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The full underwrite in one screen. Enter the purchase, the loan, the rent, and the expenses — get monthly cash flow, cap rate, cash-on-cash return, DSCR, and NOI. This is the same math behind every CompPilot report.
These are estimates from the numbers you entered. Want them calculated from real comparable rentals for a specific address?
Run a free CMA →This calculator runs the complete underwrite — the same sequence a lender or an experienced investor walks through before making an offer. Each metric answers a different question, and a deal needs to clear all of them, not just one.
Maintenance. New investors routinely budget 2–3% of rent. Over a full hold period including turnovers, water heaters, HVAC, and roofing, the real number is closer to 1% of property value annually — on a $250k house that's $2,500/year, not $600.
Vacancy. Even a great property turns over. One month of vacancy every two years is roughly 4%. Add make-ready time and 5–8% is realistic in most markets.
Management. If you self-manage, you can zero this out — but understand you're paying yourself in labor, and the day you want to stop, the deal's economics change by 8–10% of gross rent.
Capital expenditures. This calculator doesn't have a CapEx line because it's not an operating expense — but roofs, HVAC systems, and water heaters all die eventually. Many investors reserve an extra $100–200/month per unit on top of maintenance.
Every number on this page is downstream of the rent figure. Move rent by $200 and cash flow, cap rate, cash-on-cash, and DSCR all move materially. That's why guessing at rent — or trusting a Zestimate — is the most expensive shortcut in the underwriting process.
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 →A common target is $100–200 per unit per month after all expenses including a maintenance and vacancy allowance. What matters more than hitting a specific number is that the figure is honest — a deal underwritten at $300/month with no vacancy or maintenance budget is really a $50/month deal.
The usual omissions: capital expenditure reserves for roof and HVAC replacement, turnover costs (paint, cleaning, leasing fee), utilities during vacancy, lawn care and snow removal, pest control, and annual license or inspection fees where your city requires them. Add 5–10% to your expense estimate to account for the unknown.
Not in cash flow — it isn't cash you can spend. But it is real wealth accumulation, and over a 30-year hold it's often the largest component of total return. Track it separately rather than blending it into monthly cash flow, or you'll talk yourself into deals that don't actually pay you.
Pull actual comparable rentals — same bed/bath count, similar square footage, within about a mile, listed in the last 90 days. Listing sites show asking rents, not signed rents, and asking is frequently 3–8% above what actually clears. Running a proper rental CMA gives you the comp set and an estimate built from it.
No — all figures are pre-tax. Depreciation typically shelters a meaningful portion of rental income from taxes, which means your after-tax return is usually better than the pre-tax cash-on-cash shown here. Talk to a CPA about your specific situation.
If you run a real estate blog, brokerage, lending, or property management site, you can embed this rental property 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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