Ok, so every once in a while I come across a product that blows my mind away. For different reasons, different products impress me at different times. Keep in mind that I have bought plenty of real estate investor programs and have attended many of the same seminars that many of you have, so I have seen and paid for plenty of products.
I recently stumbled across www.RealEstateNotebook.com and downloaded the 2-week trial version of the product. As I was checking it out and going through the usual test procedures, I was amazed at the no-frills, no sales pitches to buy anything else approach to the program. It was extremely simple, extremely user friendly…It needed no explanation or disclaimers; in short, it was excellent!
So I immediately went back to the website and looked through the pricing…$59.95! So I looked for the “catch.” I kept looking and looking and to my surprise there is no “catch.” It is the real deal. Finally!
Here is what the software is not. It is not flashy, it is not full of sales pitches for other products or upgrades and it is not limited in its use. I loaded up with properties and ran reports and did everything that I would need it for on a regular basis and it worked like a champ. Keep in mind the old adage “garbage in, garbage out” because you are the one entering in the data.
By the way, this is not something that a sophisticated real estate investor would probably use. I would hope that any sophisticated investors would be past this and have their own system developed. If, by some strange chance, you have been investing for years and have multiple properties, then you may want to check this out. My opinion would be to try it out for two weeks to determine if it has the level of functionality that you need and the reporting that would be useful to you and if it exceeds your own system’s capability, then by all means, plunk down $59.95 and revamp your real estate system.
I would say that the Real Estate Notebook is more for beginner to intermediate investors who are still working off of the spreadsheets and basic formulas that they bought from the late night infomercials. I am not saying that any of those programs are bad, I am just saying that you can streamline a lot of what you are doing by using Real Estate Notebook.
Now, if you are considering paying $500-$5000 for any other software and are not an investor at this point, let me give you some advice. The numbers are the most important thing. You need to learn to walk away from a property if the numbers don’t work. PERIOD! The challenge for most new investors is that they don’t know what numbers are important, or forget key components that leave them short on capital to finish a project. That is not going to happen with Real Estate Notebook. It guides you through each transaction and asks you to populate each field that is specific to the transaction. At the end of it, you have a good idea whether you should move forward or not with the property. So, if you are thinking about becoming an investor, it would be wise to download the free trial version because as you answer the questions, you are actually getting trained on what to look for and what questions you should be asking about the property. Trust me when I tell you that I have literally paid thousands of dollars to be told what the Real Estate Notebook “tells” you.
If I could do it all over again, I would pay $59.95 for Real Estate Notebook, versus the $500-$5000 that I paid for my late night infomercial package. But that’s just me. I have been around the block a few times and I am not as easily impressed as I used to be, but I am genuinely impressed with the amount of time and energy that has been put into this streamlined, but very capable software. I also had a chance to speak with the owner and designer of the software, Michael. What a great guy, he is humble and proud of what he has created and why shouldn’t he be? It’s a great product.
I made no bones about telling him that his product was woefully under-priced. If I was him, I would go on the speaking circuit, put it in a flashy box and sell it for at least $499, here’s why. I believe in providing quantifiable value. Here is a guy who has designed a great real estate management system. If you use this software correctly and do your due diligence, you may find that the property you were going to purchase is just not going to pan out, so you don’t buy it. Let’s just say for the moment, that you would have bought it, if you didn’t go through a correct analysis of the property. That property could end up costing you thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of dollars over the course of your ownership. So in one respect, it is like an insurance policy against bad decisions. It doesn’t guarantee that you are going to make great decisions, but it will help steer you clear of bad decisions….You are always welcome to make bad decisions by the way, but at least you will have the advantage of knowing ahead of time that you are about to make a bad decision.
Next, it will help you make better decisions based on data versus scattered notes and loose pieces of paper. You will be able to look back and say with certainty that you made a good decision based on “X” numbers and your real estate business will be based on sound real estate principles, versus speculation.
For what it is worth, I told Michael that I wouldn’t offer a money back guarantee…the price is already ridiculously under priced, and he gives a two week free trial for crying out lout! Use it and you will make your money back in spades. If you are worried about losing $59.95 don’t even bother buying it…keep your day job and work a couple of hours overtime every week, because you are not risk-tolerant and you don’t understand a deal when it is staring you in the face.
Either way, good luck and happy investing.
Robert D. Cass
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