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Every in-depth guide across Mortgage, Insurance, Investment, Salary, Rent and Budget, plus the Deal Workspace — our per-property case file for tracking a purchase from pre-approval to closing.
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Rental Property Deal Analyzer
$9.99Works a rental the way an underwriter does: gross rent through vacancy to collected income, operating expenses to net operating income, and only then the mortgage — so cap rate describes the property and cash flow describes your deal on it. Management is charged on rent actually collected rather than on the lease amount, the capital reserve is its own line instead of being buried in maintenance, and a sanity panel checks your expense ratio against the 35-55% range while flagging a missing reserve, a zero vacancy assumption, or an unpriced management fee. Closes with the rent you'd need to break even and the price that would deliver the cap rate you're actually targeting.
Format: Excel (.xlsx)
Look inside
Preview only — scroll to read it. The file you download is fully editable.
| Rental Property Deal Analyzer | ||
| Fill in the blue cells; everything else calculates. The sheet follows one chain — gross rent, less vacancy, less operating expenses, equals net operating income — and only then brings the mortgage in, because cap rate is supposed to describe the property and cash flow is supposed to describe your de… | ||
| Part 1 — The property | ||
| Purchase price | 245000 | The contract price. Every figure below that mentions price uses this one. |
| Closing costs | 5500 | Lender fees, title, transfer tax, prepaids — the cash that leaves your account at closing on top of the down payment. |
| Up-front repairs / rehab before the first tenant | 7500 | Make-ready work you pay for before rent starts. This is cash invested, not an operating expense — recurring repairs belong in Part 3. |
| Down payment (%) | 25 | Yellow because 20 is a placeholder, not a fact about your loan — investment property loans commonly require 20-25% down, and yours may differ. Enter as a number, e.g. 25 — not 0.25. |
| Down payment ($) | ƒx | |
| Loan amount | ƒx | Purchase price less the down payment. Financed closing costs are not assumed here — enter your real principal & interest in Part 4 if your loan differs. |
| Total cash invested | ƒx | Down payment plus closing costs plus up-front repairs. This is the denominator of cash-on-cash return in Part 4 — get it wrong and that return is wrong by the same proportion. |
| Part 2 — Income | ||
| Monthly rent (scheduled) | 2350 | Gross scheduled rent — what the lease says, before any vacancy. Not what you expect to average across a year. |
| Other monthly income | 75 | Pet rent, parking, laundry, storage. Treated exactly like rent from here down: it is subject to vacancy and to the management fee. |
| Vacancy rate (%) | 6 | Percent of gross rent you expect to lose to empty months and turnover. Enter as a number, e.g. 6 — not 0.06. Zero is flagged in Part 5. |
| Gross annual rent | ƒx | Twelve months of scheduled rent, before vacancy. This is the top of the chain, not income you can spend. |
| Vacancy loss | ƒx | |
| Effective gross income (rent actually collected) | ƒx | Gross rent less vacancy. Every percentage below that is charged on income — the management fee, the expense ratio — is charged on THIS number, not on gross rent. |
| Part 3 — Operating expenses (annual, debt service excluded) | ||
| Property tax (annual) | 4100 | The tax the property will actually be assessed at AFTER your purchase — in many states a sale re-assesses the property, so the seller's current bill is not your bill. |
| Insurance (annual) | 1750 | A landlord / dwelling-fire policy, which is not the same product or price as an owner-occupied homeowners policy. |
| HOA dues (monthly) | 0 | Entered monthly, annualized (x12) inside the total below — enter the figure the HOA actually bills you. |
| Repairs & maintenance (annual) | 1800 | Ongoing, non-capital work: a failed disposal, a service call, turnover paint. Zero here is flagged in Part 5. |
| Capital reserve (annual) | 1700 | Roof, HVAC, water heater, appliances — large, lumpy, and certain. Kept separate from maintenance on purpose, because folded together is how it gets forgotten. Zero here is flagged in Part 5. |
| Other operating costs (annual) | 600 | Owner-paid utilities, landscaping, snow removal, pest control, licences, an accountant. |
| Property management fee (% of collected rent) | 8 | Charged on rent actually collected, NOT on scheduled rent — see the row below. Typically 8-10% of collected rent. Enter 0 only if you truly self-manage; that is flagged in Part 5. |
