What will your rental actually return?
Three quick steps. Real-time cash flow, cap rate, and cash-on-cash returns. Then send the full report to our team for a no-pressure review.
How to read rental ROI without fooling yourself
Most owners undercount expenses. They model rent at 100 percent occupancy, forget capital expenditures, leave out vacancy, and lean on a property tax number from the listing instead of the bill they'll actually receive after reassessment. The result is a return that looks great on a spreadsheet and disappoints in year one. A useful ROI model is conservative on income, generous on expenses, and explicit about the assumptions behind every line item.
Three numbers do most of the work. Cap rate (NOI divided by price) lets you compare assets against each other without financing noise. Cash-on-cash return (annual cash flow divided by cash invested) tells you what your actual cash is doing this year. NOI itself is the foundation under both. Track all three, and you'll catch deals that look good on one metric but break on another, which is where most rental investing mistakes live.
Returns also compound differently than most owners expect. Principal paydown adds equity quietly every month. Rents grow with inflation in healthy markets. Tax treatment, especially depreciation and the eventual 1031 exchange, can swing a deal materially. The calculator above handles the year one operating math. Your job is to stress-test it: drop occupancy 5 points, add a turn, raise taxes 10 percent, and see if the deal still works. The ones that survive are the ones worth owning.