Rental Property in Maryland: What the Numbers Actually Look Like

Maryland is the state in this series where no single expense dominates. The effective property tax rate is 0.92% — the second-lowest here. Insurance is $2,051 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage — mid-range. On the $463,449 statewide median that is $4,263.73 of tax against $2,051 of insurance, a ratio of just 2.08 to 1, the closest to parity anywhere in this seven-state set. Neither line decides the deal.

Two things do decide it, and they are both easy to miss.

The first is the hurricane deductible trigger, which is the broadest in this series. In Maryland an insurer may apply the percentage deductible to a covered loss sustained while a hurricane warning is in effect for any part of the State, or within 24 hours after the last such warning is terminated. Not near the property. Not in the same county. Anywhere in Maryland. A warning that covers Ocean City can put a percentage deductible in play on a house in Montgomery County, more than 100 miles inland.

The second is price growth, or the absence of it. Maryland's recorded annual home appreciation rate is 0.60% — the lowest in this seven-state set, against Connecticut's 4.7% and New Jersey's 4.48%. Every property in this series loses money from operations. In most of these states the argument for buying anyway is appreciation. In Maryland that argument is running on 0.60%.

If you take one thing from this article: a property that does not cash flow and does not appreciate is not a strategy. It is a subscription.

A note before you start: this is general educational information about how rental property arithmetic works in Maryland. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation about any property. Maryland's recordation tax is set county by county with no statewide rate, and assessments run on a three-year cycle administered by the state. Talk to a Maryland CPA about tax treatment, a licensed Maryland insurance agent about a real quote, and a Maryland real estate attorney about anything contractual.

1. What a rental costs to buy here

The statewide median home price is $463,449. The two counties in our data bracket it:

• Montgomery County: $663,800, effective property tax rate 0.89%, average insurance $1,602
• Prince George's County: $465,000, effective property tax rate 1.12%, average insurance $1,984

Once again the cheaper county carries the higher rate and the higher premium. That pattern has held in every state in this series, and Section 5 shows where it ends up: the two counties produce the same cap rate despite a $198,800 price difference.

The cash you actually need

Maryland charges the buyer twice at closing, and the second charge is the one people miss.

The state transfer tax is 0.5% and is customarily split, so the buyer's customary share is 0.25% of price.

The recordation tax is county-set, authorized under the Tax-Property Article, Title 12, and there is no single statewide rate. County rates run roughly from about $2.50 to $3.50 per $500 (0.5% to 0.7%) — Anne Arundel and Allegany are at that end — up to $5.00 to $7.00 or more per $500 (1.0% to 1.4% and above), with Baltimore City at the high end including a higher marginal rate above $1 million, and Montgomery County using a tiered structure that reaches $11.35 per $500 on higher balances. This article uses 0.7% as a representative mid-range county rate, customarily split, giving the buyer 0.35% of price. A separate flat $40 statewide surcharge applies to most recorded instruments.

That is a real range, not a rounding difference. On the median house, a 0.5% county recordation rate costs the buyer $1,158.62 while a 1.4% rate costs $3,244.14 — a $2,085.52 spread on the same purchase, decided entirely by which side of a county line the house sits on.

The recordation tax also applies to refinances on new money only (refinancing the unpaid principal balance of an existing loan is exempt) and to HELOCs and home equity liens, not just purchase-money mortgages. That matters if your plan involves pulling equity out later.

One more thing worth confirming rather than assuming: Maryland's first-time-homebuyer transfer tax relief is conditioned on occupying the property as a principal residence. An investor purchase does not qualify. Ask your title company to confirm the treatment for your transaction before you budget it.

• Closing costs: 2% to 5%. This article uses a 3.5% midpoint.

On the $463,449 statewide median at 25% down:

• Down payment: $463,449 x 0.25 = $115,862.25
• Loan amount: $347,586.75
• Closing costs: $463,449 x 3.5% = $16,220.72
• Buyer's half of the 0.5% state transfer tax: $1,158.62
• Buyer's half of a representative 0.7% recordation tax: $1,622.07
• Total cash in: $134,863.66

Some closing-cost estimates already fold the transfer and recordation taxes in; they are broken out here so you can see them rather than to be double-counted.

2. The two expenses that decide whether it works

Property tax

Maryland's 0.92% effective property tax rate is the second-lowest in this seven-state set, behind only Delaware's 0.54%. On the $463,449 example:

$463,449 x 0.92% = $4,263.73 a year, or $355.31 a month.

