Your Billboard and Your Duplex Don't Belong in the Same Spreadsheet

When I started researching who actually owns real estate in America, I found something surprising.

The typical real estate investor doesn't just own rentals.

They own:

A vacation home they use personally and rent seasonally
Raw land they inherited and are holding for appreciation
A small commercial building with a triple-net lease
Maybe an airport hangar they lease to a charter company
Or a billboard on property that generates consistent income with zero management

These aren't edge cases. According to Census and property ownership data, millions of Americans own multiple asset types — but almost no platform serves them.

Every tool is built for landlords managing tenants. Nothing is built for investors managing portfolios.

That's the gap I built Nimbus to fill.

The Real Estate Software Industrial Complex Built for One Thing

Most real estate platforms are built for one purpose: helping landlords manage tenants.

They want to help you:

Collect rent
Track maintenance requests
Screen tenants
Generate leases
Handle evictions

And if that's your world — if you own a few single-family rentals or a duplex you're leasing long-term — those platforms work fine.

But the moment you own anything outside that narrow lane, you're on your own.

What if your portfolio includes:

A short-term rental in the mountains
Raw land you're holding for appreciation
A billboard on inherited property
A storage facility
A mobile home park
A parking lot near a stadium
A small commercial building
Farmland you lease to an operator

Suddenly, none of those platforms work anymore. Because they weren't built for investors — they were built for landlords.

There's a difference.

The 19 Asset Types Most Platforms Pretend Don't Exist

When I started building Nimbus, I didn't just want to support "properties." I wanted to support assets — the full spectrum of what real investors actually own.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

Residential Assets

Single-family homes
Multi-family properties (2–4 units)
Apartment buildings (5+ units)
Condominiums
Townhouses
Mobile homes

Commercial Assets

Office buildings
Retail spaces
Warehouses and industrial properties
Mixed-use buildings
Hospitality properties

Land & Specialty Assets

Raw land
Agricultural land (farms, ranches, vineyards)
Mobile home parks
Self-storage facilities
Parking facilities
Airport hangars
Billboards
Cell towers
Renewable energy sites (solar, wind, hydro)

That's 19 distinct asset types. And counting.

But Nimbus doesn't just track what these assets are — it tracks how you're using them.

Asset Type vs. Asset Category: Why This Matters

Most platforms ask: "What kind of property is this?"

That's the wrong question.

The right questions are:

What is this asset physically? (Asset Type)
How are you using it today? (Asset Category)

Because a condo used as your primary residence behaves completely differently than a condo you're Airbnb-ing 300 nights a year. Same physical asset. Totally different performance profile.

So Nimbus asks both questions:

Asset Type = What it physically is
Asset Category = How you're currently using it

Here are the categories we support:

Rental Uses

Long-term rental (12+ month leases)
Short-term rental (nightly/weekly)
Mid-term rental (furnished 1–6 months)
Student housing
Corporate housing

Personal/Lifestyle

Primary residence
Vacation home
Personal storage

Business/Land

Owner-occupied business
Triple net lease
Land banking
Development
Agricultural use

Specialty

Specialty income (billboards, cell towers, renewables)

This gives you the clarity to see: "My hangar is an aircraft storage building used for specialty income."

Clear. Simple. Accurate.

Why Cross-Asset Intelligence Changes Everything

When all your assets live in one place, something interesting happens:

You start seeing patterns you couldn't see before.

You realize your farmland has been quietly outperforming your STR — with one-tenth the effort.

You discover your billboard generates better cash-on-cash returns than your duplex — and you've been pouring renovation money into the duplex.

You see that your storage facility has appreciated 47% while your retail building has stayed flat — and suddenly you know where your next dollar should go.

This is portfolio-level thinking. Not property-level thinking.

Most investors are stuck in property-level thinking because their tools force them to be. They track assets one at a time, in silos, with no way to compare performance across types.

Nimbus makes cross-asset comparison automatic. You see:

Which assets are actually building wealth
Which ones are underperforming
Where you're overexposed
Where opportunity lives

The Portfolio Complexity Problem

Consider an investor with eleven properties across four states:

Three single-family rentals
Two short-term vacation rentals
A fourplex
A small strip mall
Two raw land parcels
A self-storage facility

Built over 14 years from nothing. But if you asked which assets are winners and which are underperforming, the answer isn't obvious when everything is tracked separately.

Different lenders, different property managers, different accountants for different states. The complexity compounds.

This is why portfolio-level visibility matters. Not to add more complexity — to cut through it. To see which assets are actually building wealth and which ones are just creating work.

Why This Matters for Your Spouse (and Your Kids)

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

If something happened to you tomorrow, would your family understand what you own?

Not just the addresses. The reality.

Could they find:

Every purchase record
Every mortgage lender
Every insurance policy
Every tax document
Every partner agreement

Could they tell which assets are profitable and which aren't?

Could they make informed decisions about what to keep and what to sell?

Or would they inherit a filing cabinet full of chaos?

Most investors are building empires their families won't understand. That's not legacy — it's burden.

Nimbus creates a single source of truth. One dashboard. One login. Everything your family needs to understand what you built and how it works.

That's not just smart investing. That's stewardship.

The Asset Types Investors Are Moving Into

Real estate investors don't stay in one lane. They follow opportunity across asset types.

Someone starts with a single rental. Then diversifies into a short-term rental. Buys some land. Maybe acquires a small commercial building.

The sophistication increases. The portfolio expands. But the tools don't keep up.

That's the gap — between what investors actually own and what platforms support.

Stop Running a Spreadsheet Circus

You own a billboard and a duplex. Or a hangar and a vacation rental. Or farmland and a fourplex.

They're all assets. They all matter. And they all deserve to be tracked with the same intelligence.

Most platforms will tell you to pick one category and stick with it. Or force you to cram everything into boxes that don't fit.

Nimbus says: bring everything. We'll make sense of it.

Because your portfolio isn't a collection of isolated properties.

It's an empire.

And it deserves to be seen that way.

Ready to see your full portfolio in one place?

Try Nimbus free for 14 days. No credit card required. Track every asset type you own — and finally know which ones are actually building wealth.

Steven Destine is the founder of Nimbus Portfolio and a Senior Data Engineer. He built Nimbus because he needed it himself — and couldn't find anything else that worked.