PlatwrightGuides
Rental property guides, with the arithmetic written out
Every guide here works through real numbers, most of them from the example loaded in one of the Platwright files, so you can check each step by hand. Several carry their own calculator. None of them tells you what to buy.
Before you buy
The numbers that decide whether a property is worth an offer, roughly in the order to run them.
- How to run the numbers on a rental property before you buy. The four numbers that decide a deal, in order.
- The 50% rule, and where it misses. The fastest filter, tested against real costs.
- How to calculate cap rate from the real expense lines. What goes into the income and what stays out.
- Cash-on-cash return. What your own money earns, on all the cash you put in.
- DSCR on a rental property. Whether the rent covers the loan, the way a lender measures it.
- How much rent you need to break even. The floor under a deal, with every cost counted.
- How to compare rental properties before you buy. Screening wide, analyzing narrow.
- What a rental property analysis spreadsheet needs. The inputs, the outputs and the tests.
- A duplex worked all the way through. Six numbers typed, four that decide.
Owning and running it
Once the property is yours: the record, the reserves and the empty months.
- How to track rental income and expenses for taxes. One record kept during the year instead of rebuilt in April. Not tax advice.
- Where a landlord year actually goes. A full year in twelve fixed categories.
- CapEx vs maintenance. Two reserves, and how to size the one that gets forgotten.
- What vacancy costs over a year. And why it is more than the vacancy rate.
Short-term rentals
Measured in nights instead of months.
- Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR. Which of the three to trust, and why.
- A short-term rental year, measured in nights. From what the guest paid to what you kept.
Several properties
When the question is the whole portfolio, not one building.
- Five properties on one page. What the total becomes when any one of them goes empty.
The calculators on their own
Three free calculators have their own pages for the quick version of a question: cap rate, break-even rent and the cost of a vacancy. All of them, with what each one leaves out.
These guides are screening aids, not financial, tax, or legal advice. The numbers are only as good as what you put in. Verify with a qualified professional before you buy anything.