Savvy real estate investors are always on the lookout for the best sources of data and analytics. In this regard, questions related to what Mashvisor does and how it helps investors find profitable deals are becoming more and more popular in the rental industry.
In this Mashvisor review, we will look at the company, the tools that it provides, the data coverage and quality that it offers, the typical customers, the subscription plans and pricing, what users think about it, and the main competitors.
So is Mashvisor worth it? No. Mashvisor has both data and product issues that make the subscription cost too high. There are also completely free alternatives to many of the tools it offers.
*Awning has a completely free Airbnb Estimator available for vacation rental investors. Before you spend money on any paid services, make sure to try this free option.
*Awning also offers complete analysis of on-market deals and the ability to browse properties on the MLS completely for free, no subscription required. You can look at the top hand-picked deals by the analyst team on the Awning Investment Property Feed.
What Mashvisor Is
In brief, Mashvisor is an online rental property investment platform that aspires to make real estate investments accessible and profitable for all, even for beginners. It functions as a property marketplace where users can search through available houses for sale from the MLS in addition to off market homes. It also doubles as an investment analysis tool that helps predict the profitability of long term and short term rental properties.
Mashvisor was founded in 2014 by Peter Abualzolof, CEO, and Mo Jebrini, CTO. Peter has a strong background in business and entrepreneurship, while Mo is an experienced software developer. The idea for Mashvisor came directly out of Peter’s attempts at investing in rental properties in multiple US markets towards the end of the Great Recession. The market dynamics revealed the need for a product that helps beginner investors compete with more experienced ones.
The firm is headquartered in Campbell, CA and has attracted $1.1 million in funding over 6 rounds of investments. In 2022 Mashvisor is still a private company.
Mission and Scope
According to the company website, Mashvisor’s mission is to “help real estate investors attain investment property data to be able to make intelligent investment decisions.” The team strives to automate the process of finding and analyzing real estate data across the US market in order to empower investors to find rental properties with optimal performance.
What sets the company apart from most Mashvisor alternatives is that it covers both traditional, long term and Airbnb, short term rentals. The majority of competitors focus on one type or another.
Mashvisor Customers
Mashvisor was founded to help beginner real estate investors compete with their more experienced counterparts. However, due to the nature of the data that the platform offers, full-time investors, real estate agents and brokers, and professional property managers also find value in the product.
Let’s have a look at the typical Mashvisor users and how the platform meets their needs and requirements:
- Beginner real estate investors searching for the best places to invest in rental properties in the US market. They can check out the blog section to find top-performing cities and navigate the real estate heat map to locate optimal neighborhoods.
- Landlords looking for more long term rentals to add to their portfolio. The property search engine and analytical calculator can help them find and study money-making opportunities.
- Airbnb hosts buying new vacation rental properties. They can search for available properties for sale that meet their expectations and analyze the estimated return on investment.
- Experienced, full-time investors hunting for easy access to real estate and rental analytics. They can download reports with comps and data points to augment their own analysis of investment opportunities.
- Property owners selling a house. They can list their house for sale on the Property Marketplace and connect with investors interested in purchasing it.
- Real estate agents and brokers working with investor clients. The rental property calculator can facilitate the process of finding lucrative opportunities for clients interested in traditional and Airbnb rental properties.
- Property managers helping clients expand their portfolio. They can search for positive cash flow investment properties in their market which existing clients can purchase and assign to them.
What Tools Mashvisor Offers Investors
Mashvisor aspires to be a one-stop-shop for investors searching for profitable rental properties for sale, Mashvisor offers a few different tools.
Here we will cover the 4 most prominent tools on the Mashvisor real estate investment platform and discuss what each of them does for investors.
Mashvisor Property Marketplace
While most properties available on Mashvisor are obtained from the MLS, the Property Marketplace is where homeowners can list properties for sale without an agent and investors can find off market opportunities.
From a seller’s perspective, they can market their properties for free and gain access to interested real estate investors. Selling to an investor is easier and faster than selling to a homebuyer. Investors are less picky and have readily available financing, ready to move forward with a purchase as long as the numbers make sense.
From a buyer’s perspective, off market properties are frequently better deals than MLS listings. They come at discounted rates which allows for a higher return on investment. It also gives beginner investors and other investors with small budgets access to real estate deals.
On the Mashvisor Property Marketplace, investors can search for properties based on:
- City
- Distance from city
- Budget
- Rental strategy
- Type of property
Furthermore, the Marketplace integrates with the investment property calculator. This allows buyers to analyze the investment potential of foreclosures, tenant-occupied rentals, and other off-market properties.
Last but not least, investors can connect with property owners to ask questions, negotiate sales, and close deals.
The Property Marketplace available on the Mashvisor website is similar to Auction.com as it provides access to houses for sale off the market. However, the latter does not help with the rental potential analysis of the listed homes.
Access to this tool is available with subscription to the Mashvisor Professional plan.
*Browse pre-analyzed investment properties on the MLS with Awning.
Mashvisor Property Finder
The next tool on the Mashvisor platform that’s worth investigating is the Property Finder. This product allows investors to find top long term and short term rentals in up to 5 markets simultaneously.
You can search based on the following criteria:
- Location
- Distance from location
- Budget range
- Rental strategy: Airbnb vs long term rental
- Type of property: Single family home, multi family home, condo, or another
- Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
Property search results are provided in order of expected return on investment, placing the most money-making opportunities on top. Since you can search for available listings in multiple markets, you can compare the potential of properties side-by-side.
Like the Property Marketplace, the Mashvisor Property Finder integrates with the investment property calculator, offering comprehensive analysis of each house if rented out on a long term or a short term basis. We will cover the details of the analysis in the following section.
