you some profits in the future. You can use it for rental comps, average days on market, and investment potential, which are all essential pieces of information for Airbnb analytics. But when it comes to real estate investing for beginners, they encounter problems related to finding the short-term rental potential of a property. It is not strange since new investors are not that familiar with real estate calculations and projections.

Related: How to Find the Best Area for Airbnb Investment

Supplement Your Search with Mashvisor’s Property Finder

Mashvisor is a viable PropStream software alternative that comes with a few handy real estate investment tools that lean towards traditional and Airbnb investors. It can actually be seen in the features and data they bring forward. For example, when you look at a specific neighborhood, you have separate tabs that show information for traditional rentals and Airbnb properties.

In each of these tabs, you get data on cash flow (data that’s broken down month-to-month). You also have another tab that shows recent purchases in that neighborhood, and then a tab where the platform presents you with lucrative types of investment in the neighborhood.

• Median Property Price: $624,680
• Airbnb Listings: 12
• Airbnb Occupancy Rate: 65%
• Airbnb Rental Income: $7,659
• Airbnb Cash on Cash Return: 8.55%

Beginner investors have the Property Finder tool at their disposal, which enables them to find the most lucrative Airbnb properties for sale. You can also search for off-market properties, foreclosures, and MLS listings in any city. The criteria you can use to narrow your search down include:

• Property type
• City and neighborhood
• Budget
• Minimum number of bedrooms
• Minimum number of bathrooms
• Financing method
• Airbnb cap rate
• Airbnb cash on cash return
• Airbnb rental income

Then, hit search and watch Mashvisor present you with listings that match your criteria and in decreasing order according to Airbnb cash on cash return. By clicking on a property you like, you will find yourself on a page that presents you with the investment property analysis.

Rental Property Analysis

Knowing the best markets to invest in is what is most important to an investor. And by “knowing,” we mean understanding all the KPIs (key performance indicators) of a real estate property and what to pay attention to. PropStream real estate software can provide information such as:

• Market snapshot (Number of open liens, overall neighborhoods, on or off-market counts, etc.)
• Current vs. historical inventory
• Average number of days a property sits on the market before being sold
• Sales price trends in the market
• Average price per square foot
• Google Earth Street views and mapping

Just like Mashvisor, PropStream software offers an analysis of the investment potential of rental properties in the US. A software like PropStream pulls its real estate data from MLS records, county recordings, and private data sources. They regularly update info such as:

• MLS listings
• Foreclosed properties and real estate owned (REO)
• Preforeclosure filings and public auctions
• Free and clear properties
• High equity
• Vacant properties
• Non-owner occupied properties
• Linked properties
• HOA and mechanic’s liens
• Tax liens
• Mortgage information
• Cash buyers
• Divorce filings
• Deceased owners
• Bankruptcy filings
• Senior owners
• Rental values
• Flippers

If you use Mashvisor instead as your PropStream alternative, in addition to the information listed above, you also get access to Airbnb information such as:

• Airbnb occupancy rate
• Airbnb daily rate
• Airbnb cap rate
• Airbnb rental income
• Breakdown of startup costs, closing costs, and recurring rental expenses

Related: What’s the Best Airbnb Analytics Platform?

Comparable Properties

PropStream’s Instant Comparables feature helps investors take into account the average values of similar properties from the same neighborhood to determine the real value of the property they’re interested in. The platform uses data it pulls from several listings, and the data includes:

• Distance from the subject property
• Last sale date
• Square footage
• Date range
• Number of bathrooms
• Number of bedrooms

Mashvisor’s Rental Comps provides Airbnb comps (besides traditional comps) that allow you to find out how much other landlords are charging for renting a similar property. It will help you optimize your rental pricing for the best return on investment, helping you keep your ROI high and vacancy rate low.

Rehab Estimator

PropStream’s Rehab Estimator is beneficial to both wholesale real estate investors and house flippers. The real estate calculator found here is the same one used by insurance companies for estimating actual home rehab costs with high accuracy.

