Will this rental pay you every month, or will you be paying it? Enter the price, rent and loan to see cash flow after every expense, plus cap rate, cash-on-cash and DSCR.
Cash flow is what's left of the rent after the mortgage and every operating cost. The ones new investors forget are the ones that don't show up every month: vacancy, repairs and capital expenses like a roof or a furnace. This calculator sets aside a percentage of rent for each, so a property that only "cash flows" when nothing breaks shows up as the thin deal it really is.
Pull rent comps for the same bed and bath count nearby. If you have nothing else, 1% of the price is a rough ceiling, not a forecast.
Vacancy, repairs and CapEx together run about 15–20% of rent on an average single-family home. Older houses need more.
Even if you self-manage, budget 8–10%. It keeps the deal honest and leaves room to hire a manager later.
Deal Snap REI Pro runs this exact cash flow analysis automatically on every Zillow listing you open, with the listing's real taxes and HOA filled in, then saves the deal to your pipeline in one click.
Install the Chrome Extension — FreeMany investors look for $100–$300 per door per month on a single-family rental after all reserves. The right number depends on how much cash you put in, so compare it with cash-on-cash return rather than looking at the dollar figure alone.
Net operating income (NOI) is rent minus operating expenses, before the mortgage. Cash flow subtracts the mortgage too. NOI tells you how the property performs; cash flow tells you how your deal, with your financing, performs.
Debt service coverage ratio is NOI divided by the annual mortgage payment. A DSCR of 1.25 means the property earns 25% more than it needs to cover the loan. DSCR lenders commonly want 1.0–1.25 or higher.
No. Cash to close here is the down payment plus closing costs, the same way the Deal Snap REI extension calculates it. If you're putting money into repairs up front, the cash-on-cash calculator includes rehab in the cash invested.
A quick screen that says monthly rent should be at least 1% of the purchase price. It's a filter for which listings deserve a full analysis, not a substitute for one.