Hand-held computers

Price: $200 to $1200
Overall rating: 5 out of 5
Website: http://palmtops.about.com/ or www.idg.co.nz

Let’s be honest. How many times have you forgotten to write down an essential piece of information – be it a request by tenants, or work that needs doing on a property? What if you could record useful data about your property investing while out on the road that transferred automatically to your computer when you got home? Would you like to photograph damage, record voice conversations with tenants, analyse a potential investment or receive property details instantly – all with the use of one device little bigger than a standard mobile phone?

With a hand-held computer (AKA PDA or smart phone) such as a Palm, Blackberry or Apache, you can do most of that on the spot – as well as allowing you to read and write emails, create Word and Excel documents and even enter data into property management software programs.

Typically hand-held devices sync with your computer – exchanging data with Outlook and other programs such as Microsoft Excel when you place them in a cradle attached to your PC or plug them into a USB cable.
The advantage of this for anyone out on the road meeting tenants, property managers or estate agents is that you can tap in their information there and then, or notes about the meeting, and they’re automatically transferred to your main PC when you get back home or to your office.

Hand-held computers come in a variety of flavours – some have mini keyboards, others use pen-like styli for writing and some are lap-top sized tablets that interpret normal handwriting. But perhaps one of the biggest questions you need to ask yourself is if you want your hand-held computer to be a mobile phone as well.

This adds considerable cost but it means that you can surf the Internet while out and about (perhaps to look up details of a property you drive by) or receive information from companies such as M-Link, which can text property details to you. Or you can just check your email while on the road.
At the bottom end of the range you can pick up something like the Palm Z22 from Dick Smith Electronics for $198 but you can also pay up to $1199 for the HTC Apache from Telecom NZ.

The Apache uses mobile broadband to connect to the net, is preloaded with Excel, Outlook and Word for WindowsMobile. Users can use it to view PowerPoint slides and it even has a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera allowing high resolution documentation of any damage or alterations done to a property. An inbuilt voice recorder allows you to record conversations or short notes you need to remember.

Many hand-held computers and phones have built-in cameras, but not all are as good as each other. Sarah King, developer of PC Property Manager, points out that the quality of some photos taken on lower spec devices may not be up to scratch – especially if you plan to use them for a Tenancy Tribunal hearing.
Unfortunately the job of choosing and buying a hand-held computer isn’t straightforward. The three main operating systems are the Palm operating system, the Blackberry operating system, and WindowsMobile, which runs many of the other hand-held devices. All have aficionados who swear by them. The Blackberry has even been dubbed Crackberry by executives who find they can’t live without these devices and Cabinet Minster Chris Carter spent a whopping $12,848 on telephone calls in a year using his Blackberry.
It’s worth reading reviews of the hand-held computer you want to buy and picking the brains of knowledgeable sales staff to ensure you’re buying the one that will do what you want.

Until recently property investors with hand-held computers have had to stick to Word and Excel, with no specific New Zealand-based programs aimed at them.
However RentMaster, which sells property management software, launched some Windows Mobile calculators last year as well as a WindowsMobile inspections program which property managers can use to record the state of their properties as they walk around the house during their regular inspections.
The inspection results are then uploaded into the PC when they get back to the office. A demo can be seen at www.rentalanalyst.com

RentalAnalyst, which will compete with PIA and REAP, will also face competition from a new hand-held computer package called Property EasiCalc. Details of the program were expected to be on the website www.acumen.co.nz around publication time.
The company’s blurb (we haven’t yet seen the product) says: “This powerful little package sits between packages like the PIA Software and Acumen’s one-page spreadsheet to assist you in assessing if a particular property suits your investment needs.”
It is based on a spreadsheet, so works on any hand-held that can run Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and is designed to crunch the following data and spit up one to five-year cash flows, yields, and what-if scenarios:
    Property purchase details
    Rent expectations and expenses
    Depreciation
    Salary and income details for the investor(s)

Also included is a desktop version so that you can upload your data to your PC. The product costs $69.95.
There are plenty of overseas programs that could be used here with or without changing the settings. It’s also possible to write your own.

The website Download.com, has dozens of downloads for Palm, Windows and Blackberry hand-held computers.

We haven’t tried it, but Real Estate Edition 1.0 for the Palm operating system claims to “estimate and analyse the value of real estate investments with your Palm OS device”.
Programs that we saw that would be worth a second look included MortgageCalc (Palm), by BSM Software, which allows you to calculate the true cost of a mortgage on a property.
The types of software of use to landlords and property investors aren’t just limited to programs that manage your mortgages, contacts and properties.

You can get tools to help organise your life, GPS positioning software, so you can find that property you want to view, or check that the address a potential tenant has given you exists. 
Another Palm program we found that we liked the look of was called Life Balance. It is a glorified To Do list, which automatically sorts and filters tasks by importance, deadlines and location. It has pie charts to give immediate visual feedback on how you are spending your time and effort.
More information: http://palmtops.about.com/ or www.idg.co.nz

Verdict: I’m biased. They’re a must-have for anyone whose business involves being on the move.
Pros: Hand-held computers allow you to crunch numbers on the run, record data there and then and much more.
Cons: Too small to run complex computer programs or surf the Internet with ease.