The flourishing real estate market has resulted in a significant increase in first-time real estate investors. With limited experience in real estate, it can be a risky move to buy property without knowing for certain what the return on the initial investment would be.

Thousands of investors have been using the Real Estate Acquisition Program, also called REAP, to assess the risks in their investments.

Each candidate property can be entered in less than five minutes by inputting the purchase, loan and rental specifics. The inclusion of depreciation and taxes will show the huge effect on cash flow - particularly post-tax profits where investor insight becomes very powerful. Additionally, the appreciation variables, capital growth and inflation allow the user to see a long-term economic picture.

The software then evaluates the property economics, cash flow potential, debt to equity and pre/post-tax implications. The investment viability is revealed in a series of one-page reports.

Created by Dolf de Roos, a real estate investor with 30 years of property-buying decisions under his belt, the REAP software assists property investors in quickly analyzing a property to determine whether it is a good deal or not.

"Knowing what your return will be on a property before you put time and money into it can save an investor countless headaches," said de Roos.

REAP, with its editable fields in a fully relational database, has a built-in online upload feature, enabling the user to download periodic updates, which are free with the initial license. It is beneficial for any real estate investor, novice or veteran.