Most investors and agents don't have the tools to find good income properties that meet their financial goals easily. MLS or Zillow searches don't help find good cash flow, equity gain over time or owner-occupied advantages.

Using the SMART Real Estate Investing System^©, it takes minutes to find good investments, vs. hours or days. Contact us to see how easy it is!

We not only work with Duplexes, Triplexes and Fourplexes (because they are easy to get into), but we treat all Single Family properties (including Condos & Townhomes) as though they were an investment.

1. Available Properties: We select all Active listings for the geographical areas (link) we are currently concentrating on.
2. Clean Data: We use our comb through and make sure the data is as accurate as possible. For example, sometimes the Annual Rents are entered as Monthly Rents. We adjust for that.
3. Calculation Factors: We have some basic parameters that we use to do our detailed calculations. These are all based on our experience, analyzing the local market and industry standards. Basic default factors include:
1. Insurance
2. Property Tax
3. Property Management
4. Vacancy Rate
4. "What If?": You can change any of these factors at any time to tailor the calculations to your own individual situation and perform your own "What If?" Analysis in our SMART Real Estate Investing Opportunity Analyzer©

The SMART Residential Income Property Search Engine© automatically calculates the following important "Decision Points" that you need to see if an investment is worth it, based on your criteria:

1. Cash Flow
2. Gross Rent Multiplier (GRM)
3. Cap Rate
4. Total Investment $
5. Ending Property Value
6. Long Term Net Equity Gain
7. Long Term ROI
8. Effective Cash Flow
9. Doubling Year
10. Owner Occupied

Along with the SMART Property Analyzer^©, we provide full amortization calculations, showing Principal and Interest payments for the life of the loan.

This can be useful for determining your Total Principal Paid or Total Interest Paid at any time.

The SMART Cash Flow Calculator^© is a stand-alone program that anyone can use to find out the projected Cash Flow, Net Equity Gain and Opportunity ROI of any property, real or imagined. It's available at www.GotCashFlow.net. All calculations match those that are run automatically by our SMART Real Estate Income Property Search Engine^©, but allows you to do a quick analysis anywhere, anytime. Try it out!

Our SMARTiScore© is a composite of scoring factors allowing for quick, clear evaluation of properties. One point is given for each of the following calculated factors:

For each property:

1. Shows whether the property is above, below or at median rents for the area
2. Shows average GRM for the area for each property
3. Find Cities with Best GRM (measure of investment $ leverage; see Glossary)

This comparative info is a very powerful tool for seeing where investment opportunity exists based on market information.

Using our SMART Real Estate Residential Income Property Search Engine©, you can sort and filter on the selection parameters that meet your investment criteria, including:

1. County, City, Area
2. # Units
3. Price
4. Gross Rent Multiplier (GRM)
5. Down Payment
6. Cash Flow
7. Total Investment
8. Net Equity Gain
9. Net ROI
10. Doubling Year

Our Search Engine starts with a standard set of calculation parameters and automatically calculates all of the important Decision Point factors you need to analyze an income property. Then, we allow you to change any of those parameters, based on your own investment criteria.

Example
* Before: You find a duplex in Long Beach, asking $680,000; current rents: $3,000/month. The GRM is 18.9, and the cash flow is -$435/month. Not a good deal, right?

* After: Your agent runs the comps, and finds the market rents for that type of property in that area are actually $4,400/month. Plugging those numbers into our SMART Opportunity Analyzer©, it shows that the GRM is now 12.9, and the cash flow is +$885/month. Much better investment!

Sometimes you will find an income property that looks attractive, but it actually has a negative cash flow. Don't lose hope! There are things you can do to try to make it a better investment.

Along with the Property Analyzer and stand-alone SMART Cash Flow Calculator, we have tools that allow you to project what rents to charge or price to pay to at least break-even.

For example: there is a single family property in Long Beach, 3 bedrooms, asking $729,000. The rents are $3,400/month.

We calculate that if the rents could be improved to $3,660/month, the cash flow would be better. Also, offering less than the asking price would improve your cash flow also, by lowering the monthly mortgage.

Our agents are trained in how to utilize these strategies to help you get the the best deal.

For any area you are looking at, we graphically present:
Positive Cash Flow properties
Negative Cash Flow properties
Slightly Negative Cash Flow properties
(< $250/month negative; some negative cash flow properites can still show attractive gains over time!)

Here's a sample:


The good news is that we know where all the green pins live!

You can click on the map pins in the live system and pull up full details. Really valuable!

Your equity gain is made up of:

1. Cash Flow Accumulation
2. Appreciation
3. Principal Reduction

Your equity gain increases over time (e.g., 10 years) on a good investment.

The Doubling Year is the year in which the Net Equity Gain is twice your original investment.

A great way to start out investing in real estate is to buy a multi-unit property (e.g., duplex, triplex or fourplex), and live in one unit. That way, the other rents from the other unit(s) help pay your mortgage. It also makes it easier to qualify for a bank loan.

For each property, we calculate your new estimated mortgage if you live in one of the units, and show how much will be covered. Often the other units' rents can pay your entire monthly mortgage, and more!

Good way to improve your cash flow.

We provide the latest data showing property value appreciation trends for any city in our database. We track all of Los Angeles County, back for the past 3 years.

Our charts show a 12-month moving average, which smooths out the monthly ups and downs and shows a truer statistical trend. Note: Some cities will be omitted due to lack of statistically valid data; for example: some cities only have a few duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes sold every month, which is not enough to establish a true trend.

Enrolled investors have access to our SMART Investor Dashboard, which drills down into live data updated hourly for all 1-4 unit properties in Los Angeles County.

For example, you can see Average Price and Average Cash Flow broken down by Single Family, Duplex, Triplex and Fourplex, for any city or Los Angeles County as a whole.

Fun fact: Duplexes are typically about 50% of the 2-4 unit properties in any give area. You can see this an other useful information in our proprietary SMART Investor Dashboard.