2023 PropStream Complete Review (Read Before Buying)
I want to give you a full look at whether or not Propstream is for you!
We’ll take a look at features, price points, how to use it, and alternatives to Propstream’s
If you want to skip all that and see if Propstream is worth it for you, then go here to skip to that section.
If you want to compare ALTERNATIVES to Propstream, then go here.
_______________
[Try Propstream for 7 days free and get our “top lists for real estate investors of all time” guide. Use this affiliate link to sign up, then email me at “mick@tools4REI.com” and I’ll send you that guide]
_______________
Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links, which means we make a small commission if you buy something. You don’t pay anything extra by purchasing through these links. See our affiliate disclosure for more info. Thank you!
What is Propstream?
It’s a comprehensive tool exclusively built for the real estate industry, that is top of the market when it comes to real estate DATA aggregation.
But they’ve come a long way with the software, offering unique lists that other alternatives can’t provide, and also offering some other complimentary tools for any investor and real estate broker.
What does Propstream cost?
They have one package that costs $99 per month. With 2 extra add-ons:
“List Automator” – $27 per month. Extra perks when it comes to skip tracing, and list monitoring
“Team Member” – $20 per user per month. When you need others on your team to have access to it.
Do you need Propstream?
Data is king
If you’re an active Realtor (broker), or an off-market investor DATA is one of THE most important tools as your disposable.
Bad data can mean you’re contacting people about a house they don’t own; thereby wasting time and money.
Bad data can mean a flopped direct mail campaign, or cold calling attempt, or a cold texting attempt.
You need GOOD data.
So does Propstream have good data?
A good way to see whether or not a company provides good data is by seeing how many repeat customers they have.
I suppose you can directly ask them…
But a non-direct way is also looking at how many articles and videos you find on how to USE the tool there (compared to others). Just taking a look at Youtube, we found over 100+ actual investors who still use Propstream and teach how they use it (significantly more than competitors).
Here’s an example of one of those videos showing you a quick tutorial of Propsteam:
However, the most important question is not “whether or not the data is good”…
… But WHERE do they get their data from:
Where Propstream gets its data?
On their own website, they report:
“PropStream’s nationwide property data is multi-sourced from county recordings, MLS records, and private data sources, giving you access to the most comprehensive and accurate database available of over 153 million properties.”
Real Estate Data is typically a public record.
ANYONE can access it.
But for the real estate industry, it’s not an issue of you getting access to it… it’s also the issue of time it takes to scrap the public records AND forge relationships with data sources that have these records.
So you can do it yourself by:
- Hiring a VA to scrap the county records every week.
- Having your VA compile and organize those records into “lists”
- Forging relationships with utility companies to collect a list of “non-pays” or abandoned properties.
- Hiring a “bird dog” to go around town creating a list of vacant properties (in other words “Driving for dollars”)
Yes, you can do that…
But PropStream will STILL have one “leg up” over you because they update their data DAILY.
So, you can technically “do-it-yourself” and create a “system” in your business that does what PropStream does, but you’ve created a whole new “department” in your business that requires management and training… All to save $99 a month.
We’ll go more into the costs and whether or not it’s worth it, but first, let’s dive into other features and pros and cons
What does Propsteam do?
Propstream is much more than just a “data aggregator”. They do a whole lot more, so let’s dive into those, shall we?
Skip Tracing – A data aggregator would be incomplete without a tool that helps you find phone numbers, emails, and “hard-to-find” people. If you have a contact that’s hard to find, or you have a bunch of “Return to Sender ” mail, you’ll need a tool that can find that seller (This is an underutilized strategy in real estate. Most inventors are too lazy to accurately find these people so it leaves you with a vacuum you can fill).
NOTE: This isn’t a free feature inside, you’ll have to pay for credits. At this time, they charge .12 cents a record, which can be costly but it’s comparable to other skip tracing tools.
