Real estate investing is largely about gathering intelligence—finding properties to purchase, knowing the details of those properties to aid you in negotiations, and using all that information to close the deal.

The real estate investing market these days is hot, hot, hot! That’s the good news, and you probably already knew it. What you might not know is that it is also becoming tight, tight, tight! The return on investment is the lowest it has been since 2014, which has prompted the big boys to step up their game and go for the volume play. Unlike Bungalo, you probably don’t have $225 million to invest, so you’ll have to be smarter, faster, and better at real estate marketing if you want a full-time REI career—or to take that ridiculously swanky vacation.

Forget the worm; this early bird wants deals.

Let’s face it: you’re not the only one out there searching for real estate deals. And the best way to get an edge is to work smarter, not harder. The truth is, technology has come a long way, and if you don’t want to stay in the stone ages of poring over public records and manually tracking your potential investments, it’s time to tap the incredible resources that allow you to find properties and close deals.

REI is all about research—and making contacts, and nurturing relationships, and closing deals. That seems like a lot, but if everything is humming along, every facet becomes easier. When your research is good, you’re better positioned to find contacts and negotiate from a position of knowledge. When you build a rapport with sellers, you’re that much closer to a completed deal.

REI software requires ROI. Otherwise, you didn’t just waste your money on the solution—you’re hurting your business by sticking with it. There’s a question you must ask yourself when assessing the REI software you might not be happy with: Are you getting what you paid for? To answer that, you need to answer these questions:

REI professionals face a daunting task every time they make a call: getting the person on the other end of the line to not immediately hang up.

Part of the problem, of course, is that people are conditioned to think that any unfamiliar number that pops up on their caller ID is an a-hole. And for the most part, they are right. An April 2018 report by TrueCaller found that the average American receives 23 spam calls a month. That many can make anyone scream “Go to hell!” upon answering the phone …

You’ve seen their infomercials on late-night TV, and you’ve seen their flashy ads appear on the internet. Real estate gurus claim to have the secret to becoming an REI success, and they want to help you achieve your dreams.

Apple has Siri. Amazon has Alexa. Microsoft has Cortana. If only some tech company could hire Beyoncé …

What Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and the voice of Google’s Assistant (plus our mythical, we’d-be-talking-to-our-phones-all-day Beyoncé) have in common? They talk to users with a natural female voice. Their words seem unforced and anything but automated. Most importantly, Siri and Alexa speak comfortingly and reassuringly, even when they indirectly say that they don’t know what the hell you are asking them.

Front yards overrun with weeds or brown, dry grass. Screen door handles filled with multiple advertising flyers that no one has bothered to remove in months. Unraked leaves in the fall. Unshoveled driveways in the winter.