If you are visiting our website, it means you are a current real estate investor or are looking into options for starting your own real estate investing business. In either case, there is one thing that you can’t go without – an investment property calculator.
Gone are the days when investors had to spend hours or days or maybe even weeks searching for the data, entering them into spreadsheets, and analyzing them bit by bit to decide whether a city, a neighborhood, or a specific rental property is the right choice for them. All you need now is your computer or tablet and a couple of minutes, and you are ready to explore neighborhoods in all major US cities as well as thousands of actual available rental properties across the US. All this because of Mashvisor’s investment property calculator.
Related: Investment Property Calculator For Analyzing Real Estate Investments
But let’s start from the beginning…
What is an investment property calculator?
Well, an investment property calculator is simply a tool which provides real estate investors with the opportunity to input the expected costs for a specific rental property and which then outputs a wide range of automatic calculations and predictive figures for this income property. What is really great about the investment property calculator is that it goes beyond just the numbers. It actually tells you whether an investment property is a good idea or not.
What is Mashvisor’s investment property calculator?
Mashvisor’s investment property calculator is one example of this amazing new technology. It is highly interactive and allows you to do things that other investment property calculators don’t.
Let’s look at what you can in fact do:
What can you calculate with Mashvisor’s investment property calculator?
Basically, Mashvisor’s investment property calculator allows you to analyze neighborhoods within a city in addition to specific properties.
Neighborhoods
Sometimes you know that you want to invest in a certain city – let’s say Dallas – but you have no idea which neighborhood is the best one for your specific financial situation and other preferences. No worries, you can search for a neighborhood in any city available on Mashvisor, and the investment property calculator will provide you with the most crucial figures for this particular neighborhood.
Related: Investing in the Right Neighborhood
For a neighborhood Mashvisor’s investment calculator will provide you with the following numbers:
- Median property price
- Average rental income
- Average cash on cash return
- Average cap rate
- Occupancy rate
Moreover, all these numbers will be available for traditional versus Airbnb rental strategy. Furthermore, instead of just providing you with the figures, the calculator will tell you the optimal rental strategy (traditional or Airbnb) for this specific neighborhood. Last but not least, the Mashmeter, which was specifically developed by Mashvisor, will tell you how good any neighborhood is for real estate investing. The Mashmeter score is expressed as a % and allows you to easily compare between neighborhoods in a city or even in different cities. The Mashmeter grade is based on both quantitative and qualitative data as well as Mashvisor’s analysis of the neighborhood.
As we’ve said, Mashvisor’s investment property calculator is not all about numbers. For any particular property, it will also advise you on:
- The optimal property type
- The optimal number of bedrooms
- The optimal rental strategy
Properties
Once you are settled on a neighborhood thanks to Mashvisor’s investment property calculator, it is time to move on to choosing the best property for you. Again, you will need an investment property calculator to do that (unless you want to waste your time and energy on spreadsheets!).
Related: Why an Investment Property Calculator Is Better Than Spreadsheets
Here’s a quick list of some of the numerous numbers crucial for real estate investing which Mashvisor’s investment property calculator will generate for any particular rental property:
- Rental income
- Monthly expenses
- Cash flow
- Cash on cash return
- Cap rate
- Occupancy rate
Once more, all these figures will be provided for both traditional and Airbnb rental strategy. What is really great is that Mashvisor will offer you estimates on the rental income, the monthly expenses, and the occupancy rate that you can expect for this specific property based on comparative and predictive analytics from the comparable properties around the area. However, you still have the option to enter your own rental income and expenses if you have reasons to believe that your property will generate significantly different income or require other expenses compared to the rest of the properties around.
Costs
Mashvisor’s investment property calculator divides the expected expenses into two broad categories: 1) one-time startup costs and 2) recurring costs. While the one-time startup costs are expected to be the same regardless of whether you go traditional or Airbnb, the recurring expenses are customized for the two cases.
Related: How To Do Investment Property Analysis
Let’s take a look at the one-time startup costs which the calculator takes into consideration:
- Inspections
- Total repair costs
- Furniture and appliances
- Closing costs
- Custom expenses: Here you have the option to add as many additional expense categories as you think your property might require.
Now here are the recurring costs which Mashvisor lists for you:
- Insurance
- Utilities
- Property management
- Property maintenance
- Property tax
- Homeowners’ Association dues
- Rental income taxes
- Custom expenses: You can insert any number of extra costs which come to your mind.
For all these costs – one-time and recurring – Mashvisor supplies you with reasonable, analysis-based estimates, while leaving you the option of changing them in any way that you deem necessary.
Rental strategy
Similar to neighborhoods, Mashvisor’s investment property calculator for properties will give you more than just numbers. It will tell you whether it’s a good idea to invest in a particular property or not. Moreover, it will allow you to decide on the best rental strategy – traditional or Airbnb – for any income property. As you will see, the expected rental incomes computed by the calculator can vary considerably for the two strategies.
Financing strategy
Of course, that’s not all that Mashvisor’s investment property calculator does for you. In addition, it helps you decide on the most appropriate financing strategy in your case: to pay in cash or with a mortgage. In case you need to (or want to) take a loan, the interactive calculator allows you to play around with the down payment level, the loan amount, the loan type, and the interest rate. Remember, small adjustments in any of these variables can yield major changes in the estimated outcomes. So, this calculator will save you a lot of time when choosing the financing option.
Investment valuation score
Finally, for each available rental property, Mashvisor will provide you with an investment valuation score, which is an overall evaluation of the investment opportunity offered by this property. This score, calculated as a %, is based on such factors as the cash on cash return, the cap rate, the property design, the rent appreciation rate, and the neighborhood rating. Depending on the computer %, you will be able to differentiate between low and high investment opportunity income properties.
The only way to see in how many ways Mashvisor’s investment property calculator can help you is to try it out yourself. So, when choosing your next rental property, don’t hesitate to search for it through Mashvisor.