This tool includes all types of repair and improvement works, such as plumbing, electrical, flooring, and roofing. It can generate two different estimates by using local labor and material costs. It will help investors realize the true cost of rehab if they hire a contractor to do it or if they do it themselves.

Property Deal Analyzer

The Property Deal Analyzer was made for those who want to get their hands on detailed information on the investment and transaction process of a certain deal. It can help you calculate deal figures such as:

• Property expenses
• Total purchase price
• Detailed mortgage analysis
• Mortgage amount
• Cash flow
• Projected (traditional) rental income
• Tax information and deductions

It also provides general market performance in the area you choose, sought-after home trends and features, nearby property sales prices, local rental price trends, etc.

Mashvisor also contributes with short-term rental information and its Mortgage Calculator. Whether you’re paying for a property with a mortgage or in cash, it produces different results. With Mashvisor’s real estate calculator, you can even calculate your mortgage payment in order to better project your cash on cash return (future rental profitability) and how long it would take to pay off the property.

Rental Data

Both PropStream and Mashvisor lie on the foundation of Big Data. Compiling an abundance of raw data doesn’t mean much if the platform is not powerful enough to analyze and present it accurately. Both of these websites offer excellent analytics tools, but are there any differences?

Data Accuracy: PropStream vs. Mashvisor

As we already mentioned, PropStream real estate software pulls its data from MLS records, county recordings, and private data sources. It also obtains its data through different channels, but it exports the information for verification by comparing it to other sources. Some of the sources include Roofstock, Auction.com, Airbnb, Zillow, and Realtor.com (among others).

Mashvisor uses multiple sources from which it obtains its data. Then, it exports the data to verify its accuracy by comparing it with multiple sources. Some of its sources are Realtor.com, Airbnb, Auciton.com, Roofstock, etc., to name a few.

Furthermore, Mashvisor uses the median price when calculating average house values. The platform’s approach is deemed more reliable, robust, and accurate because it eliminates outliers that may distort the real estate market analysis. Also, Mashvisor takes Airbnb into consideration, pulling data from long-time Airbnb hosts (with more than three reviews).

Rental Strategies

Whether we’re talking about buy-and-hold, house flipping, investing in short term rentals, or wholesaling, PropStream software can be reliable. It allows investors to quickly find properties across the country due to organized data and advanced filtering.

Real estate investors can make use of it to find:

• Hot investment markets
• Costs of flipping
• Comps in specific areas

House flipping and buy-and-hold strategies can bring a substantial return on investment, but short-term rentals can also be very lucrative. They typically produce a much higher ROI, especially if you nail the location right.

Mashvisor jumps in here again because, with its Airbnb data, you can use it to build a profitable short-term rental strategy. With Mashvisor’s detailed information, you’ll be able to calculate whether it’s more profitable to go down that path. Just be sure to check where in the US Airbnb is actually legal.

Related: 20 Cities With No Airbnb Legal Issues

Pricing

Enough about the capabilities and more about something that affects anyone interested in real estate investment software. Right, the price.

PropStream software price is $99 per month per 10,000 properties. It is the only subscription option available to users, and it includes:

• A 7-day free trial
• Nationwide property search (up to 10,000 monthly property data exports)
• Targeted property lists
• Unlimited property searches
• Rehab Estimator PropStream reviews
• Property Deal Analyzer
• Instant Comparables
• Marketing tools

We also need to take into consideration that there are upgrades (if you want to make more than 10,000 property data saves/exports). It can be leveraged for making smart data-driven decisions, but it lacks information on the short-term rental market.

On the other hand, Mashvisor offers three subscription options: Lite ($17.99/month), Standard ($49.99/month), and Professional ($79.99/month). With the most expensive option being lower than the PropStream software cost, it makes Mashvisor a much more affordable option for real estate analysis and finding properties across the US. As far as investment property analytics, time-saving methods, and pricing, Mashvisor is the more cost-effective option.

Summary

We’ve just made a comprehensive overview of PropStream software, its advantages and downsides, and how it can help in buying rental property. Also, we mentioned where Mashvisor could jump in to help, thanks to its more comprehensive database. If you’re interested in finding more about the Mashvisor platform, feel free to sign up for a free 7-day trial.