When the real estate investing industry was established, investors had only a handful of sources for closing deals. It mostly boiled down to the people you know or the information you acquire from the people you don’t know – i.e. buying seller lists from professionals.
Today, a wealth of information is available online: resources to help you learn how to become a real estate investor, property data, latest industry metrics, networking opportunities – these are all a few clicks away. There are many websites for real estate entrepreneurs, so we put together a list of those that offer great value, so you can bookmark them immediately.
Novices can use this list to avoid being overwhelmed by the vast choice of websites, and seasoned real estate investors can use it to remain in the loop.
Before we delve into the list itself, let’s quickly outline the criteria we used to compile it. If you ask investors “What’s the best real estate investing website?,” everyone will have their own top picks, because they all have different needs.
Rehabers use websites that have data on estimated renovation costs and property appreciation; wholesalers are interested in the current prices of property in real estate markets; while those investors who are after rental income use websites that are focused on rentals.
Our goal is to include a healthy mix of relevant real estate investing websites. Some of our recommendations, like networking websites, data services, and marketing websites, are useful to all investors, as every investor out there needs motivated house sellers – that’s a given.
BiggerPockets is an online forum with 2 million members who, in one way or another, are involved in real estate investing. The website was established back in 2004, and apart from hosting a great networking forum, it’s also a hub for education, with its own real estate bookstore, and news media, with several different podcasts and a popular YouTube channel.
Investors go to BiggerPockets for expert advice, to find venture partners, to use tools (like the calculators) and to keep up with the latest trends.
ActiveRain is a platform designed specifically for real estate networking. Some describe it as “the professional Facebook for real estate investing.” Granted, there is no lack of websites that try to provide online networking opportunities for investors, but ActiveRain has managed to attract a remarkable group of professionals who share their views on hot real estate topics.
Speaking of topics, users can browse the platform based on topics, they can review businesses (contractors, marketing agencies and such), and throw specific questions to the community.
Fortunebuilders was created in 2014 and it banks on its founders 15 years of professional experience in real estate. It’s primarily an educational resource where real estate investors can find useful tips on strategy, financing, and coaching. A lot of these resources are available for free.
REtipster is a website for those investors who like to get a hack from someone who has walked the talk. This blog covers real estate syndication, rental properties, real estate investing tools, investing in land, business processes, etc. It’s a website dedicated exclusively to real estate investing.
We know what you’re thinking: isn’t Zillow a competitor to real estate investors? Well, it’s definitely one of the largest house buyers on the market. Or at least it was, before the recession caused it financial problems and its inventories hit historical lows.
Zillow earns its place on this list because of the great resources available on the platform. Investors spend a lot of money to gain access to listings (MLS) and on Zillow, they can get those listings, along with market data and house flipping tools, for free.
FSBO (for-sale-by-owner) is one of the leading resources for motivated seller listings. It’s a website for sellers who don’t want to sell their house through a real estate agent.
Unfortunately, the FSBO inventory is behind a paywall, so you need to consider whether the cost per lead is affordable to you before you request access.
PropStream is known as a data service that is used for sourcing motivated house sellers. However, investors can also use it for advanced analytics, since the data is pulled from multiple different sources. It’s a website whose mission is to make processes easier by correlating information. If you apply a series of well thought-out filters to the inventory available on PropStream, you can get yourself a motivated seller list for your marketing campaign.
PropStream can help you find off-market properties and at the same time, tools like the rehab calculator allow you to analyze investments without leaving the platform. It has actionable features too, like the skip tracing tool that allows you to uncover the contact details of homeowners.
DealMachine is popular for its digital solutions that optimize driving for dollars. The Driving Route Tracking feature of the app allows investors to make real estate prospecting more efficient as it prevents you from driving along the same street twice. Obviously, DealMachine offers much more than that. It allows you to pull data regarding a property based on a photograph or geo-location.
Investors can create and manage data, lists, and workflows directly from DealMachine, which is great for direct mail campaigns.
Roofstock specializes in transactions of rental properties. It’s the passive real estate investing dream because the properties that get bought and sold are occupied by tenants. Roofstock is useful to part-time and out-of-state investors who have the money to invest.
Often, the buyers on Roofstock have never visited the properties that bring them rental income.
HousingWire is a website where you can find news items, tips, opinion pieces, and sponsored posts from all sorts of real estate professionals, you know, like in old-fashioned newspapers.
The focus of the articles available on HousingWire are on the housing market, mortgage regulations, and the latest trends. It’s where investors go to check out news on proptech or new applications of information technologies on the real estate markets.
Trulia’s target audience are buyers and it’s basically a listing of properties for sale. These guys are actually focused on selling a lifestyle to their users instead of simply selling a property, and they’ve done a great job.
On Trulia, investors can find elaborate details on neighborhoods – things like cost of living, buyer guides, and real estate trends. It’s a unique website which allows people to submit what’s called ‘resident reviews’, i.e. feedback from potential neighbors on how it feels to live in the community.
SparkRental is property management software that allows investors to handle landlord tasks online. Investors use it for tenant screening, filling up vacant rental properties, online rent collection, rental cash flow calculators, all sorts of e-docs (online rent collection, tenant screening reports), etc.
It’s a website that offers in-depth guides and tools for landlords. For example, the tenant screening reports provide details about credit history, criminal records, and eviction notices. SparkRental’s interface is lean and easy to use.
Mashvisor’s forte is property data, especially Airbnb investment properties. However, there are many tools for analyzing traditional real estate markets, as well: rental property calculator, occupancy data, cash on cash return, and filtering of properties based on a handful of categories.
Mashvisor has its own podcast, news section, and blogs by agents, investors, and experts.
AdwordsNerds is the leading online marketing agency for real estate investors. They provide coaching for those investors who wish to learn about search engine optimization, Google Ads pay-per-click, and Facebook Ads.
Investors who have the money, but don’t have the time, can hire AdwordsNerds to create and manage the online ad campaigns for their real estate investing business. On this website, investors can find the content-rich REI marketing nerds podcast and a blog with posts for both novices and seasoned investors. Through the Marketing Nerds group on Facebook, investors can network with others in the industry.
InvestorFuse is a website built around a product – a CRM system with automated workflows. The central idea of the CRM system is to save the investor’s time while increasing performance. Lead management is a hot topic for real estate investors, particularly when it comes to deals that are left on the table due to a lack of streamlined in-house processes. These guys’ mission is to rectify that.
InvestorFuse has a podcast, a blog, and a section where investors can explore features of the CRM system.
Carrot is a website for creating real estate investing websites. Credibility is very important in the real estate business, and especially for finding motivated sellers. Carrot creates websites that are tailored to rank high in organic searches through SEO, but these templates are also developed to appeal to website visitors and boost conversions.
Carrot has a community of thousands of investors, a blog with tips on conversion, and a lot of free educational resources.
This concludes our list of real estate websites worth bookmarking. Again, you may choose only a handful of these websites because they are relevant for your business at this moment – it all depends on the types of deals you are after.
Whatever your motivation is, you have a collection of real estate investing websites that are packed with learning resources and useful tools for networking, data services, software, marketing, and real estate trends that will help you to improve your real estate business.
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