Decision tools
Rental Property Analyzer
NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash return, DSCR, and a year-by-year projection with a real amortization schedule.
Direct answer: enter the purchase, financing, and rental-operating numbers below and this tool calculates the standard metrics investors underwrite with — NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash return, and DSCR — plus a five-metric year-by-year projection that models real loan amortization, not a static payoff.
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Purchase & financing
Estimated loan amount
$262,500
Purchase price minus down payment.
Income & expenses
Additional income
Additional expenses
Enter average amounts and avoid counting items already included above. Vacancy applies to rent; additional income is entered after any vacancy or collection losses. Management is calculated on total collected income.
Optional assumptions
Optional money set aside for future roofs, HVAC, appliances, and other major replacements. The default is $0. This reduces available cash flow but does not reduce NOI or cap-rate valuation. Avoid counting the same replacement twice.
Total monthly expenses: $665.44
32.2% of monthly income after rent vacancy Includes operating expenses and any replacement reserve; excludes the mortgage payment.
Cash flow excludes savings for future replacements. Add a replacement reserve under Optional assumptions if desired.
Property improvements
Add one-time improvements and any resulting rent increase. All improvements and rent changes are assumed to start at purchase. Uncheck an improvement to compare the property without it; its entries stay here and are saved with the analysis. Include only the increase above the rent entered above. Improvement costs are not automatically added to property value or depreciation. Separate financing is modeled as a fixed-rate, fully amortizing loan without fees or a balloon; the stress-test rate change applies to the purchase loan only.
Improvement effect on annual NOI: $0
Rent increase after vacancy and management, less the added operating costs entered above. Do not also enter those costs in additional expenses.
Estimated contribution to value at 5.5%: $0. This is already included in the total NOI-based property value.
This is an estimate of income-based value, not an appraisal or a guarantee. Value can fall if added operating costs exceed the rent increase.
Improvement cash invested: $0 · Separate improvement loan payments: $0/month initially.
Projection
The default is 5.5%, an editable starting assumption. For context, a 5.3% Salt Lake City multifamily benchmark was reported by Cushman & Wakefield for mid-year 2026. It is not a live rate or a property-specific appraisal. Rates vary by market, property type, condition, size, and timing; enter a rate supported by comparable sales.
With this checked, property value moves with the property’s own income growth (driven by rent growth above) at a constant cap rate, instead of an assumed market appreciation rate. If the cap rate you enter is higher than the deal’s actual going-in cap rate, year-1 appreciation can come out negative — that’s a signal about the price paid, not an error.
Tax considerations (illustrative)
Land value is typically found on a property tax assessment — land is not depreciable, only the building is. Tax rate is optional; leave blank to skip the tax-savings estimate.
Additional mortgage payments
Optional: add your own money each month on top of available property cash flow.
Year-1 summary
- $24,816
- Total income (annual)
- $7,985
- Total expenses (annual)
- $16,831
- NOI (annual)
- 4.8%
- Cap rate
- -$4,126
- Cash flow (annual)
- -4.4%
- Cash-on-cash return
- 0.80x
- DSCR
Income is after rent vacancy. Expenses include operating costs and the replacement reserve, but exclude loan payments. NOI excludes the replacement reserve; cash flow includes loan payments.
Tax considerations (illustrative)
- $10,182
- Annual depreciation (27.5-yr straight-line)
- $0
- Potential annual tax savings
- -$4,126
- After-tax cash flow (annual)
This illustrates only the tax value of depreciation and excludes improvement costs — it does not model mortgage-interest deductibility, passive-activity loss limitations, depreciation recapture on sale, or the alternative minimum tax, and it is not a substitute for a projection from your CPA or tax professional.
Return on cash (year 1)
-55%
Return on cash combines all four ways a rental typically builds wealth — cash flow, the change in property value, principal paydown, and the depreciation tax shield, less initial closing and improvement costs — divided by your total cash invested. The property-value change and paydown are unrealized until you sell or refinance; this is a combined illustration, not a cash-in-hand figure.
- Cash flow
- -$4,126
- Property value +/-
- -$43,987
- Loan paydown (all loans)
- $2,667
- Depreciation tax savings
- $0
- Closing and improvement costs
- -$6,000
- Total return (year 1)
- -$51,447
Pay off the mortgage with cash flow
What if you reinvest all available cash flow?
- 30 years
- Estimated purchase mortgage payoff
- 30 years
- Without extra payments
- $0
- Extra principal in first month
- $0
- Estimated mortgage interest saved
The property does not cover every scheduled loan payment under these assumptions. The estimate assumes you cover any shortfall from other funds; the additional contribution is separate from any funds needed to cover the shortfall.
