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Real estate investors should pay attention to the cash flow of their properties, which per this article is the amount of income from the property (e.g., rents collected) less operating expenses and financing payments. Per the article: “Negative cash flow may be OK for a short period of time while renovations are being completed or while a property is being leased up. But, sustained periods of negative cash flow are usually bad news for commercial real estate investments“.
For real estate investors with multiple properties in their portfolios, keeping track of overall cash flows could be challenging. In this case you’ll likely want to look into property management software specialized in real estate properties. However, this software may not track your investment portfolio performance and expenses alongside your other assets, income and expenses.
You may also be using funds from your self-directed retirement accounts for real-estate investments alongside other diversified investment types, which your property management software may not track. Regardless of the accounts in your personal and investment portfolios, you must allocate funds between safer investments (such as cash for immediate life or real-estate expense needs) and longer term inflation-beating assets (such as stocks).
How Can FarPlanner Help?
FarPlanner is a financial planning tool that estimates cash flows and account balances into the future. FarPlanner was created with real estate investing in mind, but it’s currently focused on personal financial management plans, so lacks important features:
- Advanced tax features, such as depreciation, expense deductions and 1031 exchanges.
- Advanced reporting and tenant-tracking capabilities that true property management software provides.
However, FarPlanner might be able to provide a ‘first order estimate’ of future cash flow and account balances, with these specific benefits:
- For each home or apartment asset you own, quickly add a home asset ‘tracker’ to your FarPlanner plan to model it.
- Each home tracker bundles together an asset value estimator as well as loans, expenses and income trackers. FarPlanner even models refinancing into lower rate loans, including from hard-money to conventional loans.
- Add home trackers for current as well as planned future asset purchases.
- Add as many home trackers as you need to represent your portfolio, including your own home.
- Add other assets (e.g., cars), accounts (including taxable and retirement accounts) and even your own family members’ expenses and income.
FarPlanner can then quickly simulate cash flows and account balances for all of the above, for decades into the future. It can also suggest allocations to make now between your accounts to meet these future needs.
These simulations might reveal future problem spots where cash reserves go low or negative, or when cash flows aren’t sufficient to overcome expenses. You can then play what-if games, moving around planned asset purchases or remodels to avoid financial pitfalls.
Download FarPlanner for free today, to build your own private discrete FarPlanner plan and gain insights of what your financial tomorrow might look like, decades into the future.