Top Non-Guru Websites Every Real Estate Investor Should Know About (And Probably Be Using)
By JP Moses on Oct 7, 2008 in Featured, Off Topic
So I was just listing a new property on Postlets again the other day…and thinking to myself,
“Man…how dang cool is this? I mean, what an incredible marketing resource for real estate investors to have access to?”
So then I got this idea to put together an article sharing some of the top, most important non-guru websites that every real estate investor should know about and probably be using.
And believe me, Postlets is right at the top of the list. Right there with Google Maps and Craigslist.
But suddenly I got to thinking that you guys have probably discovered and are privy to a good number of great online resources that I’m not even privy to…
Then it hit me — BLAMO! — Crowdsourcing Blitz!
Crowdsourcing can mean a couple of different things. But in this case it’s a fancy word for having others in a community (i.e. you) help create valuable content to share with everyone else.
So let’s “crowdsource” our efforts and put together a killer list of top REI websites!
So here’s the deal…
- All you need to do is leave a comment (below) with the best, most useful websites you’re aware of online. And specifically I mean useful to in your real estate investing endeavors. Whether it’s a research tool, lead source, social networking or bookmarking device or whatever.
. - Tell us the full URL / website address, plus a few words about why you think it’s so great that others should be aware of it. In other words, what’s the practical use of it?
. - Even if you see someone else has already left your top pick, go ahead and chime in with it anyway. That way we can tell which one’s are really the most popular picks.
. - And again, please remember we’re not looking for guru-websites this go around. Yes, some of them are great resources. But please let’s save that for a separate list and a post of it’s own, OK?
So that’s it. Go at it! Let’s see what you got! Chime in below.
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4 Comment(s)
By hanh (2 comments) on Oct 12, 2008 | Reply
http://www.investorsloungeonline.com/ has a similar feature like postlet for members to list properties and syndicate across the real estate portals. It is free and all are welcome to try it out!
There are some new tools coming out in the new year as well!
http://www.investorsloungeonline.com/
By Lauren (5 comments) on Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
Just found this blog by reading the Virtual Bird Dog Blueprint (couldn’t put it down…definitely a must read!!) and I am totally amazed at the honesty and no B.S. that everyone portrays in their comments.
Ok so now to my top non-guru real estate investing websites. They made my top list if they met two criteria: 1.) FREE or relatively inexpensive and 2.) Provided good sources of tools and information for real estate investing
1. Del.icio.us(http://del.icio.us/): Are you having a hard time keeping track of all the interesting web pages you find? Would you like access to your bookmarks from any computer? Then this is the perfect web tool! This social bookmarking site allows you to have all your bookmarks in one place that are stored online and you can share them with other people. The advantage to this site is that you can access your bookmarks on ANY computer. In addition, you can search and tag your bookmarks to help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection. No more organizing your bookmarks into folders!
Cost: FREE
2. Motivated Seller Leads (www.wehavehomeleads.com): It’s easy to make BIG MONEY in real estate when you have an endless supply of motivated seller leads. That is why I want to share a valuable resource with you for finding motivated seller leads that are desperately waiting to hear from you today. This is not your normal lead service. Instead of just getting a list of names and addresses, you get ACTUAL motivated sellers who have submitted a request to be called by an investor directly. It’s the difference between a HOT “lead” and cold “lead”. There are no contracts or long term commitments. If you don’t like their service, you just initiate a cancellation within the first 30 days before the trial ends.
Cost: $1 Trial for 30 days and $99.99 each month thereafter*
* To get your internet leads for only $1, make sure to enter “lr2008″ in the promo
code box when you sign up
3. Rentometer (www.rentometer.com): Charging too little for rent? Paying too much for rent? Well look no further! By entering your rental information: address, city, state, zip, estimated monthly rent, bedrooms, and number of units, rentometer will analyze your property and let you know whether your rent is on target, overpriced, or too low. The advantage to this site is that it compares your rent against other rents in your area and gives you lowest, median, and highest rent based on the span of rental values in proximity to your address. No more guessing how much rent to charge!
Cost: FREE
4. Rentomatic (www.rentomatic.com): Managing your rental properties has never been easier with this site. This online rent-payment system saves you time and stress from billing, collecting and depositing rents. It’s easy, safe and low-cost. Fill your vacancies fast with ads that post to Craigslist, Rentometer, Google, and Oodle. I personally used this site to advertise my rental property and in less than a week had over 1,500 people view my ad on Craigslist (that’s not even including the other ads posted on google, oodle, and rentometer). The advantage of this site is that you can now automate those monthly, mundane tasks you hate to do. And more. Talk about property management simplified and affordable. Never again hear, “the check’s in the mail.”
Cost: FREE to use if you don’t automate the rents or $5/unit to automate the rents or if you have 5 units or higher, choose from one of their affordable monthly plans starting at $9.95.
5. Zoho Show (http://show.zoho.com): Everyone has to do a PowerPoint presentation sometime in their life. This online tool is used for making powerful presentations. Whether you are a professional, a teacher, a student, a businessman, a salesman or anyone looking to put together a cool presentation, you have come to the right place. Zoho Show’s pre-built themes, clipart, and shapes coupled with features like drag-and-drop makes it an easy application to use. The advantage to this site is you can edit, import, create, and publish PowerPoint presentations online. In addition, you can give a presentation to a client who is half a globe away. Who wouldn’t want to do their demos while at their seat!?!
