Project a rental property's 10-year cash flow + total return.
10-year total return
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Cumulative cash flow
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Equity build (10yr)
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Appreciation (10yr)
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Total ROI on cash invested
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Return component | 10-year amount |
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Three engines of a rental's return
A rental property pays you in three ways at once, and judging a deal on rent alone misses most of the picture. The first engine is cash flow, the money left after the mortgage and operating costs each month. The second is equity build, the principal your tenant's rent pays down on your loan. The third is appreciation, the rise in the property's market value. This forecaster runs all three across a ten-year hold and adds them into a single total return on the cash you put in.
Treating these separately matters because they behave differently. Cash flow is spendable today, equity is locked up until you sell or refinance, and appreciation is a paper gain until realized. A property can show thin or even negative cash flow yet still be a strong investment if equity and appreciation carry it, which is exactly what the numbers below illustrate.
Ten years on a $350,000 rental
Use the defaults: a $350,000 purchase with $80,000 of cash invested, an $1,850 monthly mortgage at 7 percent, $2,600 in rent and $600 in operating expenses to start, rent growing 3 percent a year, and 3 percent annual appreciation. One detail worth knowing: the model inflates operating expenses at a fixed 2.5 percent a year regardless of the rent-growth input, so costs creep up steadily on their own track. Here is how the ten-year total stacks up.
Appreciation does the heaviest lifting at $120,371, which is the lesson leverage teaches: a 3 percent rise on the full $350,000 value accrues entirely to your $80,000 stake. Cash flow and principal paydown add another $102,607 between them, and the combined total comes to $222,978 over the decade.
Reading the approximate IRR
The 14.2 percent annualized figure is an approximation, and the tool labels it that way for a reason. It is the compound annual growth rate that turns your $80,000 into $80,000 plus the total return over ten years, not a true internal rate of return that weights each year's cash flow by when it arrives. A genuine IRR would credit early cash flows more heavily and typically lands a little differently. Use this number to compare deals on a consistent basis, but do not treat it as a precise IRR you would defend to a lender or an investor.
For context on what to expect, a well-bought leveraged rental commonly produces something in the 8 to 15 percent annualized range over a decade from these three sources combined. Figures north of 20 percent usually signal either aggressive appreciation assumptions or a real value-add play, not a standard buy-and-hold. If your inputs spit out a number that looks too good, the appreciation rate is the first place to check.
What this forecast leaves out
This is a pre-tax projection, and that is the most important caveat. It does not model depreciation, the annual paper deduction that shelters rental income and is reported on Form 4562, nor the depreciation recapture you owe when you sell. It also excludes selling costs, the closing costs you paid to buy, and any capital expenditures like a new roof or HVAC. Real rentals carry vacancy and turnover too, so if your expense input does not already include a vacancy reserve and a capex set-aside, the cash flow shown here is optimistic.
My standard advice is to underwrite conservatively on the inputs you control. Budget operating expenses at roughly half of rent once you fold in management, maintenance, vacancy, insurance, and property tax, and use an appreciation assumption you would be comfortable defending in a flat market. A deal that still works at 2 percent appreciation and realistic expenses is a deal worth doing; one that only works at 5 percent appreciation is a bet on the market, not on the property.
Why does appreciation dominate the total so heavily?
Leverage. You control a $350,000 asset with $80,000 down, so every percentage point of appreciation applies to the full purchase price while your invested cash is a fraction of it. That magnification cuts both ways: in a down market, the same leverage amplifies losses against your equity. The appreciation line is the most powerful and the most uncertain part of the forecast, which is why stress-testing it at a lower rate is the single most useful thing you can do here.
How should I handle taxes on the cash flow?
Rental income is taxable, but depreciation often offsets much or all of it in the early years, sometimes producing a paper loss. Passive activity loss rules can limit how much of that loss you deduct against other income, with a special allowance for active participants below certain income levels. Because the tool reports pre-tax figures, run your specific situation past the rules in IRS Publication 527 or a tax professional before assuming the cash flow lands in your pocket tax-free.