Take the identical house at the identical assumed rent and premium and change only the effective tax rate:

The Montgomery-to-Prince George's range is worth 0.23 percentage points of cap rate and $88.83 a month. Modest.

Now insurance, over the same house:

Insurance is worth 0.09 points of cap rate across the in-state range. Between them, tax and insurance move the answer by about a third of a point. Maryland is a state where you have to look past the obvious expense lines, which is exactly why the deductible section below matters more here than the premium does.

Two landlord-specific property tax points.

The Homestead Property Tax Credit does not apply to a rental, and it would not help you even if it did in the year you buy. Maryland's homestead credit is not an exemption on assessed value — it is a credit that caps how much a principal residence's taxable assessment can increase year over year. The state cap is 10% a year, and individual counties and municipalities may set a lower local cap. It requires a one-time application to the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT) and, critically, it does not apply automatically to a newly purchased home in the year of purchase. A rental property is not a principal residence and gets none of it.

The practical consequence is the same one that catches out-of-state buyers everywhere in this series, only sharper: a long-held owner-occupied Maryland home may have a taxable assessment held well below market value by years of accumulated homestead credit. That protection does not transfer. Never underwrite a Maryland rental from the seller's current tax bill. Compute it from the purchase price.

Assessments run on a three-year cycle. SDAT reassesses roughly a third of Maryland property each year, so a parcel's assessment may be up to three years stale relative to the market. Find out where the property sits in the cycle.

The hurricane deductible, and why Maryland's version reaches further than you think

Maryland permits a separate percentage hurricane deductible, and the trigger is unusually broad — the broadest in this seven-state series.

An insurer may apply the deductible to a covered loss sustained while a hurricane warning is in effect for ANY part of the State, or within 24 hours after the last such warning is terminated.

Compare that with Connecticut, where the National Weather Service must actually measure sustained winds of 74 mph somewhere in the state and issue a hurricane warning. Or with Massachusetts, where the storm must be officially named by the National Hurricane Center. Maryland requires neither a measurement at your property nor anywhere near it. A hurricane warning on the lower Eastern Shore can put the percentage deductible in play for a home in Montgomery County, and there is no geographic carve-out that protects an inland policyholder from the state's coastal risk profile.

The percentage applies to the Coverage A dwelling limit, not to the amount of the claim. On a $300,000 dwelling limit:

• 2% = $6,000
• 5% = $15,000

Typical settings run 2% to 5%. A deductible above 5% requires the Insurance Commissioner's prior approval of the insurer's underwriting standard, which is the practical ceiling on how high these go in Maryland — a genuine consumer protection, and worth knowing so you can bound the risk.

Maryland construction runs about $230 per square foot to rebuild — the lowest figure in this seven-state set — so a 1,500 square foot house has a replacement cost near $345,000, on which 2% and 5% become $6,900 and $17,250.

Against Section 3's $17,272.47 of net operating income:

• A 2% deductible ($6,000) is 34.74% of a full year's NOI
• A 5% deductible ($15,000) is 86.84% of a full year's NOI

Meanwhile the flat all-perils deductible still governs fire, theft, and interior water losses — that $1,000 is what applies to the ordinary claim. The percentage sits on the same declarations page and applies to the unusual one.

A second, separate deductible on the water. Distinct from the hurricane deductible, a windstorm or hail deductible commonly attaches to Eastern Shore and Chesapeake property within 200 feet of water. If you are buying anywhere on the Bay or the Shore, expect to find two percentage deductible lines rather than one, and read both.

Mitigation credits are mandatory to offer. Maryland insurers must offer premium discounts for qualifying mitigation improvements verified by a licensed contractor. That is an unusual and useful rule — it means the discount exists as a matter of law, not carrier discretion, and it is worth asking about explicitly rather than waiting for it to be applied. Maryland's filed rate change was +2% year over year, so the level, not the trend, is what should shape your planning.

You cannot pass any of the deductible to a tenant. It is not a lease obligation and it does not wait for rent to accumulate. Meanwhile the property may be uninhabitable, so rent stops at the same moment the deductible comes due — which is what loss-of-rents coverage exists for, and why you should confirm you have it and how many months it pays.

The residual market, and the one gap it does not fill

Maryland's FAIR plan is the Maryland Joint Insurance Association (MDJIA) — a state pool, mandated by law, in which every property insurer licensed in Maryland must participate. It writes coverage for owners unable to obtain essential property insurance in the competitive marketplace, across three programs:

• Homeowners, for owner-occupied single-family homes, condominiums, and townhouses
• Dwelling Property, for rental or leased residential property — which makes MDJIA one of the few FAIR plans in this series with a program written specifically for what you are buying
• A commercial fire program

Two limits matter to a landlord, and the second is the important one.

