The Calculator App
Investment Property
Estimate rent, operating expenses, and the loan payment for a rental. Cash flow is what remains. Deal checks and return horizons use assumptions you edit. This is not a valuation, a rent quote, or tax advice.
$135.05 / month
Illustrative $400,000 price, 20% down, 6.48% rate, and $3,200 monthly rent. Cash to close $88,000. Cap rate 6.46%. Not a quote. The interactive calculator replaces this summary in the browser.
How this rental estimate is built
You enter rent, vacancy, operating costs, and loan terms. Net operating income is effective rent minus operating expenses, before the loan. Cash flow subtracts principal and interest. Longer projections apply the rent, expense, and appreciation rates you choose once per year.
Operating income and financing
Property tax can be a yearly dollar amount or a percent of price. Maintenance and the capital reserve are percents of gross rent; management is a percent of effective rent after vacancy. The loan payment uses the same fixed monthly schedule as the mortgage calculator, without taxes or insurance in that payment.
Returns and sale scenarios
The returns summary and sell-later card combine cash flow while you hold the property with equity from paydown and appreciation, then subtract selling costs on a hypothetical sale. Deal checks are rough year-one screens — cap rate versus your target, DSCR, the 1% rule, and break-even rent or occupancy — not investment advice.
Questions
- What is monthly cash flow on a rental?
- It is effective rent minus the operating expenses you enter and the principal-and-interest payment. Vacancy is taken out of gross rent before those expenses. A positive figure is money left in this model before income tax. It is not the same as taxable profit.
- How are cap rate and cash-on-cash different?
- Cap rate is year-one net operating income divided by the purchase price. It ignores financing. Cash-on-cash is year-one cash flow divided by cash invested — down payment plus closing cash and any repair reserve you typed. Neither includes appreciation until you look at the returns summary.
- What is debt-service coverage (DSCR)?
- Here it is year-one net operating income divided by annual principal and interest. Lenders often want a minimum ratio so rent can cover the loan with a cushion. This page uses the threshold you enter; it is not a lender approval.
- What do the 1% rule and break-even rent mean?
- The 1% rule compares monthly rent to one percent of the purchase price — a quick screen, not a valuation. Break-even rent is the monthly rent that would make year-one cash flow zero with your other inputs fixed. Break-even occupancy is how much of gross rent must be collected to cover expenses and debt after vacancy.
- How should I read IRR and total return?
- Total return at a horizon adds cumulative cash flow, principal paydown, appreciation, and selling costs on a hypothetical sale. IRR is an annualized return on cash invested using those yearly flows. Both depend on appreciation and selling cost assumptions you enter. They are not forecasts.
- What is not included?
- Income tax, depreciation schedules, capital gains tax, depreciation recapture, 1031 exchanges, refinancing, capex beyond the reserve percent, and mortgage insurance are not modeled unless you add amounts manually. Nothing on this page looks up market rent, tax bills, or lender rates.