Assumes Year-1 income, vacancy, operating expenses, and capital reserve stay constant, with positive cash flow and your additional monthly contribution applied to the purchase mortgage. Separate improvement loans receive their scheduled payments first; their payments end when paid off. This scenario does not change the year-by-year projection below. It excludes taxes, prepayment penalties and loan fees; verify extra payments are allowed and applied to principal.
Year-by-year projection
Illustrative depreciation savings use 27 full years and half of year 28, then stop. This simplified timing does not model placed-in-service tax conventions.
| Year | Cash flow | After-tax cash flow | Cumulative | Loan balances | Property value | Equity | Total return | Return on cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -$4,126 | -$4,126 | -$4,126 | $259,833 | $306,013 | $46,180 | -$51,447 | -55% |
| 2 | -$3,790 | -$3,790 | -$7,916 | $256,974 | $312,133 | $55,159 | $5,190 | 5.6% |
| 3 | -$3,446 | -$3,446 | -$11,362 | $253,908 | $318,376 | $64,468 | $5,862 | 6.3% |
| 4 | -$3,096 | -$3,096 | -$14,458 | $250,621 | $324,744 | $74,123 | $6,559 | 7% |
| 5 | -$2,739 | -$2,739 | -$17,197 | $247,095 | $331,238 | $84,143 | $7,281 | 7.8% |
Stress test (year 1) — adjust concurrently
All three apply together to the “Custom scenario” row below — e.g. a rent cut and a rate increase at the same time.
| Scenario | Cash flow | DSCR |
|---|---|---|
| Base case | -$4,126 | 0.80x |
| Custom scenario | -$11,859 | 0.51x |
What this means
Assumptions used
- Rent, expenses, and vacancy are the figures you entered, not verified against a specific lease or rent roll
- The year-by-year projection models real loan amortization, not a static payoff
- Appreciation and rent growth are entered as flat annual rates, not guaranteed
What could change this
- A DSCR below 1.0 — NOI wouldn't cover the mortgage payment at all before even a capital-expense reserve
- Underestimated capital-expense reserves — a roof or HVAC failure can consume several years of reserve at once
- A going-in cap rate weaker than the rate used to value the property at exit
Underwrite the property, not the pitch
Run the stress test before you run the comps.
A property that only works at today’s rent, today’s rate, and zero vacancy isn’t a property that works — it’s a bet. Use the stress-test fields to see how the numbers hold up under a less favorable, more realistic scenario.
Methodology
How these metrics are calculated.
- NOI = rental income (less vacancy) plus additional collected income, minus operating expenses — taxes, insurance, repairs, HOA, management, and additional expenses. Vacancy applies to rent; additional income is entered after any collection losses. Management is calculated on total collected income. NOI deliberately excludes the mortgage payment and the capital-expense reserve, matching standard underwriting practice.
- Cap rate = NOI ÷ purchase price.
- Cash flow= NOI minus the loan payments (principal & interest, including separate improvement loans) minus the capital-expense reserve — the real bottom line.
- Cash-on-cash return = annual cash flow ÷ total cash invested (down payment, cash-paid closing costs, and out-of-pocket improvement costs). Financed amounts are included in loan payments instead.
- DSCR = NOI ÷ annual loan payments, including separate improvement loans — lenders commonly want this at 1.20 or higher.
- Depreciation = (purchase price − land value) ÷ 27.5 — the standard IRS straight-line recovery period for residential rental property. Land is never depreciable, which is why the calculator asks for a land-value percentage separately. Improvement costs are not included in this depreciation estimate.
- Potential tax savings = annual depreciation × your entered tax rate — the value of that deduction sheltering an equal amount of income from tax.
- Property value in the year-by-year projection defaults to that year’s NOI ÷ the entered valuation cap rate, including improvement income and operating costs. The default 5.5% is an editable assumption, not a live or property-specific rate; adjust it based on comparable properties. The cap rate is held constant through the projection. Uncheck the cap-rate option to use purchase price and flat annual appreciation instead. Improvement costs are not automatically added to that value.
- Return on cash= (cash flow + that year’s property value change + that year’s loan principal paydown + the depreciation tax savings − initial closing and improvement costs in year one) ÷ total cash invested — pre-tax cash flow plus the tax savings as its own line, so the tax benefit is counted once, not twice. This combines the four components investors typically point to as the real sources of return from a rental — not just cash flow — into one number.
The year-by-year projection runs a real month-by-month amortization schedule, so principal paydown compounds — later years pay down more principal than earlier years, the way an actual mortgage works. Rent growth and expense inflation are entered separately, so operating costs don’t have to rise in lockstep with rent. Depreciation savings use a simplified full-year schedule: 27 full years, half of year 28, and none thereafter. Placed-in-service tax conventions are not modeled. This is a simplified estimate, not a substitute for a lender’s underwriting or an accountant’s projection.
