Successful real estate investors know it’s a numbers game. Being able to analyze statistics, evaluating them and then reacting to your analysis can separate the good real estate investor from the not so good.

Emotions play a part when one selects a home to live in. But when buying or selling property strictly as an investment function, leave the emotions at the door. As Sergeant Friday used to say on the old Dragnet television show, “just the facts, ma’am,” facts are what you need to base your investment decision on.

There are a number of new technology tools available to help investors separate facts from blue-sky fiction and over enthusiastic promoters.

Here is a list of some of the best:

1.Mortgage Calculator & Mortgage Rate Apps

Zillow has one of the best mortgage calculators apps around. Whether you’re looking to calculate payments on a possible property purchase or prepare a financial deal or refinance an existing mortgage, this app is both fast and easy to use.

A quick glance at the Zillow app on your iPhone or tablet when you are evaluating real estate projects to determine if the deal fits into your plans saves not only time but the danger of making snap decisions without knowing the numbers.

2.Real Estate by Trulia

This app is a very effective and user-friendly adaptation of the original Trulia Website. Always known for its investor-friendly tools, Trulia’s Real Estate app helps you find listings on properties and surrounding comparables in any area of the country. Coupled with an incredible interactive mapping feature, this is one app every serious real investor should have in their arsenal of tools.

Another similar site is the flat fee MLS listing site, Fizber. One of the biggest killers of margins is closing costs and realtor costs. Fizber allows you to get your property listed on the MLS for a small fee, giving you access to nearly 80% of US homebuyers.

3.Skype

If you’re not using Skype in your real estate investing business, you’d be wise to get on board and add it to your tool box.

Skype was a pioneer in free internet voice and video chat. They continue to dominate the market as one of the cheapest phone service providers around. Their face-to-face conference call function brings clients and buyers and sellers together from anywhere in the world. Once thought of as only science fiction, Skype has given us the incredible ability to converse in live pictures from a mobile device at any time of the day and anywhere around the globe.

4.Genius Scan

Going paperless, a goal of most innovative real estate investors, is made easier with the Genius Scan app. You no longer need a computer of a fax machine to forward documents to clients or banks. The Genius Scan turns any image into a pdf document in only seconds that has the finished look of a high-quality regular scanned document. And being that this quality app is FREE, it’s a tool you need to look at right away.

5.PlanEASe Software

This software program helps you analyze commercial property for financial and cash flow projections. It offers the investor a comprehensive management tool to deal with multi-unit residential and office properties. The base unit has extensions that include graphics, reporting, with the ability to combine files for portfolio analysis.

6.REO Wise Software

With his program, you can take commercial real estate analysis into the cloud. With a paid cloud subscription, it’s PowerBroker suite includes investment, leasing, financial modeling and marketing tools. It also features a transaction platform for real estate investors with a virtual deal room and document center.

7.Property Fixer App

If you’re an investor who flips properties for a fast gain, the Property Fixer is the tool for you. Using your smartphone, you can analyze property in five minutes and study the figures for holding it from 0 to 12 months in order to determine maximum profitability. Using the Property Fixer app, you can then email the resulting figures directly your clients under you company brand name with your logo.

8.Easy Kilowatt Hour Calculator

Commercial property investors can use this app as a watt hour meter to help determine the energy usage and cost of a possible acquisition.

To keep up in the competitive real estate investing game, where facts and current information are critical, it’s important to keep up with what’s new in the field of technology tools. Subscribing to a couple of commercial real estate newsletters and keeping current with real estate web sites that promote technological advances could be the key to keeping you successful.