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What does this rental return?

Price, rent, and expenses in — NOI, cap rate, and cash-on-cash out. Every number below is computed from your inputs, nothing else.

Comparing software costs instead? Try the ROI calculator

The Property

$
$2,400

Taxes, insurance, maintenance, management, owner-paid utilities — not the loan

$850

Your Financing

Down payment + closing costs + upfront repairs

$
$1,247

Cap Rate

7.44%

$18,600 NOI ÷ $250,000 price

Annual NOI

$18,600

Before debt service

Annual Cash Flow

$3,636

After the loan payment

Cash-on-Cash Return

5.19%

$3,636 cash flow ÷ $70,000 invested

Year-one snapshot from your inputs only — no appreciation, loan paydown, or tax effects. Not investment advice.

A worked example

Say a duplex is listed at $250,000. It rents for $2,400 a month total, and you estimate $850 a month in operating expenses — taxes, insurance, maintenance, and management, but not the loan. Net operating income is ($2,400 − $850) × 12 = $18,600 a year, and the cap rate is $18,600 ÷ $250,000 = 7.44%.

Now add financing. With $70,000 of cash in the deal (down payment plus closing costs) and a loan payment of $1,247 a month, annual cash flow is ($2,400 − $850 − $1,247) × 12 = $3,636 — a cash-on-cash return of $3,636 ÷ $70,000 = 5.19%. Same building, two different lenses: cap rate measures the property, cash-on-cash measures your deal.

How the math works

NOI = (monthly rent − monthly operating expenses) × 12

Cap rate = NOI ÷ purchase price × 100

Cash flow = (monthly rent − expenses − loan payment) × 12

Cash-on-cash = annual cash flow ÷ cash invested × 100

  • Cap rate deliberately ignores financing — it measures the property, so two buyers with different loans can compare the same building on the same number.
  • Operating expenses means taxes, insurance, maintenance, management, and owner-paid utilities. Loan payments are never part of NOI; many investors also hold capital expenditures in a separate reserve.
  • Cash-on-cash puts financing back in: actual cash flow after the loan payment, divided by the cash you actually put in. It is the return on your money rather than the building’s.
  • Neither number includes appreciation, loan paydown, or tax effects. They are snapshots of year-one operations, not a full projection.

Cap rate questions

Run this math on every deal

Doughy’s Acquisitions agent, coming soon, will model rental income, expenses, cap rates, and ROI scenarios on the deals you feed it — the same math on this page, applied to your pipeline.

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