Calculators
Rental cash flow calculator
What a rental actually pays you each month, after the costs a DSCR ratio doesn't subtract — vacancy, management, maintenance and the mortgage payment itself.
Run the numbers
Vacancy, management and maintenance are assumptions — set them to match the property.
Indicative arithmetic on the numbers you enter. Real operating costs vary by property, market and how hands-on the owner is — use figures from an actual lease and expense history where you have them rather than these defaults.
What this measures and how it's computed
Cash flow is what's left every month after every real cost of owning and financing the property is paid. In order: effective rent after vacancy, minus operating expenses (management, maintenance, taxes, insurance, dues), leaves net operating income. NOI minus the mortgage payment (principal and interest) leaves cash flow. Divide the annual figure by what you actually put in — down payment plus closing costs — and you get cash-on-cash return, the percentage yield on your own cash rather than on the property's full value.
How it's used in an underwriting decision
Cash flow itself is not the number most DSCR lenders qualify on — that's the DSCR ratio, which uses gross rent against the payment and ignores vacancy, management and maintenance entirely (run it on the DSCR calculator). A property can clear a lender's DSCR floor and still produce negative cash flow once real operating costs are subtracted, or vice versa on a property with unusually low expenses. Cash flow is the number an investor uses to decide whether the deal is actually worth owning, independent of whether it qualifies for financing.
What this doesn't capture
- Appreciation and principal paydown. This is pure monthly cash yield. It says nothing about equity building through amortization or market appreciation over the hold.
- Lumpy capital expenses. A roof or HVAC replacement doesn't show up as a monthly line item here — the maintenance assumption is a long-run average, not a reserve fund schedule.
- Tax treatment. Depreciation and other tax effects can change the after-tax return meaningfully; this tool works in pre-tax cash only.
- Financing qualification. A strong cash-on-cash return doesn't guarantee the deal clears a lender's DSCR floor — check both numbers separately.