Analytics
Beginner
June 14, 2026
No rental collects twelve full months of rent every year. The vacancy rate is the line that turns asking rent into the income a property actually banks — and the one first-time investors leave out.
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Analytics
Beginner
June 14, 2026
Most of an early mortgage payment is interest, not equity. The small slice that pays down the loan is a real return — one that never shows up in cash flow, and one most first-time investors forget to count.
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Analytics
Beginner
June 06, 2026
A roof replacement does not reduce NOI. A monthly reserve for the next roof does. The distinction between operating expenses and capital expenditures is the line every rental pro forma is drawn against.
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Analytics
Beginner
June 05, 2026
The 50% rule says that, over time, roughly half of a rental's gross income disappears into operating costs — before any mortgage payment. It is a screening heuristic, not a verdict.
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Analytics
Beginner
June 01, 2026
A lender quotes "75% LTV" and a first-time investor nods. The number controls how much cash leaves the bank account, how large the loan is, and how thin the margin gets if the market moves against the deal.
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Analytics
Intermediate
May 30, 2026
A deal can pencil at a 6% cap rate, get financed at a "7.25%" mortgage, and deliver a cash-on-cash return below zero. The mechanism is negative leverage, and it is the default condition in 2026.
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Analytics
Beginner
May 28, 2026
Gross rent multiplier is the simplest screening number in real estate — purchase price divided by annual gross rent. It is also the easiest metric to mistake for a return.
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Analytics
Beginner
May 28, 2026
Debt service is the most concrete number in real estate analysis — the literal dollars the loan demands each year. It is also the line most often confused with the mortgage payment, with PITI, and with cash flow itself.
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Analytics
Intermediate
May 23, 2026
Most retail pro formas obsess over rent growth and set the exit cap rate equal to the entry cap. The math runs the other way — a 50 basis point exit cap miss moves terminal value more than five years of rent growth.
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Analytics
Beginner
May 20, 2026
Cap rate is the number every listing quotes and every broker compares. It is also the easiest metric to misread. This is what it actually tells you — and what it leaves out.
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Analytics
Intermediate
May 19, 2026
Retail investors compute the entry cap rate or the stabilized cap rate. Neither tells the truth about a value-add deal. Yield on cost does.
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Analytics
Beginner
May 19, 2026
Most first-time investors confuse gross rent with operating income. NOI is the number that decides whether a deal works — and it deliberately leaves the mortgage out.
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Analytics
Beginner
May 19, 2026
Cap rate describes the property. Cash-on-cash describes the deal. It is the number that tells you what the cash you actually wrote checks for is earning in year one.
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Analytics
Professional
January 28, 2026
City-level real estate data is too blunt for disciplined investors. The informational edge lives at the zip code level — and most retail investors never look there.
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Analytics
Professional
December 18, 2025
Rental yield and cap rate are often used interchangeably. They measure different things, and confusing them leads to systematic errors in acquisition decisions.
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