MDJIA writes no commercial liability. You will need liability separately.

MDJIA policies do not cover flood. Neither does any other property policy in the United States — but on the Eastern Shore and around the Chesapeake, flood is the exposure most likely to cause the loss. Being outside a mapped high-risk zone is a statement about a flood map, not about whether water can reach the house. Get a separate NFIP or private flood quote regardless.

MDJIA also does not write seasonal homes, active farms, or vacant buildings, and coverage is available only through a licensed producer. Details at https://www.mdjia.org/.

3. A full worked example

The property. A single-family house at the Maryland statewide median of $463,449.

The rent — read this carefully. This site does not carry rent data. The $2,700 a month used below is an assumption chosen to be plausible for a house at that price. It is not a market observation. Pull three to five real comparable listings for the specific county and submarket and substitute the actual number.

The other assumptions:

• Vacancy: 8% of gross rent
• Property management: 10% of collected rent
• Repairs and maintenance: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Capital reserve: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Financing: 25% down, 30-year fixed at 7.00% — the rate is an assumption, not a quote
• No HOA. Maryland has a great deal of townhouse and planned-community stock with real association dues; add them if they apply.

Step 1 — income

• Gross scheduled rent: $2,700 x 12 = $32,400
• Vacancy loss: $32,400 x 8% = $2,592
• Effective gross income: $32,400 - $2,592 = $29,808

Step 2 — operating expenses

Management is charged on rent actually collected, not scheduled rent:

• Management: $29,808 x 10% = $2,980.80
• Property tax: $463,449 x 0.92% = $4,263.73
• Insurance: $2,051
• Maintenance: $32,400 x 5% = $1,620
• Capital reserve: $32,400 x 5% = $1,620
• Total operating expenses: $12,535.53

Expense ratio: $12,535.53 / $29,808 = 42.05% of collected rent — comfortably inside the 35% to 55% band.

Step 3 — net operating income and cap rate

• NOI = $29,808 - $12,535.53 = $17,272.47
• Cap rate = $17,272.47 / $463,449 = 3.73%

The mortgage is deliberately absent from that figure. Cap rate exists to compare properties independently of how they are financed; putting debt service into it is the most common error in this whole exercise, and it makes two identical houses look like different investments because one buyer put more down.

Step 4 — debt service and cash flow

Loan: $463,449 x 75% = $347,586.75. At 7.00% over 30 years, principal and interest is $2,312.50 a month, or $27,750 a year.

• Annual cash flow = $17,272.47 - $27,750 = -$10,477.53
• Monthly cash flow = -$873.13
• Debt service coverage ratio = $17,272.47 / $27,750 = 0.62

Step 5 — cash-on-cash return

• Cash invested: $134,863.66 (Section 1)
• Cash-on-cash = -$10,477.53 / $134,863.66 = -7.77%

Rate sensitivity, since 7.00% was an assumption

• At 6.50%: P&I $2,196.98/mo, annual cash flow -$9,091.29
• At 7.00%: P&I $2,312.50/mo, annual cash flow -$10,477.53
• At 7.50%: P&I $2,430.38/mo, annual cash flow -$11,892.09

A full point of rate is worth $2,800.80 a year. For comparison, the entire Montgomery-to-Prince George's tax difference on this house is $1,065.93 and the entire in-state insurance range is $449. A single point of mortgage rate is worth about 1.85 times both county spreads combined — the same finding as Massachusetts, for the same reason: when no expense line dominates, the loan does.

The simplest version of the same finding

Add up the four bills a lender escrows:

• Principal and interest: $2,312.50
• Property tax: $4,263.73 / 12 = $355.31
• Insurance: $2,051 / 12 = $170.92
• Total: $2,838.73 a month

Against $2,700 of assumed rent, that is -$138.73 a month before vacancy, management, or a single repair. That is one of the narrowest misses in this series — and Section 4 is about why a narrow miss on this check is a decisive one on the real analysis.

4. The expenses people leave out

Vacancy, management, and capital reserves do not arrive as invoices. Nobody bills you for the month the house sits empty, or for the roof you will need in nine years, or — if you self-manage — for your own weekends. So they fall out of the mental model, and the property looks better than it is.

