One challenge that beginner real estate investors face is knowing if an investment property for sale will be profitable. Many investors end up owning rental property with negative cash flow and poor rate of return because they either failed to evaluate it at all or don’t know how to do investment property analysis property and accurately.
While there are a number of real estate investment tools that can be used to analyze potential real estate deals, savvy investors use an investment property analysis calculator. In this article, we are going to look at the best rental property investment analysis calculator available right now. Keep reading to learn more about it.
What Is an Investment Property Analysis Calculator?
An investment property calculator, sometimes called a rental property calculator, is a software tool that helps investors evaluate the expected profitability of investments by providing them with real estate data and analytics. Unlike a rental property investment analysis spreadsheet, an investment property analysis calculator is generally easier and quicker to use and less prone to error. A real estate investor who uses an online calculator will usually reduce the risk of making a mistake through manual calculations while saving a lot of time and effort.
However, there are countless both free and paid investment property analysis calculators in the current US housing market. All of these promise to help you make the best investment decisions, but not all live up to your expectations. Most calculators in the market are simple tools that need you to spend weeks collecting market and property data before adding it to the calculator. In essence, they function just like an investment property analysis spreadsheet except that you are not required to plug in the formulas. Moreover, the real estate metrics you’ll be able to compute vary widely depending on the calculator you are using.
If you are looking for a reliable and advanced rental property calculator that collects its own real estate big data and accurately analyzes it for you, we recommend that you use Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator. You can get much more from using Mashvisor’s tool compared to using the basic calculators in the market.
Related: Buying Rental Property Calculator: The First Thing to Do in Real Estate Investing
What Numbers Does Mashvisor’s Investment Property Calculator Provide for You?
If you want to find lucrative Airbnb and traditional investment properties, the accuracy of your calculations is crucial. Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator constantly derives property data from a number of reliable sources such as Airbnb, Redfin, the MLS, and more. The tool applies machine-learning algorithms and predictive analytics to this big data to provide investors with highly-accurate real estate valuation.
The calculator provides you with the following key numbers:
1. Rental Property Expenses
Owning rental property comes with different expenses which affect your cash flow and return on investment. Getting these cost estimates on your own can be a complex and daunting task. It could take you days or weeks to find out what other landlords in the neighborhood are spending.
For any income property in the US housing market 2021, Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator will automatically provide you with estimates of both one-time startup costs and recurring monthly expenses. The cost estimates are based on the property’s location. They include:
One-Time Startup Costs
- Inspections
- Total repair costs
- Furniture and appliances
- Closing costs
Recurring Monthly Expenses
- Insurance
- Utilities
- Property management
- Maintenance
- Property tax
- HOA dues
- Rental income taxes
- Marketing
Mashvisor’s Rental Expenses Analysis
The Mashvisor’s calculator allows you to adjust the cost estimates and add your own custom expenses if you have additional market insight. This helps make your calculations even more accurate.
2. Rental Income
Mashvisor also provides accurate projections of the monthly rental income an investment property is expected to generate. The rental income calculator provides Airbnb rental income and traditional rental estimate for each property analyzed.
Mashvisor’s Investment Property Analysis
3. Occupancy Rate
Occupancy rate is one of the key indicators of a rental property’s performance. It is the ratio of the time when a rental unit is occupied to the total time for which it is listed for rent. For every listing analyzed, Mashvisor’s calculator displays occupancy rates for both the traditional and Airbnb occupancy rate, based on the performance of actual rental comps in the area.
3. Cash Flow
It is recommended that real estate investors only buy investment properties with positive cash flow, especially when just starting out. Apart from the property paying for itself, positive cash flow allows you to grow your investment portfolio faster by reinvesting.
Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator acts as a cash flow calculator. It automatically provides cash flow data based on rental income and cost estimates. Any changes you make on the estimates for rental property expenses and monthly income will be reflected on the rental property cash flow.
4. Cash on Cash Return
Cash on cash return is a return on investment metric that shows how much money you can expect to make based on the initial amount of cash invested. It is calculated by dividing the annual pre-tax cash flow by the total cash investment. Mashvisor’s cash on cash return calculator provides cash on cash return data for each property analyzed, whether rented out traditionally or on Airbnb.
5. Capitalization Rate (Cap Rate)
Cap rate, another popular return on investment metric, is the ratio of net operating income (NOI) of a rental property to its current market value (CMV). This ROI metric is used to compare the performance of multiple investment properties without taking into account the financing method. Whether you know how to calculate cap rate or not, you don’t have to worry as Mashvisor works as a cap rate calculator as well. It provides readily available cap rate estimates.
Related: The Cap Rate Formula and How It Helps Find Profitable Investments
Mashvisor’s Rental Property Calculator: Other Special Features
What makes Mashvisor’s calculator the best is the fact that it offers more than just numbers, unlike the rest of the calculators out there. The tool has several unique features which investors find particularly useful when analyzing income properties for sale:
1. Mortgage Calculator
If you are buying rental property with a mortgage loan, you need to shop around for the best deal. This is because rental property mortgage rates, terms, and other financing costs have a big impact on cash flow and cash on cash return.
Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator has an inbuilt mortgage calculator that will help you to determine the best mortgage financing option. It does this by showing the change in potential cash flow and cash on cash return based on the specified mortgage details.
Mashvisor’s Mortgage Calculator
The calculator allows you to add the following mortgage details:
- Property price
- Mortgage type
- Loan amount
- Loan term
- Down payment
- Interest rate
2. Optimal Rental Strategy
Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator also helps you determine the optimal rental strategy for each listing. It does this by providing values for both Airbnb and traditional rental strategies for all numbers it calculates. In this way, it’s easy to compare and see which rental strategy is more lucrative in your specific market and for your particular property.
3. Comps
Before you buy a rental property, you should determine its fair market value to know whether it’s been overpriced or it’s listed below market value. Rental valuation is usually done by looking at recently sold comparable properties in the area (real estate comps). Mashvisor’s investment property analysis calculator automatically generates real estate comps for each property listing on the platform.
And that’s not all. Mashvisor’s real estate investment software offers investors traditional and Airbnb rental comps for each property listed on the platform. These are actual rental properties which are located in the area and which have features similar to the features of the property that you are looking at. All rental property analysis is based on the performance of these comps which makes it particularly accurate and trustworthy. Furthermore, investors can use these rental comps to expand and deepen their analysis.
Related: 3 Reasons to Use Mashvisor’s New Alerts Feature
4. Neighborhood Analysis
Another special feature of Mashvisor’s rental property calculator is neighborhood analysis. It provides neighborhood-level data and analytics to help you gauge how the neighborhood is performing relative to other neighborhoods in the same city. When you click on the name of the neighborhood, you’ll be directed to the Neighborhood Analytics Page. A range of neighborhood data is provided including:
- Number of properties
- Median property price
- Square foot price
- Traditional and Airbnb rental income
- Traditional and Airbnb cap rate
- Traditional and Airbnb cash on cash return
- Airbnb occupancy rate
- Mashmeter score
- Optimal rental strategy
The Bottom Line
If you want to have a successful property investment in 2021, a thorough investment property analysis is mandatory. While there are many calculators in the market that you can use, they aren’t all made the same. Mashvisor’s investment property calculator is the best tool for fast and accurate in-depth rental property analysis in the US housing market 2021.
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