Postcard campaigns – Once you get your lists you’ll need a way to market to them. Mail is a GREAT way to market for leads if you’re consistent. They have a “touch of a button” feature where you can send postcards INSIDE the dashboard.
Property lookups – Have a property you need more info on? Punch it in at the dashboard and you can pull up all the mortgage info, property info, and even some title information of who owns the property.
Home estimation – While you’re looking at a particular property, they have a value estimator tool. We found it to be fairly accurate as they use comparable houses sold data, as well as assessor data for that estimation.
Mobile App – While you’re out on errands, you can pull up lists, look up properties, and save properties onto your lists right on your phone.
Who’s it for?
Because of the cost of Propstream ($99 per month starting with “Add-ons” that can grow to $146 a month)… it’s not really for everybody.
If you’re an investor or realtor that dabbles with getting data once a year… then your best bet is to get your data from List Source or an equivalent “pay-as-you-go” data provider.
It’s really for serious investors and real estate professionals that are constantly needing data multiple times a year.
Is Propstream worth it for you?
If you are one of those types of real estate professionals who constantly needs data, then the cost of Propstream is actually extremely low, because if you’re someone who pulls at least 400 records a month the low price is well worth it.
Here’s a list of people who can benefit from Propstream’s data:
Contractors – Pull a list of new homeowners to send offers to, OR a list of investors to be their “go-to” contractor
Loan Officers/lenders – Pull a list of 3-5+ year homeowners to send an offer about “refinancing”
Brokers – Send quarterly mail to your farm area
Agents – Send mail to long-time homeowners about selling
Property managers – send mail to tired landlords about having cost-effective, “hands-off” property management.
Appraisers – Use for getting accurate information for your estimates.
Pros and cons?
Not every software is a 100% winner. Everything has its pros and cons and we’ll start with the cons of Propstream.
Cons
- Doesn’t come with free phone numbers or email data – some data aggregators also come with this information for free. For Propstream you have to pay extra for it.
- Estimators can be off – Real estate is HYPER local, so you should use the estimator for making offers, only to get a ballpark understanding.
- Doesn’t come with texting or email – some data providers also come with a texting tool inside, so you can cold text or email your leads (however… you should understand that rules and laws in place from the FCC about cold texting and emailing as well understand that cold SMS and cold email can have very low deliverability due to spam rules and some platforms do not allow cold text and cold email)
Pros
- Cost-effective – if you’re someone that needs data quarterly or monthly, the $99 per month can actually be extremely cheap knowing that data anywhere else can cost anywhere from .12 cents to over .30 cents a record.
- Accurate data – According to their website they update data daily. That’s extremely important as real estate data is constantly changing.
- Easy dashboard – They have a very easy-to-follow dashboard.
Marketing methods embedded – with their postcard function you can send mail right inside the dashboard. - Elaborate niche lists – With their list choices, you don’t have to get creative with spreadsheets, you can just pull any choice of niche lists.
- Send mail to your lists — They have the ability inside their dashboard to send postcards to your lists with a click of a button.
Speaking of lists…
Let’s dive into the cool niche lists you can get!
Type of lists Propstream can get
Propstream has quick and easy-to-pull specific lists. You hover over to the “quick lists choices” box, click on it, and it’ll pull up well over a dozen different lists you can grab.
On Market – Any house that’s listed on the MLS, as long as your county makes this public record.
Vacant – Houses that have been considered vacant by the US postal office. Lots of investors make deals out of these houses
Liens – all these people have a motivational situation; they owe money. Can be a great list. This is accurate info as Propsteam pulls straight from the county.
Pre-Foreclosures – Some RE professionals love marketing to this list. These are individuals that have received a “Notice of Defaulted loan” from their county and banks; the lender has filed a notice with the county, that they’re behind on their loan payments.
Auctions – A list of houses going to auction. Most likely the homeowner is losing the house due to defaulted taxes or loans.
Bank Owned – or REO. Bank has taken back a house due to foreclosure, and the bank now owns it (most banks do not want to be the house-owning business and would love to have someone take it off their hands.