Here is the same house with those three removed and everything else identical:

The three omissions are worth $7,192.80 a year — $2,592 of vacancy, $2,980.80 of management, $1,620 of reserve. They flatter the cap rate by 1.55 percentage points and hide 68.65% of the annual loss. More than two thirds of the real problem is invisible in the version most people run in their heads.

Look at the two cap rates. 5.28% versus 3.73%. A 5.28% cap rate on a Maryland single-family house is a number a buyer would take seriously in 2026. A 3.73% cap rate is a number that makes you keep looking. Nothing about the house changed.

And the expense ratio: 24.49% without the omissions, against a 35% floor. That is the alarm. A single-family rental does not cost a quarter of its rent to operate.

Vacancy. Eight percent is roughly one month a year, which is what a single clean turnover costs between move-out and the next tenant's first full month. Setting it to zero assumes the house is never empty, including between tenants.

Management. Set it to zero and the return is paying you for your own labor rather than for the property. Self-managing this house saves $2,980.80 a year, lifting NOI to $20,253.27 and the cap rate to 4.37%, with cash flow improving to -$624.73 a month. It is a real saving. It does not fix the deal, and it stops being free the moment you stop being available — which in Maryland includes whatever the county's rental licensing and lead-registration regime requires of you.

Capital reserves. Roofs, HVAC, water heaters, and flooring have known lives. The 5%-of-rent convention used above is one option. A harsher and equally common convention is 1% of purchase price a year for maintenance and 1% for capital, which here is $4,634.49 each. Run that way: total operating expenses $18,564.51, expense ratio 62.28%, NOI $11,243.49, cap rate 2.43%, cash flow -$1,375.54 a month, DSCR 0.41.

So the honest cap-rate range for this property is 2.43% to 5.28% depending purely on counting conventions. Choose one deliberately and apply it to everything you compare.

A Maryland-specific fourth omission. The hurricane deductible is not an operating expense and appears in none of these tables — but it is a cash obligation of $6,000 to $15,000 on a $300,000 dwelling limit, it can arrive in a year when rent has also stopped, and because the trigger is statewide it can arrive on an inland property. Reserve against it separately from your capital reserve.

What would actually have to be true

The rent this property needs. For cash flow to reach zero at this price and this financing, gross scheduled rent must reach about $46,792.21 a year, or $3,899.35 a month — 0.84% of purchase price per month. The assumed $2,700 rent is 0.58% of price.

The price this rent supports. Hold rent at $2,700 and solve for the price at which cash flow reaches zero with 25% down: about $311,770, or 67.27% of the statewide median.

The down payment this price needs. Keep the $463,449 price and the $2,700 rent and solve for the loan the NOI can service: about $216,349 — which means roughly $247,100 down, or 53.32% of the price. That is the second-lowest breakeven down payment in this series, behind Delaware's, and it reflects Maryland's comparatively balanced expense structure.

5. What actually varies by county here

Take the identical $463,449 house at $2,700 rent and apply each county's actual rate and premium:

A $1,447.93 a year swing in NOI between the two counties on an identical house — modest, and consistent with the rest of this article's finding that no expense line dominates in Maryland.

Now run each county at its own real median price, which produces the most striking convergence in this entire seven-state series:

Montgomery County at $663,800 with an assumed $3,400 rent, 0.89% tax and $1,602 insurance:

• Down payment $165,950, loan $497,850, closing costs $23,233, buyer transfer and recordation share $3,982.80, cash in $193,165.80
• Annual property tax $5,907.82. P&I $3,312.21. PITI $3,938.03 against $3,400 rent — -$538.03
• Effective gross income $37,536, operating expenses $15,343.42, expense ratio 40.88%
• NOI $22,192.58, cap rate 3.34%, cash flow -$1,462.83 a month, cash-on-cash -9.09%, DSCR 0.56
• Without vacancy, management and reserves: NOI $31,250.18, cap rate 4.71%, cash flow -$708.03 a month, DSCR 0.79
• Breakeven rent $5,409.38 a month (0.81% of price); actual ratio 0.51%

Prince George's County at $465,000 with an assumed $2,600 rent, 1.12% tax and $1,984 insurance:

• Down payment $116,250, loan $348,750, closing costs $16,275, buyer transfer and recordation share $2,790, cash in $135,315
• Annual property tax $5,208. P&I $2,320.24. PITI $2,919.57 against $2,600 rent — -$319.57
• Effective gross income $28,704, operating expenses $13,182.40, expense ratio 45.93%
• NOI $15,521.60, cap rate 3.34%, cash flow -$1,026.77 a month, cash-on-cash -9.11%, DSCR 0.56
• Without vacancy, management and reserves: NOI $22,448, cap rate 4.83%, cash flow -$449.57 a month, DSCR 0.81
• Breakeven rent $4,010.40 a month (0.86% of price); actual ratio 0.56%

Both counties land on a 3.34% cap rate. Both land on a 0.56 DSCR. Cash-on-cash is -9.09% and -9.11% — a two-hundredths-of-a-point difference. And the price gap between them is $198,800, or 43% of the Prince George's price.

