These days all the cool kids store files in their ‘cloud’ storage device, rather than on their computer/CD drives/disk drives (remember those; ever heard of ‘em?), etc. Cloud storage enables you to see your files from any of your devices – heck anywhere you have an internet connection you can see them. You can also easily share particular files with others, while still keeping other files safe and secure.
You also don’t have to worry about spilling coffee on your desktop and losing all your files because they are automatically backed up on ‘The Cloud.’
Cloud services can be very handy for real estate investors because you can:
-
Backup all your real estate files, tax documents and personal images without worrying about losing them.
-
Share listings with potential buyers using one link, rather than send out large emails.
-
Share documents with mortgage people, accountants, tenants and contractors that you need to work with.
In both your personal and business-investing life, the Cloud can be very handy.
Most cloud services give each user some free storage, but will charge a subscription price once your storage exceeds the initial amount. Since most real estate investors are cheapskates (don’t think we consider being cheap as a bad thing), we thought we would show you how to maximize your cloud storage without paying for it.
We did some research and found that there are certain ways to increase your cloud storage on three of the most popular crowd storage offerings. And you can do it for free. Some just take a little work on your part.
Dropbox: The Cumulus-Nimbus of Cloud Storage
Cumulus-Nimbus clouds are the big ones – the ones that turn into Thunderstorms.
But don’t worry about stormy weather with Dropbox. Dropbox is just the big daddy of cloud storage services. They started the cloud revolution and many subscribers still swear by them.
A free subscription to Dropbox will provide 2GB of storage. If you want to pay for a lot more storage, you can see their other plans. Here are other ways to obtain more free storage:
-
If you haven’t signed up already, sign up through a referral link from a friend. Both you and your friend will receive an additional 256MB of free storage.
-
Once you’re signed up, find other friends who could use a Dropbox account. Each referral you provide will give you another 256MB of storage, up to 32 friends. Check out this article about how to refer friends.
-
When you sign up, Dropbox will ask you to go on a tour. If you read through three of the five items on the tour, you will be awarded another 256MB of storage.
-
Go here once you have an account. This is a list of ways to increase storage on your account. If you link Dropbox to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, you will get another 125MB of storage for each one. Follow Dropbox on Twitter and receive another 125MB. Leave some feedback for Dropbox and receive another 125MB.
-
Start a new email address at Mailboxapp and sign in with your Dropbox account info. Then Dropbox will award you an additional 1GB of storage, free.
Increase Your Storage on iCloud
iCloud is very convenient and user-friendly. Everything you buy from the App store or iTunes for Apple devices is automatically uploaded to iCloud. Then you can use the application, listen to the song, or watch the movie on your Apple device.
You can also upload files from your PC or Android device.
If you have an Apple ID, you have access to an iCloud account. iCloud also automatically backs up all your Apple devices, so if you lose information, it is easily retrievable. iCloud also has other useful features:
-
‘Keychain’ can remember all your usernames and passwords so you can easily log in to websites without trying to figure out what the password is.
-
The ‘Find My Phone’ feature helps you find your iPhone when you can’t remember where you put it (also useful for keeping track of other people you let use it – like kids).
-
Share all your photos from all your Apple devices automatically.
Apple gives you 5GB storage for free. The only way to get more storage is to pay for it. Here are the plans. Payments are once per year.
The best way to increase storage on your iCloud account is to decrease the amount of applications and files you have automatically backed up. Here are a few tips for freeing up some of those 5GBs:
-
Go to Settings>General>Usage. You can see what apps are using up the most storage. Maybe it’s worth deleting the app?
-
Look at your photos. Do you have photos you don’t need? Such as houses you ended up walking away from? Or a photo from a hardware store you emailed to a contractor? Delete them or at least move them somewhere else. Photos generally take up the most memory on iCloud.
-
How about videos? Those take up a TON of space.
-
Music? If you put your music on a service like Google Play Music, you can still stream it through your Apple device (and other devices), but it will not take up the storage.
-
Go to Settings>iCloud and you can see all the services your iCloud is backing up. Do you need everything backed up? Just deselect the ones you don’t want backed up automatically and you can free up a lot of space.
Bill Gates, Sugar Daddy
While Dropbox seems like the most popular cloud storage option, Microsoft’s Onedrive (formerly known as Skydrive) offers the most free storage right when you sign up.
It used to offer 7GB, but just recently, Onedrive changed their policy to offer 15GB, free! That’s a lot of storage. They chose 15GB because that is more than most people typically have stored on their PCs. They are thinking you might not need any more than this.
Better yet, if you sign up for Office 365 Personal, you can get 1TB (as in Terrabyte) of storage for free. That’s a crazy amount of data, plus you get all the Office programs as well.
But if 15GB of free storage isn’t enough for you, then you can raise it to 100GB of storage for free. Is there a catch? You bet. Actually two:
-
It’s only free for one year – but who knows – maybe they will raise their free storage more by then.
-
You have to ‘spend’ 100 ‘Bing Rewards Points’ to receive it.
Bing rewards is Microsoft’s attempt to get you to stop searching with other search engines and use Bing instead. You can also earn rewards by trying new features. You can redeem the rewards at other websites and stores such as Amazon and Starbucks.
Here is what’s cool about it – you get Bing reward points just for searching on Bing (2 searches is 1 point). There are other ways to get points, but searching seems like the easiest. You can also refer friends and obtain 500 points when your friend reaches 200 points.
Cloud storage is VERY convenient for real estate investors, and indeed anyone in business. As your business grows, though, you will need more and more storage to keep track of everything, maintain records, and just have information at your fingertips when needed. If you don’t have cloud storage already, you should seriously look into it.
Get Cloud Storage – If you don’t have it already, find a cloud storage vendor that works for you and your investing business.
Review Your Files – The files and records you keep from past deals are clues to being more successful in the future. By maintaining records on the cloud, you’ll be able to review what you have and learn from the information.
Organize Your Business – Plan some time when you are working on your real estate business to make sure you are well organized and are able to find what you need quickly – cloud storage can help.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.