The Property Finder tool is similar to products offered by Roofstock, Zillow, and Redfin as you can look for properties for sale across the US residential market. However, Mashvisor combines the listings with the ability to analyze them.
Customers can use the tool with all subscription plans.
Mashvisor Investment Property Research
The Investment Property Research, also called the Investment Property Calculator, is the most demanded tool on the Mashvisor platform. This product conducts analysis of the investment potential of properties listed on the platform. Importantly, the analysis includes both rental strategies: If you rent out the property long term or short term (Airbnb-style).
The tool shows you all basic long term and short term rental data points including:
- Initial investment costs
- Operating expenses
- Expected rental income
- Cash flow
- Occupancy rate
- Estimated return on investment in terms of cash on cash return and cap rate
- Investment payback period
There is also an in-built mortgage calculator which allows investors to adjust their financing strategy and see how this affects their bottom line.
Mashvisor Data
Before knowing whether they can trust a certain real estate tool, investors need to know how good the underlying data is. After all, an investment decision is only as good as the data on which it is based.
On its website, Mashvisor lists the main sources of real estate and rental data. In specific, it claims access to:
- 6+ million MLS listings obtained through ListHub
- 2+ million long term rental properties coming from Rent Jungle, HotPads, and Zillow
- 2+ million short term rentals directly from Airbnb
The supplementary data related to property and income taxes, insurance, and others
comes from various publicly available resources.
Based on information available on the website, the MLS listings are updated on a daily basis, while the rest of the Mashvisor data is updated monthly. The accuracy of the algorithm results is tested regularly.
The performance forecast for properties available on the Mashvisor platform are based on rental comps. The Mashvisor algorithms analyze the historical and current performance of comparable long term and short term rental properties in each location to predict how similar rentals would do.
With regards to the Airbnb rental data and analysis, the main Mashvisor competitors include Awning, AirDNA, Rabbu, and AllTheRooms.
The traditional and vacation rental analytics are available to Mashvisor users with all subscription plans.
*Awning makes the short-term rental income estimator free for investors.
Mashboard
The Mashboard is a tool that has been designed to address the needs of real estate agents through the use of technology. It has a few different functionalities.
First, agents can use the Mashboard as a CRM platform. They can add leads, qualify them, manage them, and contact them. Agents can also provide leads with properties matching their criteria.
Second, this tool allows real estate agents and brokers to search for and analyze long term and short term rental properties for their investor clients. The Mashboard incorporates the Property Marketplace, the Property Finder, and the Investment Property Research. That’s how agents can supply clients with on market and off market listings that meet their criteria.
Third, through the Mashboard agents can contact property owners and convert them into seller leads.
While there are many more advanced real estate CRM platforms, they don’t offer the ability to find and analyze rental investment opportunities. So the Mashboard does not have a direct competitor product.
This real estate agent CRM can be accessed with Professional plan subscription.
Mashvisor Pricing and Free Trial
Like some competitors and unlike others, Mashvisor offers a 7-day free trial to potential customers. This gives investors the chance to test the product for themselves before having to make a decision whether to pay for the platform or not.
*Unlike almost every company in this space, Awning offers these tools for free to investors.
The paid subscription plans come at 3 different levels, trying to meet the needs of different categories of investors and agents. Both quarterly and annual subscription plans are available, with annual plans offering a discounted rate.
The Lite plan is designed for beginner investors who are just getting started and need basic tools and data. It costs $17.99 per month when paid annually.
The Standard plan addresses the needs of more advanced investors who would like to be able to export data and reports to deepen their analysis. This costs $49.99 per month when billed yearly.
The Professional plan targets professional investors and real estate agents who need access to all tools and features. The price is $74.99 per month when paid annually.
Quarterly and annual subscriptions are renewed automatically unless canceled. A customer can cancel their subscription online, from their account. They will continue having access to the tools available in their canceled plan until the end of the period for which they have paid. Mashvisor states that they do not issue refunds.
Currently investors can use promo code SUMMER to gain a 20% discount on their subscription after the end of the 7-day free trial period.
Mashvisor vs AirDNA
AirDNA is the biggest Mashvisor competitor for short term rental data and analysis. The main difference between the two Airbnb investment analysis tools is that AirDNA does not allow real estate investors to search for available properties for sale and does not provide the same detailed analysis. In addition, AirDNA only tackles vacation rentals, while Mashvisor also helps with long term rental properties.
On the other hand, AirDNA uses both Airbnb and Vrbo data, while Mashvisor focuses on the former only. Also the AirDNA Rentalizer covers global markets, whereas the Mashvisor Airbnb Calculator is available in just the US residential real estate market.
In terms of cost, a monthly subscription to AirDNA costs between $19 and $99 per market. This is comparable to the Mashvisor cost if you want to access a couple of markets. However, the AirDNA pricing becomes quite expensive if you consider multiple locations for your real estate investing needs.
Mashvisor Reviews
Mashvisor has a TrustScore of 4.7 stars, based on 285 customer reviews. This is considered excellent, showing that Mashvisor is a reliable real estate investment platform trusted by many.
On the BBB website there are a total of 155 Mashvisor reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars.
Mashvisor has also achieved a 4.3 stars rating on Google, based on 29 reviews.
Many customers share their positive experience with the Mashvisor tools and team. Some satisfied customers highlight that they were able to find profitable short term rental properties with the help of Mashvisor. The majority of positive reviews focus on the availability and efforts of the Mashvisor Customer Success team.
The negative reviews mostly complain about the data coverage and quality. Multiple users also noted that the platform would frequently return errors, stop working, or otherwise malfunction.
Takeaway
Our review of the Mashvisor platform shows that it has the tools necessary to help investors find long-term and short-term rental properties more efficiently. However, data issues and product failure have led many investors to turn to Mashvisor alternatives.