Cost: FREE for personal use
6. Guru (www.guru.com): This user-friendly site provides businesses with the ability to find the help they need from a variety of talented Freelancers worldwide. Imagine your business needs a project completed (i.e. brochures, logo, website, etc.) but you don’t want to spend a lot of money to have it completed. By posting your project on this site, freelancers actually provide free competitive quotes allowing you the ability to award your project to the most competitive, cost effective freelancer. There is no obligation to hire. Afraid that they will run off with your money? Not a chance using this site. Once connected, you can securely pay freelancers through Guru.com’s SafePay system. By using SafePay Escrow, you are guaranteed 100% satisfaction with your project results.
Cost: FREE to post project, search for freelancers, and get free quotes – if you decide to actually have your project completed, then it will cost you (cost depends on project type and quotes from freelancers)
7. Tada List (www.tadalist.com): Scatterbrained? Disorganized? If you never can remember what tasks you have, Tada List will do it for you. It will help you keep track of whatever it is that you need to do and easily is accessible from any computer, wherever you are. You can create as many “to do” lists as you like or what not, and then track your items via RSS. For a step up, try Backpack (www.backpackit.com). It manages your tasks, but also allows you to set up pages to store important files, photos and the like.
Cost: FREE
8. Box (www.box.net): Do you need a place to store and manage your files but don’t want to carry a thumb drive around in your pocket? This simplified online file system is used by over 1,000,000 Individuals, Small Businesses, and Large Enterprises. Whether you are accessing your files from a remote computer, sending a large presentation or video to a client or relative, or collaborating with teammates on a work or school project, Box will become part of your everyday life. Do you need extended storage, large file sending, SSL encryption and password protection for your shared files? Upgrade and get these features easily while storing up to 15GB of files.
Cost: FREE to use lite version which allows you to store files up to 1GB then plans start at $7.95/month
9. TubeMogul (www.tubemogul.com): Instead of wasting TONS of your precious time up-loading one video to many different video sharing sites (where, by the way, viewers are always hungry for new videos), you just upload them at TubeMogul and BOOM, those videos are instantly uploaded to over a dozen video sharing sites just from your ONE account on TubeMogul. It also tracks how your videos are doing at those different sites so you can actually analyze the results.
Cost: FREE for personal use (deploy up to 150 videos/month)
10. Click2Mail (www.click2mail.com): The quick, easy, affordable way to create and mail postcards, brochures, letters, and more. It’s free-to-use Mailing Online Publisher offers a new approach to putting print back to work for your organization. Its Web browser-based tools provide all you need to manage your lists and to create, personalize, and proof your mailing pieces. It is a system that completely eliminates the need for sorting, labeling, applying postage, and delivery to a post office—they do it all for you for just a little more than you would normally pay for the postage alone.
Cost: Price is based on the format (postcard, flyer, booklet, letter, etc.) and the number you print. Example: Compose and mail 10 postcards to 10 different addresses for under $5 (less than 50 cents per piece – all costs included)
P.S. Tell me what you HONESTLY think…love to get feedback whether good
or bad 
By Lauren (5 comments) on Nov 2, 2008 | Reply
http://www.cloudcontacts.com/ - Do you have a wad of business cards? I know you have one right? Just about every person I know have one. Well, now you can easily take those business cards and get ALL of them data entered so you can simply add to your email, database or your favorite contact directory just $30
http://www.echosign.com - I don’t know how many of you have considered Digital Signatures but I’m really liking this site. Some of the cool features besides the fact that you can upload any document and sign it as well as get other peoples signatures…are that it acts like a document storage and organizer. You can view the documents on the site without having to open Adobe Reader. It also will allow you to have people fax into your account & converts the faxes to PDF’s which can then be emailed where they need to go. I love this! I don’t know how many of you use e-fax but I’ve heard people have trouble with it. I can also have people send documents to a unique email address that automatically stores the document and sends me an email when a document has been stored. I don’t know how many times I’ve opened an email and thought, “I’ll download this document in a minute.” Then it goes to my old mail & I forget about it & it eventually expires. I even forward emails that have attachments to that email address, then I know they are always there to view. They’ve got some really cool accolades from some top companies like IBM etc. They also have an archive of the Esign Act passed in 2000 that provides legal documentation for Esigning. Apparently, President Bush Esigned the 2007 Budget. Pretty cool if you ask me. The best part is it’s only $12.95/mo.
By Lauren (5 comments) on Nov 2, 2008 | Reply
http://www.protmc.com - As a busy real estate professional your days are spent answering calls, following up on leads, negotiating offers and viewing properties. Additionally, you have to make sure that the deals you have under contract are moving along or……….No One Will Get Paid! The Online Closing Team at TMC is always ready to Manage the Details of any real estate transaction from contract to close (virtual closing coordinator). You no longer need to worry about collating reams of paperwork for your files.
http://www.primopdf.com/ - A FREE PDF creator? No way but it’s true! Create PDF files optimized for print, screen, ebook, or prepress. Convert any document to PDF from any file you can print including Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and Excel.