That is the sharpest illustration in this series of something worth internalizing: within a state, price and rent tend to move together, and the expense structure is what actually differentiates one market from another. Montgomery's lower tax rate and lower premium exactly offset its higher price. You did not buy a better return by buying the better county; you bought a bigger version of the same return, requiring $57,850.80 more cash to do it.

What Prince George's does buy you is accessibility and a smaller absolute loss: $135,315 of cash in against $193,165.80, and -$1,026.77 a month against -$1,462.83. If your constraint is capital, that is a real difference. If your constraint is return, the two counties are the same answer.

Note also that the near-perfect tie is partly an artifact of the rent assumptions, which were chosen to scale with price. That is exactly why you must substitute real local rents. If Montgomery rents are relatively stronger than assumed here, or Prince George's relatively weaker, the tie breaks — and the direction it breaks in is the actual question a buyer needs answered.

Three things to check for a specific address, none of which is in a county average:

The county recordation rate. It ranges from roughly 0.5% to 1.4% and above, and Baltimore City and Montgomery County both carry higher structures. On the median house, that range is worth over $2,000 of buyer cash.

Municipal tax on top of county tax. Many Maryland municipalities levy their own rate in addition to the county's. A county effective rate is a starting point.

Where the parcel sits in the three-year assessment cycle, and whether the seller has been carrying an accumulated homestead credit that will not transfer to you.

6. Financing a rental is not financing a home

These are the standard mechanisms across the mortgage market. Any specific rate or overlay is your lender's, not this article's.

Down payment. Conventional financing on a non-owner-occupied one-unit property generally requires more equity than an owner-occupied purchase — 20% is usually the floor and 25% the common expectation, which is why this article models 25%. FHA and VA are not available for a property you do not occupy. The genuine exception is house hacking: a two-to-four-unit property you live in one unit of qualifies for owner-occupied programs.

Rate. Investment-property loans price above owner-occupied loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply loan-level price adjustments for investment occupancy that scale with loan-to-value and credit score; lenders pass those through as rate or points. The 7.00% modeled above is an assumption, and Section 3 shows a full point of it outweighs both county expense spreads combined.

Conforming limits. Both Montgomery and Prince George's counties carry a $1,249,125 one-unit conforming limit — the Washington-area high-cost ceiling, and the highest figure in this seven-state series. Jumbo pricing is essentially a non-issue at Maryland price levels in those counties.

Reserves. Lenders typically require post-closing reserves — months of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance held in liquid assets — scaling with the number of financed properties you own. At the statewide example's $2,838.73 of PITI, six months is $17,032.38. Because Maryland's hurricane deductible trigger is statewide, size that reserve against the deductible in dollars as well, even on an inland property.

Rental income counting. Lenders credit a portion of market or lease rent toward qualifying, not all of it. Ask what percentage yours uses and whether they need an appraiser's rent schedule.

DSCR loans. A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than the borrower, comparing property income to debt service and largely skipping personal income documentation. The trade is a higher rate, a larger down payment, frequent prepayment penalties, and a minimum DSCR — commonly stated at or above 1.0 and often above 1.2.

Every Maryland scenario in this article fails that test: 0.62 statewide, 0.56 in both counties. Stripped of vacancy, management, and reserves the statewide figure is 0.88 — close enough to 1.0 that a borrower running the loose version might believe the property qualifies. It does not. A DSCR lender will underwrite vacancy and management whether or not you did.

7. What to check before you buy in this state

The insurance deductible, which is Maryland's least obvious expense.

