Rental investing terms, explained.

Every other calculator starts with a price and tells you the return — which is backwards, because the price is the very thing you're trying to figure out. So you end up typing in guesses. Here you state your goal first and the tool solves for the price. The big number is the answer, not an input.

At the default it shows the highest price at which the deal still breaks even — where rent exactly covers every cost, the mortgage included. Pay a dollar more than that number and the property bleeds money every month. Pay less and it starts making money. So it's your do-not-exceed ceiling for a deal that at least pays for itself.

Then the slider is where it gets useful: drag it to demand, say, $500/mo in your pocket, and the number drops — because to actually make money each month, you have to pay less for the building. You can literally watch your maximum offer fall as you raise your ambition.

That's the whole lesson in one motion: price and profit trade against each other, and as the buyer you set the trade — not the seller, no matter their list price.

Breakeven is the price at which monthly rent, after all operating costs and the mortgage payment, nets exactly zero. It's the natural ceiling for a financed deal: above it, the property costs you money each month.

Appreciation is deliberately not modeled here — at breakeven your return is the equity you build and the property's appreciation, not monthly cash. The slider lets you trade price for monthly cash flow on top of that.

The cap rate is a property's annual net operating income divided by its price, expressed as a percent. Because it ignores financing, it lets you compare properties on equal footing regardless of how each is bought.

A cash buyer's return tracks the cap rate closely; a financed buyer's cash return (cash-on-cash) can be higher or lower depending on the loan.

A cash buyer has no mortgage to cover, so a $0 cash-flow "breakeven" sits at an absurd price — the point where property taxes alone consume the rent, often just a 2–3% return. No disciplined investor would pay that.

The yield floor is the discipline instead: the minimum cap rate — annual net operating income ÷ price — you're willing to accept. The analyzer caps your all-cash offer at the highest price that still earns at least that return. It's the cash buyer's equivalent of the lender's DSCR test on a financed deal.

Raise the floor and your maximum offer drops; lower it and you'd pay more for the same rent. A common starting range for Florida long-term rentals is roughly 6–10%.

Cash-on-cash measures the return on the money you actually put in — down payment plus closing costs — rather than the full price. It's the number that answers "what is my invested cash earning?"

Leverage moves it: a mortgage can lift cash-on-cash above the cap rate (good leverage) or drag it below (negative leverage) depending on the rate. In an all-cash deal it converges toward the cap rate.

DSCR is the property's net operating income divided by its debt service. A DSCR of 1.00 means the rent exactly covers the loan; lenders want a cushion, typically 1.20–1.25, before they'll fund a deal.

That floor is why the bank won't lend all the way to breakeven: at breakeven your coverage is near 1.0, below what they require. The analyzer caps your financed offer at the price where coverage meets your lender's floor.

NOI is gross rent less all operating expenses (vacancy, management, maintenance, taxes, insurance, HOA, and so on), measured before debt service and before income taxes. It's the engine behind both cap rate and DSCR.

Whether a capital-expenditure reserve belongs in NOI is an underwriting judgment call — see the capex-in-NOI note.

Net Operating Income traditionally sits above capital reserves, so cap rate and DSCR are measured on income after operating expenses but before the replacement reserve.

Lenders are not uniform: some DSCR and portfolio programs underwrite a reserve into NOI for a stricter coverage test, while others treat capex as a below-the-line owner cost. Set this toggle to mirror your own underwriter's guidelines, so the cap rate and DSCR shown here are the very figures used to size your loan.

Either way, your cash flow already funds capex — this changes only the underwriting ratios, never the price you can pay.

Florida caps how fast a property's assessed value can rise while one owner holds it. But on a sale, that cap resets: the property is reassessed to full market value — essentially your purchase price — the January after closing.

So the tax figure on the county site, or whatever the seller or their agent quotes, reflects the seller's old, capped basis. Your year-one bill is based on what you paid, and for a non-homestead investment property it's typically far higher. This analyzer estimates the tax you'll actually owe, not the seller's.

A November 2026 ballot amendment may lower the non-homestead assessment cap going forward, but it does not change how a new buyer is first assessed.

When a tenant moves out and the unit is re-leased, a manager charges a leasing commission — usually one month's rent — for marketing, screening, and signing the new lease. SFRM's is one month.

Because it recurs only at turnover, the analyzer spreads it over your average tenancy: a one-month fee across a three-year stay is about a third of a month's rent per year. Longer tenancy, lower annual cost.