Basics for Financing for an Investment PropertyYou have big dreams of owning real estate and retiring young. You simply don’t have the funds to go out and buy the properties in cash (most of us don’t either). This leads you down the path of financing with your local bank. Maybe you already own your own home and have been through the process of getting approved and signing the mortgage. This should be easy then right? Wrong, investment property loans are not like your traditional home loan.Lenders are more strict with underwriting an investment property than that of a personal home mortgage. You might be wondering, but why? It’s simple when you own investment property and a personal residence and then you lose your job or things start going south financially you’re going to pay your personal mortgage before anything else in a worst case scenario. You’re not going to want to default on your mortgage, because that’s where you live!Interest RateThe interest rate is going to be higher than that of your home mortgage, it just is. Add 1-3 percentage points more than the owner occupied loan rate. That means that if a lender charges 4.00% interest for homeowner loans, you’ll likely pay 5-7% interest for investment loans. That’s just how it works folks. The loans are more risky, so the banks want more for them.Credit ScoreAs with any type of loan your credit matters. It shows the bank a history of your previous credit experiences and basically says why you should get a loan or why you shouldn’t get a loan. Working to make sure your credit is top notch is something you need to do far before you get into the real estate game.With investment property your credit score does not have as big as impact as it does with home mortgages. You will still have options if your credit isn’t perfect. If you score is below 740 you should expect to pay more in interest rate, lender fees, and lower LTV’s. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest with a lower than 740 credit score, it just is stating what you need to expect.Lower LTV20% learn it, love it, live it. That’s the number the bank will want from you as a down payment for your investment property purchase. There are of course exceptions to the 20% down, however that’s what most banks are requiring.20% is a lot of money, right? Yeah I know, but the good news is you will not have to pay mortgage insurance! Nobody likes mortgage insurance. The bad news is, that’s the only good news. Also the 20% down is best case, if you have piss poor credit expect the bank to expect more or not even look at your deal at all. As a final note, plan on needing at least three months’ payments as a liquid cash reserve. Cash reserve is important, yes you may finally have saved that 20%, but if you don’t have more than the 20% in working capital for when the furnace goes out in the first month then the bank will again question giving you a loan.House Hacking to Get StartedThe idea behind house hacking is simply to decrease or minimize your own expenses and use the spread (money you are saving) to invest into acquiring properties to rent out. Living in a nice house with an indoor swimming pool and movie room is great and all, but that house isn’t making you monthly cash flow, it’s costing you monthly cash flow.The basic idea behind this “house hacking” mentality is to simply rent out part of your home to another person, or co-exist with another person as a roommate in your own home. Also it can mean selling your primary residence now and buying a multifamily property and living in one of the units while renting out the rest. Basically when it is all said and done you are renting what you already live in, to decrease your monthly expense to save capital for your dreams of real estate glory!If you have yet to buy your first home, or if you want to sell your home now to get into real estate a multi unit property might be the right fit for you. By buying a multifamily home you can live in one of the units and have your tenants pay all of your expenses this is generally more appealing to most people than having someone live in their home.For example, if you buy a 4 unit, live in one unit, and rent each of the other units out for $$600 a month, that would mean you’re making $1800/month in rents. If your loan, escrow (taxes + insurance) utilities, and other expenses come to just $1600 – you could get paid $200/month just to live in the home. Even better when it comes time to move out into your future home, you can rent that 4th unit out for even more income. Sounds like a great idea right?Key Takeaway:Investment properties have higher interest ratesLenders are slightly more lenient on credit scoreYou’re going to need 20% for down payment (exceptions do happen)Try house hacking to get started into real estate–America’s Favorite,The Small Time Investor

Once the app is downloaded, you have little time to take a sigh of relief, and then again start focusing on making things easier for the them till their goal is achieved.

According to the AppsFlyer, an app marketing company, the global uninstall rate for apps after 30 days is 28%. Entertainment apps are most frequently deleted, whereas apps based on Finance is least frequently deleted. No matter which app category you belong to, your strategy should be to remain in the mobile phones of users for a long time, and not just sit around but to fulfill your purpose as well.

