Cash flow is one of three ways a rental makes money. This adds the other two — the loan your tenant pays down, and what the property is worth when you sell — and shows the answer at three different appreciation rates instead of one.
Cap rate, real cash flow, and cash-on-cash return — with the expenses most analyses leave out.
Every dollar you bring to the closing — transfer tax, who pays it in your state, recording tax, and lender reserves.
Estimated all-in monthly payment for a home price you have in mind.
A rental bought for $300,000 and sold seven years later for $394,780 nets $158,925 at closing — and owes about $24,753 of federal tax, $15,273 of it on depreciation you were required to take. Here is the math, why a sale with zero appreciation still owes tax, and the three clocks a fourth-quarter sale starts.
A leveraged rental makes money three ways and cash flow is only one of them. Here is what the other two are worth — and why the structure that maximises them is a bet, not a plan.
How to verify one specific rental deal: audit the seller's pro-forma line by line, comp a real rent, reassess the tax, age the systems, and price the offer the numbers actually support.
Set up basis correctly, claim the depreciation you are owed, survive the passive-loss rules, and know what the sale will cost — with every figure tied to the statute.