Ideas for an Android App

Discussion in 'Property Information Resources & Tools' started by telejazzer, 14th Mar, 2017.

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  1. telejazzer

    telejazzer Member

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    Thanks for pointing that out. I worked in the IT environment before but more in systems management rather the programming but have used PERL, HTML and VBA recently. I had been doing field (sales & merchandising) work for the last few years but due to family reasons I need to be able to work from home so I'm going back to my roots in IT. I'll be using Xamarin because it's multi-platform which is more C# but does include Java in the background.

    Any assistance in regards to the formulas would be great.I'll be asking a friend of mine who is a maths genius, systems architect and statistics professor for assistance as well.

    I just want to do something that will assist me and hopefully others in the future.

    One of my main goal is to be able to do something on the property development side of things as the ones that I've seen so far are too basic and doesn't include additional costs that can affect when doing feasibility. I'm more than happy to collaborate.
     
  2. cheekykoon

    cheekykoon Well-Known Member

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    I think this app should not be a calculator / accounting purpose only.

    It should have the propertychat function and able to pull data from caveats lodged, have a means of analysis of property market value etc.

    Keep a schedule of important dates for alert, eg, council rates, etc.

    Snap a picture of receipts for secured cloud storage.

    Assign and keep a community of people linked to the property handy. One to one messaging or one to many messaging to keep everything on the same page.
     
  3. Dan Donoghue

    Dan Donoghue Well-Known Member

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    Rather than just an android app, it would be cool if it wrote all data to an online database, this database could then have an API against it so you could build a web portal to it and an iPhone app, suddenly your android only app becomes accessible from anywhere.

    The beauty of it all being written to an online space is you could then upload PDF's and photos of receipts and things (store them in the DB as a BLOB I guess?? or just store as a file and write a pointer to the DB), very handy at tax time to be able to just dump everything in one go to your accountant.

    Take a feed from the Corelogic API for price estimation (to be taken with a grain of salt) and plot over time on a chart so you can see a visual growth of your equity.

    How big do you want this thing to be? the sky really is the limit here :).
     
  4. Paul@PAS

    Paul@PAS Tax, Accounting + SMSF + All things Property Tax Business Plus Member

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    Some user needs for functionality would include
    - resi, Commercial and foreign property owners
    - Entity owner specific re taxes etc SMSF, trust, individual etc...Check the posts about land tax !!
    - tenancy and lease data
    - Calendar functions / reminder etc (ie insurance etc)
    - PC, Mac, Tablet and phone capability
    - Email reports
    - Settlement costs (capital, deductible etc) when bought or sold
    - Loan fees and break costs (wishlist - automated estimate for breakcost ?)
    - Can it import based on scanned REA statements ?
    - Export to excel ?
    - Different state re taxes (land tax, duties and surcharges)
    - Australian and foreign income taxes
    - Investors seeking neg gearing and positive income solutions
    - Year on year modelling with growth factors and inflation etc
    - P&I, I/O and other loan issues including allocation of a loan to a specific property or properties (multiple)
    - Loan refinance issues
    - Amortised costs eg borrowing expenses, QS deductions etc
    - Comparative modelling of property v's property with ability to alter parameters based on scenario's eg rate changes, growth
    - Ability to handle estimates and actual costs that are both deductible or capital
    - Ability to capture capital costs as a CGT record (historical acquisition, costbase changes and improvements etc)
    - Yearly property expenses with a capacity for some expenses to be non-deductible and others deductible as required.
    - Ability to provide a property by property by owner summry annually for tax both income, expenses and if it occurs CGT
    - Ability to handle post tax effects and year of year tax and rate changes and not merely confined to basic income tax ...(eg HELP debt, Div 293, Private Health etc)

    Much of this is well handled by PIA (except for the actual costs and reporting etc). I recall looking at how PIA could be enhanced to cater for these changes and it was awefully complex with a seemingly unlimited array of issues. The complexity surrounding data entry and use would limit user acceptance IMO. Its truly beyond most owners - They cant confidently address tax issues so how can they they use this software correctly. It would make errors worse. (eg deductible v's non-deductible travel, repairs etc)

    It basically comes down to complexity would limit user use and would mean the data is unreliable and the outcomes would be useless for a user and an accountant !!

    I reckon PIA is the limit of complexity already. Its awesome when its learned but its both easy and complex.

    I have a software system that I can GIVE to property owners that I rejigged and it works really well (imports into my tax software !!) but when I trialled handing it to a select number of investors it was beyond basic use even with good instruction...See they arent accountants and want to skip key steps or self solve incorrectly (guess a solution). The rework costs to fix errors compromises it. Our software provider tested it with two other groups and same outcome. Its not abandonded but on ice as the user is the flaw. And its just the accounting part. Accuracy involved complexity.
     
    Last edited: 16th Mar, 2017
    paulF and Perthguy like this.
  5. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    Ian told me that the vast majority of his customers are professionals - accountants / financial advisers / property consultants / etc - who use it to demonstrate scenarios to their clients ... which kind of fits with your assertion.
     
  6. telejazzer

    telejazzer Member

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    Thanks all.

    Paul@PFI - I probably won't go all out like that unless there's a market for it. As I mentioned on the OP, something simple but useful.

    Dan & Simon - I'm finding that a lot of people are not familiar with or beginning to forget using simple functions on spreadheets. Last year, at a company I used to work for, nobody in the office knows how to use Excel properly. All they use it for is summing up cells and that's about it. Don't know vlookup let alone Pivot Tables which are really powerful functions. The temps are even worse.

    Spreadsheet is still my tool of choice alongside MS Access. PIA probably is spreadsheet based but don't discount it's use. Look at Estate Master, you can tell that it's spreadsheet based but look at how much they're charging! $3,700 for a module and used by top tier development companies.

    I think for people who knows how to use spreadsheet and maybe database properly are more relevant to businesses. Too much emphasis on social media pulls people away from being productive IMO.

    Soon when it's time to expand my business, 2 of my criterias would be medium to advanced level spreadsheet and database knowledge alongside communication skills. :)
     
  7. FrivolousPanda

    FrivolousPanda Well-Known Member

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    App to be aware off if developing something for the property space. I stumbled across Abakus android/iphone app <Link> which tracks property expenses which was launched around June/July last year. I don't use it personally or tried it so have no comments on how good it is.
     
  8. Paul@PAS

    Paul@PAS Tax, Accounting + SMSF + All things Property Tax Business Plus Member

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    The problem with property is there are so many variables and its never simple so a simple app isnt relevant.

    One users wants to know one thing and others will want other information.
     
  9. TMNT

    TMNT Well-Known Member

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    just curious,

    how hard is it for someone to program an app thats say really simple,

    lets say, you [ut in the property price, rates and water rates, interest rates

    and then it calculates your yield, deposit required, minimum repayments,

    and just heaps of figures
     

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