Cash buyers – Need to offload a deal? Find real cash buyers with this function. It’s accurate as it takes into account people who’ve paid cash for a house multiple times.
High equity – When you’re only targeting houses with 50%+ equity
Free and Clear – Houses that have no mortgage. These are great for owner finance deals, or as lenders.
Bankruptcy – owners who have an active Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy filing.
Divorce – Any homeowner who has a divorce filing. A lot of divorces end up selling a house.
Tax delinquencies – Anyone falling behind in tax payments. Before they go into auction they might want to sell
Flippers – A house that is on the market to sell but was purchased less than 24 months ago. These can be clients if you’re an agent, a cash buyer, a lender, or a potential partner.
Failed listings– This is a GREAT list to get; also called “Expired MLS”. These ARE sellers, but their last attempt at selling failed.
Senior Owners – Owners are on this list only if they either: 1.) Have a reverse mortgage, 2.) exceed 25+ years of ownership. 3.) or have a property with a senior tax exemption… lots of deals can come from this list
Vacant land – an easy definition… Lots of investors focus on land.
Tired Landlords – non-owner occupants that exceed 15+ years of ownership. They are getting up there in age and lots of landlords just want to “retire” from property management.
Zombie Properties – In pre-foreclosure and has been classified as vacant by the US postal office.
Pre-probate – Where 1 or more owners has been identified as deceased. Can be a great way to “get in” before anyone else; but just know it’s a looong process before they actually sell.
Pulling a list is very simple…
First, at the dashboard, hit “filter” at the top:
Then they have a “Quick List” Drop down where you can find all those “Niche lists”… or build a list yourself using all the filters below.
Is Propsteam price worth it?
As mentioned earlier…
If you’re not marketing much, then this isn’t worth it. You can just “pay as you go” and we’ll give you some alternatives to start with.
But if you’re planning on being a consistent buyer of off-market deals, then the $99 per month is a smoking deal!
________
________
But…
If you need other alternatives, we got you covered as well.
Here are some tools we’ve used and reviewed:
Alternatives to Propstream
So since Propstream is a DATA provider, we looked at 3 different (really great) alternatives comparing not just their data, but their dashboards, features, and prices.
Batch Leads:
For as low as $79 dollars a month Batch Leads can provide up to 10,000 contacts or data (they call it “leads”), and that plan. The prime difference between Batch Leads and Propstream is that Batch Leads focuses on cold SMS text messaging to reach those contacts while Propstream uses mail that’s integrated inside the platform. People have said that Batch Lead comes with superior data – But that’s hard for us to test.
Here’s a short video comparing the two:
Deal Machine:
Starting at $59 a month, Deal Machine is a Driving for Dollars app that allows you to effortlessly create a list of properties you find while Driving For Dollars. You can then market easily to those properties inside the app as well. It’s not really a list provider like Propstream, however, it CAN do a property search on each property much like Propstream.
It’s worth a try if you’re driving for dollars.
You can try the app for free here, then use discount code TOOLSWITHDEALS.
ReiSift:
Not a data-gathering tool or a list provider BUT it is an essential tool that goes hand in hand with data. It dramatically helps filter your data, clean it, and make prospecting a whole lot easier; cutting your time and efforts chasing leads that are less likely to sell.
It does provide property record searches just like Propstream, Check it out here.
RealeFlow:
An all-in-one tool that gathers data and helps you market to those contacts. You can try it for $10, but after the free trial per month, it’s a bit more expensive than Propstream.
However, it is a very comprehensive tool that even uses AI to help your REI business.
Summary
The most comparable competitive tool of Propstream is Batch Leads. However, if data is all the same, Propstream leads the battle in PRICE. And they have a very user-friendly dashboard that also allows you to market to contacts using mail, effortlessly.
Getting good data is a MUST for real estate investors. And for $99 a month for UNLIMITED data, you can’t get a better deal than that.