1. Read the hurricane deductible off a real quote and convert it to dollars against the Coverage A limit. On a $300,000 limit it is $6,000 at 2% and $15,000 at 5%.
2. Do this even if the property is nowhere near the water. Maryland's trigger is a hurricane warning for any part of the state, plus 24 hours.
3. If the property is on the Eastern Shore or the Chesapeake, within 200 feet of water, expect a second percentage deductible for windstorm or hail alongside the hurricane one. Read both lines.
4. Ask specifically about mitigation discounts. Maryland insurers must offer them for qualifying improvements verified by a licensed contractor — the discount exists by rule, but you may have to ask for it.
5. Confirm the policy carries loss of rents coverage and how many months it pays.
6. Get a flood quote separately. On the Shore and the Bay, flood is the exposure most likely to cause the loss, and no property policy anywhere — including MDJIA's — covers it.

The property tax, from the purchase price rather than the listing.

1. Recompute the bill at market value with no homestead credit. The seller may have years of accumulated homestead credit capping their taxable assessment. It does not transfer, and it does not apply to a rental at all.
2. Find out where the parcel sits in SDAT's three-year assessment cycle.
3. Check for a municipal rate on top of the county rate.

The closing table, before you write the offer.

1. Get the county recordation rate in writing. It ranges from roughly 0.5% to 1.4% and above, and it is worth over $2,000 of buyer cash on a median house.
2. Confirm the customary split of both the state transfer tax and the county recordation tax in that market, and confirm that any first-time-buyer relief does not apply to your investor purchase.

The rent, from the market.

1. Pull three to five genuine comparable rentals for the specific submarket and note how long they sat. Section 5 shows the two-county tie depends entirely on the rent assumptions, so this is not optional.
2. Divide monthly rent by purchase price. The breakevens computed above were 0.84% statewide, 0.81% in Montgomery, and 0.86% in Prince George's.
3. Be honest about appreciation. Maryland's recorded rate is 0.60% a year. If the property loses $10,477.53 a year from operations, 0.60% on a $463,449 house is $2,780.69 of paper gain against it.

The law, from the statute rather than from an article.

1. Do not take eviction procedure, notice periods, security-deposit handling, or late-fee rules from a blog — including this one. Maryland residential tenancies are governed principally by the Real Property Article, Title 8 of the Maryland Code. Read it through the General Assembly's own site, https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/, review the Judiciary's landlord-tenant materials at https://www.mdcourts.gov/legalhelp/landlordtenant, and have a Maryland attorney walk you through the process before you sign anything.
2. Both counties used as examples in this article have adopted local rent-stabilization measures in recent years. Montgomery County and Prince George's County have each acted in this area, and the details, exemptions, and caps have changed. Verify the current rules and whether they apply to your specific property directly with the county, not from a summary and not from this article. This changes the rent assumption that the entire analysis rests on.
3. Maryland requires owners of pre-1978 rental units to register and meet lead risk-reduction standards under the state's lead poisoning prevention program administered by the Maryland Department of the Environment. Confirm current registration, inspection, and certification requirements at https://mde.maryland.gov/ before you rent the unit, not after.
4. Check the county and municipality separately for rental licensing and inspection requirements, which are local and vary substantially across Maryland.

The money and the tax treatment.

1. Ask a Maryland CPA how the property will be taxed, including depreciation, passive activity loss rules, Maryland's state and county income tax treatment of rental income, and treatment on sale — Maryland's nonresident withholding on the sale of real property is a real cash-flow event at exit for an out-of-state owner and is worth understanding before you buy.

What to do next

Every figure above came from a data file or was computed in front of you. Re-run all of it with your own numbers.

The Maryland rental analysis calculator does exactly the work in Sections 3, 4 and 5 — enter your price, your real local rent, and your own vacancy, management, and reserve assumptions, and it produces NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash, and DSCR. It also warns you when you have left out the expenses Section 4 is about, rather than letting them pass silently — which matters here, because those three lines are 68.65% of the answer.

The Maryland insurance premium estimator will get you closer to a real figure for a specific dwelling limit than the $2,051 statewide average, and it converts the 2% and 5% hurricane deductibles into actual dollars. Given that Maryland's trigger reaches the whole state, that conversion is worth doing whether or not you are buying near the water.

The Maryland mortgage payment calculator gives you the principal and interest figure for the rate you are actually quoted, worth about $2,801 a year per point — more than both county expense spreads combined.

This article is general educational information about rental property arithmetic in Maryland, based on figures current as of August 2026. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice. The rent figures in the worked examples are stated assumptions, not market data. Recordation tax is county-set and the 0.7% used here is a representative mid-range rate, not a statewide figure; confirm the actual rate and split with your title company. Property tax assessments, insurance premiums, and mortgage rates change and vary by property. Consult a Maryland CPA, a licensed Maryland insurance agent, and a Maryland real estate attorney before buying.