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Commercial Real Estate Pro Network

Commercial Real Estate Professionals who work with Investors, Buyers and Sellers of Commercial Real Estate. We discuss todays opportunities, problems & solutions in Commercial Real Estate.
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Now displaying: Page 1
Apr 2, 2020

Custom software solutions can make real estate professionals more productive for less cost.

Dan Moore is the founder and CEO at Vaporware Vaporware Custom Software headquartered in Raleigh, NC.  After graduation form Georgia Tech Dan first worked for large software companies where he was not close to the problems the software was designed to solve.  Wanting to be closer to the users with problems his software designs could help, he started his own consulting firm.  

Custom software weighs viability, feasibility and utility.  There is a great deal of satisfaction when the software solution to the problem contains all three.

Custom Software for Real Estate 

An example of custom software for real estate that Vaporwrare has worked on is 

Servusconnect.  This is a software solution for multifamily maintenance scheduling, which helps reduce the time necessary to turn a unit.  The service order is initiated by the resident, and instantly, maintenance calendar is scheduled.  

Upon completion of the repair request, the resident receives a satisfaction survey, which feeds the online reputation platforms.  A good custom software solution allows the user to communicate easily, collect measurable data, and generate useful reports that enable the user to be more prepared for future events.  When data is used properly, you can run a more profitable operation.  

Levels of Software

Custom software ranges from fully custom to just one function that plugs into another software platform through API.  Dan believes that the selected custom software operation is a better use of time and money. In this way you are able to customize the part you need to work better and get a robust solution.  If you try to build the entire solution from the ground up, you end up with lesser degrees of great all the way around.  

There are multiple excellent software solutions already available for things like payment collection.  If you use MRI or Yardi for your property management software your custom software can plug into and work with these using API.  Therefore you do not have to build a complete system from the ground up and your staff will not have to be retrained to utilize your custom software.   

Ideas for Custom Software

For any data you collect and track in a spreadsheet, a custom software solution can be created to make data collection easier and more user friendly.  Some reasons to consider a custom solution include;

  • You have created multiple spreadsheets, and cannot find them when needed.  So, you recreate the information.
  • You organize information, but are not able to access it on a mobile device when you are in the field.
  • Speed is critical
  • Standardization is desired
  • You work with large data bases on a regular basis
  • Custom communication to many individuals is desired.

When Custom Software Makes Sense

The decision to have custom software created is involved.  For organizations that are large enough to adopt the software for your own use.  The cost tends to be more justifiable for companies with more than 50 employees and $10-$20 million in annual revenue.  

If you can identify a single problem, and then find others with the same problem, you can start to determine if there is a market for your solution.  When there are enough people with the problem who are willing to pay, it can make sense to spend for a custom solution that you could then sell to others.

Depending on your needs, custom software can cost as much as you want to spend.  Vaporware approach takes into consideration the clients current solution cost and tries to determine what are the minimum output that will be helpful.  Small custom software solutions can start as low as $5 - $10 thousand dollars.  

User Benefits

User benefits are maximized when the programmer and user are able to communicate to develop specific benefits for the user.  More input allows the developer to continue to improve the product so that the end product is easy to use and collects the wanted data.   The output allows the company to put the info to future use and improve the output..  

BIGGEST RISK 

Each week I ask my guest, “What is the Biggest Risk Real Estate Investors face?”  

BIGGEST RISK:  I think the BIGGEST RISK for all of us in our personal, professional lives is speed. Time is a very limited resource for us all. Time is how opportunities kind of come and go. If we talked a little bit earlier about being able to know if a property is going to go on the market before it does, being able to operate faster than the competition. 

So I would definitely have to say speed. The speed at which we can operate, the speed at which we can save our time and do passive investments and be able to realize value faster and see more opportunities and the right opportunities faster. So anything that we can do to be faster at what we do and relying on computers is a good way to do that.

For more go to:

Website: www.vaporware.net

Email: Dan@vaporware.net

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