| Management fee ($) | ƒx | The fee percentage times EFFECTIVE GROSS INCOME (B19), not gross rent (B17). A manager takes a cut of rent that came in, not of rent nobody paid — charging it on gross overstates the expense in exactly the months the unit sits empty. |
| Total operating expenses | ƒx | Tax + insurance + HOA x 12 + repairs + capital reserve + other + management. Your mortgage is deliberately NOT in here — see Part 4. |
| Expense ratio (% of collected rent) | ƒx | Operating expenses as a share of effective gross income. The single fastest sanity check on a rental analysis — Part 5 compares it to the usual range. |
| Part 4 — The results | ||
| Net operating income (NOI) | ƒx | Collected rent less operating expenses. INCLUDES vacancy, management, and the capital reserve. EXCLUDES the mortgage, income tax, and depreciation — debt service is left out by definition, not by oversight. |
| Cap rate (%) | ƒx | NOI as a percent of purchase price. Describes the PROPERTY, not your financing — two buyers with different down payments get the same cap rate on the same house. Compare it against local comparables, not a national rule of thumb. |
| Cap rate, in words | ƒx | Wide bands on purpose. Real market cap rates vary enormously by metro and asset class; the only comparison that settles anything is against comparable local sales. |
| Monthly principal & interest | 1222 | Your real mortgage payment on the loan amount in Part 1 — principal and interest only. Do NOT include escrowed tax and insurance here; they are already counted in Part 3 and would be double-counted. Enter 0 for an all-cash purchase. |
| Annual debt service | ƒx | |
| Annual cash flow | ƒx | NOI less debt service. This is the first line on the sheet that knows how you financed the deal. Negative means the property loses money every year you hold it. |
| Monthly cash flow | ƒx | The annual figure divided by twelve — an average, not a monthly reality. Vacancy and the capital reserve arrive in lumps, not in equal instalments. |
| Cash-on-cash return (%) | ƒx | Annual cash flow as a percent of total cash invested. Answers what the money you actually put in is earning — which is a different question from cap rate, and the one to compare against other places you could park the cash. |
| Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) | ƒx | NOI divided by annual debt service. Below 1.00 the property cannot service its own loan out of its own income. Many lenders on investment property want 1.20-1.25 or better. |
| Part 5 — Sanity check: what this analysis may be leaving out | ||
| Expense ratio vs. the typical range | ƒx | Operating expenses consume 35-55% of collected rent on a typical rental. This is a screening band, not a rule — but a ratio well below it almost always means a cost was left out rather than a bargain was found, and a ratio well above it is worth explaining before you buy. |
| Capital reserve | ƒx | |
| Vacancy | ƒx | |
| Management fee | ƒx | |
| Repairs & maintenance | ƒx | |
| Expense ratio below the typical range | ƒx | Only raised when the four flags above are all clear — if a reserve or a management fee is already missing, THAT is the reason the ratio is low, and this row would just be saying it a second time. |
| Flags raised | ƒx | Each flag describes a gap in the ANALYSIS, not a risk in the property. Every one of them makes the returns above look better than they are. |
| Part 6 — Breakeven | ||
| Rent required for zero cash flow (monthly, rent + other income) | ƒx | Solved, not guessed: at this rent, collected income exactly covers operating expenses and the mortgage. Management and vacancy scale with rent, so the fixed costs are grossed up by both — which is why this is higher than simply adding the expenses up. |
| Margin over breakeven rent (monthly) | ƒx | What your rent clears breakeven by. Negative means the deal needs a rent the market may not pay. A thin margin is the honest reading of a deal that looks fine on cash flow alone. |
| Target cap rate you want (%) | 7 | Enter as a number, e.g. 7 — not 0.07. Use what comparable local sales actually trade at, not an aspiration. |
| Purchase price that would deliver that cap rate | ƒx | NOI divided by your target. Holds the operating numbers fixed, so re-check property tax if the answer is far from the asking price — in most states the tax is assessed off what you actually pay. |
Preview shows the first 60 rows. The full worksheet continues for 11 more — the complete worksheet is in the download.
This template is general information, not financial, legal, or tax advice.