To maximise your returns when investing in property, it is critical to consider the numbers that are relevant to your future property acquisitions just as you would do with stocks.

Once you have agreed on the location that you are planning to invest in (the aspects you should take into consideration when choosing a target area form part of our property investment selection criteria article, but fall beyond the extent of this article), you should take a comprehensive Inspection Check List which you can fill out whilst inspecting each property.

You could create your own such checklist sheet, locate one on the Internet, or alternatively use a real estate analysis software designed for this use.

One such award winning program is the POSH Property Owner System. POSH Property Owner Software is actually two programs in 1, as it consists of a Property Analysis Component, in addition to a detailed Management Component.

The entire workflow of the software is in actual fact created to mimic the real estate investment process from inspection, through to purchase, funding, letting, and ultimately selling.

The Analysis Part allows you to analyse and evaluate multiple prospective acquisitions against one another with a thorough Inspection Check List which you can print out and bring with you when viewing potential purchases.

Afterwards, upon returning to your home or office, you can submit your entries into the program in order to evaluate gross vs net yields, dollars per square meter, price-earnings ratios, internal rate of return, forecast capital growth, and before and after tax income. The reports it then generates will allow you to evaluate and evaluate several potential acquisitions against one another.

Beyond the analysis facets of the software, it also allows you to manage your property portfolio by allowing you to enter and keep track of all revenue and expenses that are relevant to each of your properties. This includes such things as loan interest and related mortgage and refinance costs, tenancy and lease information, property management expenses, council and water rates and insurance, and maintenance costs.

Once entered, POSH Property Program enables you to generate thorough revenue and expense reports, depreciation schedules, rent receipts, and can calculate your capital gains tax you would need to pay upon sale. Another function enables you to create a detailed budget and contrast it, as time passes, with your actual revenue and expenses.

Along with the benefits sumarised above, using a program like the POSH Property Owner System will also ease your workload at tax time. With all of your revenue and expense data pre-entered as it was incurred during the course of the previous year, you only need to press a few buttons to generate a handful of reports to take to your accountant, and these will include all the information he or she is likely to need to prepare your income return.

Maybe you are not preparing to be the next Rick Otton in property investment, with dozens of properties in your portfolio, but you need not be in order for POSH to be of noteworthy help and benefit to you. Property investment is a capital intensive game, so the cost of software like POSH is a pittance when contrasted with the financial reward you could glean from the education and breakdown provided in the Analysis Module of POSH in assisting you to decide on a property that is likely to outperform the others in a given suburb.

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