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Debt service coverage ratio is the single number a DSCR lender underwrites against. Enter the property's rent, operating expenses, and mortgage payment to see where you land against the 1.20–1.25 minimum most lenders require.
These are estimates from the numbers you entered. Want them calculated from real comparable rentals for a specific address?
Run a free CMA →DSCR measures how comfortably a property's income covers its loan payment. A DSCR of 1.25 means the property generates $1.25 of net operating income for every $1.00 of mortgage payment — a 25% cushion before the loan goes underwater on a cash basis.
This matters because DSCR loans qualify the property, not you. There's no W-2, no tax returns, no debt-to-income calculation on your personal finances. The building either covers its own debt or it doesn't. That's why DSCR lending became the default path for investors buying through an LLC or scaling past the conventional 10-property limit.
| DSCR | What it means |
|---|---|
| Below 1.00 | Property doesn't cover its own debt. Most lenders decline; a few will lend at higher rates with reserves. |
| 1.00 – 1.19 | Breakeven-ish. Possible with a rate premium, larger down payment, or 6–12 months of reserves. |
| 1.20 – 1.24 | Clears most lender floors. Standard pricing at many shops. |
| 1.25 – 1.50 | Comfortable. Best pricing tier for most DSCR programs. |
| Above 1.50 | Strong coverage. Room to increase leverage if that's your goal. |
Lenders don't all compute NOI the same way. Some use gross rent with no vacancy deduction and no management fee, which inflates DSCR considerably. Others use a full underwritten expense load like this calculator does. Ask your lender which line items they include before you assume you qualify. A property at 1.15 by your math might be 1.35 by theirs — or the reverse.
Also confirm whether their debt-service figure is principal and interest only, or PITIA (adding taxes, insurance, and HOA to the payment). PITIA-based DSCR produces a meaningfully lower ratio on the same property.
The rent number drives everything above. CompPilot pulls actual comparable rentals for any US address and returns a defensible rent range — plus cap rate, DSCR, cash flow, and a written market memo.
Get a free rental analysis →Most DSCR lenders set a floor at 1.20 or 1.25. Some will go to 1.00 or even below with compensating factors — bigger down payment, cash reserves, strong credit — but expect a rate premium. Below 1.00 the property isn't covering its debt and options narrow fast.
In this calculator, taxes and insurance are treated as operating expenses that reduce NOI, and debt service is principal and interest only. Some lenders instead use PITIA — adding taxes, insurance, and HOA into the payment side. That produces a lower ratio. Always confirm which convention your lender uses.
Four levers: raise the rent to market (the biggest one, and the one most investors underestimate), reduce the loan amount with a larger down payment, buy down the rate, or extend the amortization to 40 years where the program allows. Cutting an expense line rarely moves the ratio enough to matter.
DTI looks at your personal income against all your personal debts — it's how conventional mortgages qualify borrowers. DSCR looks only at the property's income against the property's debt. If you're self-employed, own several rentals already, or buy in an LLC, DSCR lending sidesteps the DTI problem entirely.
Sometimes. Lenders may underwrite to market rent from an appraiser's rent schedule rather than in-place rent, which helps on a below-market-leased property. Short-term rental income is accepted by some programs using AirDNA or comparable data. Vacant properties are harder but not impossible with a signed lease at closing.
If you run a real estate blog, brokerage, lending, or property management site, you can embed this dscr calculator free — two lines of HTML, no API key, no signup, unlimited page views. All the math runs in the visitor's browser, and it renders in an isolated shadow root so it can't collide with your site's styles.
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