The tax-savings figure is a narrow illustration of one benefit — depreciation’s tax shield — not a complete tax picture. It does not model mortgage-interest deductibility, passive-activity loss limitations (which can cap or disallow deducting rental losses against other income depending on your situation), depreciation recapture when you eventually sell (part of the benefit is generally repaid at sale), or the alternative minimum tax. Coordinate with a qualified tax professional before relying on this for a real decision.
Return on cash is a combined illustration, not spendable cash. Property value changes and loan paydown build equity, not cash in your account — you would need to sell or refinance to access them, and both involve their own costs and, for property value, no guarantee the market (or the assumed cap rate) holds. This metric answers “how hard is my cash working across all four channels,” not “how much cash will hit my bank account this year” — that narrower question is what cash-on-cash return above already answers.
Worked example (hypothetical)
A $350,000 purchase with 25% down, a 7% rate, a 30-year loan, $6,000 closing costs, $2,200 monthly rent, 6% vacancy, and typical expenses estimates to roughly $16,831 in annual NOI (a 4.8% cap rate) — but after the mortgage payment and a capital-expense reserve, cash flow is roughly -$5,926 (a -6.3% cash-on-cash return, 0.80x DSCR). This example is intentionally a marginal deal, not a rosy one: it illustrates why calculating NOI alone is not enough — a property can look fine on cap rate and still lose money monthly once debt service is included. Change any number above to see how the picture changes.
With 20% of the price allocated to land and a 24% marginal tax rate, annual depreciation on this example is roughly $10,182, for a potential tax savings of roughly $2,444 — bringing after-tax cash flow to roughly -$3,483. Still negative, but meaningfully less negative than the pre-tax figure — exactly the kind of thing a spreadsheet-only cap-rate comparison misses. This is illustrative only, not a market data point or tax advice.
Widening the lens to total return: year one adds roughly $10,500 in appreciation (using flat appreciation at 3% annual rather than the default cap-rate valuation) and roughly $2,667 in loan principal paydown. Combined with the (pre-tax) cash flow and the tax savings above, that’s a total return of roughly $3,684 after $6,000 in closing costs, on $93,500 of cash invested — a 3.9% return on cash for a deal whose monthly cash flow alone looks like a loss. Neither number is wrong; they answer different questions.
Downside cases
- A DSCR below 1.0 means NOI does not cover the mortgage payment at all — the property loses money before even counting a capital-expense reserve. Check the stress-test table for how sensitive this is to vacancy, rent, and rate changes.
- A high cap rate can mask negative cash flow if leverage (the loan) is aggressive — always check cash flow and DSCR alongside cap rate, never cap rate alone.
- Capital-expense reserves are frequently underestimated — a roof, HVAC system, or major system failure can consume several years of reserve at once.
- If you value the property by cap rate and the entered rate exceeds the deal’s actual going-in cap rate, appreciation and property value can come out lower than the purchase price — a signal you may be overpaying relative to that valuation assumption. If NOI is zero or negative, cap-rate value, equity, and value-based returns are unavailable; operating cash flow is still shown.
National considerations
Property tax rates, insurance costs, and lender DSCR requirements all vary meaningfully by state and by loan program.
Utah considerations
Property tax rates and rent levels vary by Utah county along the Wasatch Front — use local figures rather than a national average where possible.
Author: Todd McClean, Realtor® | Real Estate Investment Strategist, CENTURY 21 Everest Realty Group. Reviewed July 21, 2026. This tool provides general real estate information and is not legal, tax, accounting, lending, securities, commodities, or financial-planning advice.
Real-world example
What Todd Saw in the Property Other Investors Avoided
Situation: A long-time investment-property owner, later in life, who had already built a substantial portfolio concentrated in financial markets and was reconsidering how much of it should stay there.
What was at risk: Relying too heavily on the stock market with a shrinking time horizon to wait through a prolonged recovery
What Todd identified: Other investors saw an old building with dated units. Todd saw that several of the expensive, predictable capital items — the roof, the furnaces, the bathrooms, the flooring — had already been replaced within the previous few years, while the remaining visible deficiencies were easy to identify, estimate, and correct through a controlled improvement plan.
Action taken: Installed air conditioning in all six units
Outcome: Year-one NOI of $74,376 against a $1,255,000 total acquisition, improvement, and closing-cost basis, with rents increased approximately 19% and annual cash flow after debt service of $41,276.
Next step
Want a property-specific review?
This calculator uses simplified assumptions. A strategy review can pressure-test your specific numbers, financing, and market.