If we analyze the encounters of users with an app step by step, it can help us unveil the critical factors that influence mobile app audiences, so that we can work upon those and achieve our purpose. Here are the details:

Step1. Finding Your App in Appstore

For this, we have to first find out what exactly users type to search an app. Based on a research, it has been found that 47% app users on iOS confirmed that they found the app through the App Store’s search engine and 53% app users on Android confirmed the same.

What have been their search queries? Interestingly, as the per the data provided by the TUNE research, 86% of the top 100 keywords were brands.With little scope for non-branded categories, most of the keywords were either of games of utility apps. Common keywords in the non branded category are: games, free games, VPN, calculator, music, photo editor, and weather.

Leaving brands aside, if we analyze the user-type of a Non-branded category, we will get two types of users:

1. Users are informed, and they know what they are search

2. Users are exploring possibilities, have no precise information in mind.

If you are a mobile app development company, targeting non-branded users, then your efforts must be directed to creating apps that compel these two types of users. To do so, we have to analyze once they are on an app store, what keywords they use to search. Regina Leuwer, with expertise in marketing & communications, bring some light to the subject. She reached out Sebastian Knopp, creator of app store search intelligence tool appkeywords, who shared with her the data of unique trending search phrases. And according to that data, in 2017, there were around 2,455 unique search phrases trending in the US.

Now, if we study these data to get information, we will find that name of the app is critical to attract the attention of the users.

If your app belongs to non-branded category, then make sure your app name is similar to the common search queries but also unique in comparison with your competitors. So that when your app name is flashed, they click it on to it, finding it purposeful and compelling both.

Step 2. Installation

Remember your users are on mobile devices has limited resources, from battery to storage and RAM to Internet. Everything is limited. So better create an application that is easy to download or say get downloaded with 5 minutes. One critical advice here:

1. Keep the application file size small.

If you are a developer, use APK Analyser to find out which part of the application is consuming maximum space. You can also reduce classes.dex file and res folder that contains images, raw files, and XML.

Step 3. Onboarding

After the user has successfully downloaded your mobile application, don’t leave anything on assumptions. Guide them properly. This you can do through an onboarding process, where users can learn the key functionality and where to begin with the mobile app. Below are the 3 things you need to keep in your mind when creating an onboarding process for your users.

Short and Crisp: The entire guidance of features and functions should be completed within few seconds, with easy options loud and clear option to skip.

Precise Information: Don’t introduce them to the app. They already know what they have downloaded. The objective to inform about the key functions and features.

Allow Users to Skip: Let the tech-savvy users skip the intro. Your app is to meet their requirement and not to have a friendly session.

Step 4. Purpose and UI
Here, the stage is set for your app and it is the golden chance for you to impress your users. What is needed here is the collaboration between purpose and UI of the app. It totally depends on the problem-solving capability and ease of use of the mobile app. Interface design plays the critical role, allowing the users to access features of the apps easily and quickly to perform the task for what they have downloaded the app. When it comes to interface design, make sure that the design is interactive and task-oriented. Here are some factors that you must take care off while creating mobile app interface:

1. Usability: The Mobile phone is an epitome of convenience and if your users find it difficult to use your app, then there is no way there are going to make the space for it in their mobile phones. From screen size to the color of the app, there are many factors that are equally critical and need attention.

2. Intuitive: To create an intuitive User Interface, you have to read the mind of the users, and develop a model based on that. The next should be precise, clear and ‘obvious’ in an interface.

3. Availability: Key features should be hidden in the drop down menu or even if so, it should be obvious for the user to look into the drop-down. An intricate work of design and research is required to make essential features available for the customers and they don’t need to navigate here and there.

If you need more help with the user-interface and innovative ideas for a mobile app, write to me [email protected] and I promise to get back to you with interesting mobile app designs.