In the journey toward building a real estate investment calculator, we’ve come a long way. If you’ve been following along, we’ve already covered:
- Why No-Code Development Tools Are a Game-Changer for Small Businesses – Exploring how these tools empower non-technical users to create solutions.
- How No-Code Tools Fit Into the Software Development Lifecycle – Understanding the role of no-code tools in planning, design, development, testing, and deployment.
- Solving Real Problems with No-Code Tools – Discussing the importance of starting with a specific problem to solve.
Today, we begin the practical journey of building an MVP for a real estate investment calculator. This tool aims to address a common problem in the real estate investment space: quickly and accurately assessing a property’s value before and after renovations, while also offering insights into cash flow, principal recapture, passive appreciation, active appreciation, and profit margins.
The Problem and Goal
As a real estate investor, one of the biggest challenges is evaluating whether a property is a good candidate for a BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat) strategy or a fix-and-flip project. The ability to calculate:
- Potential cash flow
- Principal recapture
- Passive appreciation
- Active appreciation
- Profit margins for flips
...is crucial to making informed decisions. The goal is to create a clean, user-friendly interface that allows investors to input key data points and receive simple, actionable calculations. While this is a practical tool for real estate investors, the focus of this project is on the tools themselves—specifically no-code platforms—and how they enable us to bring this idea to life.
Requirements for Selecting No-Code Tools
To meet the goals of this project, I’ve identified the following requirements for selecting no-code tools:
- Minimal Coding: The tools should allow me to complete the design and development with little to no coding.
- Prompt-Based Interaction: The platform should support prompt-based design and development, leveraging AI to simplify workflows.
- Automated Testing and Deployment: Testing and deployment processes should be automated and manageable within the platform.
- Code Transparency: While I aim to avoid coding, I want to be able to read and understand the underlying code for long-term maintenance.
- Simplicity and User-Friendliness: The interface should enable quick calculations with minimal user input.
- Scalability: The tools should allow for future upgrades and additional features without a complete overhaul.
- Integration Capabilities: The platform should integrate with other tools for data input/output and reporting.
Planning Phase in the SDLC
The planning phase of the software development lifecycle is all about defining the problem and outlining the requirements. Here’s how I’m approaching it for this project:
- Problem Definition: Create a calculator that evaluates the financial viability of BRRRR and fix-and-flip projects.
- Use Case Identification: Allow investors to input property details and receive key financial metrics.
- Requirements Gathering: Define the features needed to solve the problem (as outlined above).
- Tool Selection: Choose no-code tools that align with the project’s requirements (to be discussed further tomorrow).
Next Steps
Now that we’ve defined the problem and outlined the requirements, the next step is to break down the calculator’s functionality into specific, actionable components. Tomorrow, we’ll complete the planning phase by detailing these components and creating a roadmap for the design phase.
If you’re excited about how no-code tools can transform ideas into reality, stay tuned! We’re just getting started.
Missed the earlier blogs in this series? Catch up:
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