Cash-on-Cash Return Calculator

Cash on cash return answers a blunt question: what does the money that actually left your pocket earn each year? This calculator divides your annual pre-tax cash flow by your total cash invested, meaning the down payment, closing costs and any rehab money, and gives you the percentage along with the monthly cash flow behind it. Enter your loan terms and it derives the debt service for you, so the cash flow is the real after-mortgage number, not a fantasy one.

Everything runs locally in your browser. No figure you type travels anywhere or gets stored, so you can model a deal you have not mentioned to anyone, including your lender, and it exists nowhere but your screen.

How to use

1. Enter the purchase price and your planned down payment.
2. Add closing costs and any upfront rehab budget. Together with the down payment, this is your total cash invested.
3. Enter the loan details: interest rate and term. The calculator derives your monthly debt service from them.
4. Enter gross rent, a vacancy allowance and your operating expenses.
5. Read the results: cash on cash percentage and the monthly cash flow after the mortgage.
6. Change the down payment size and watch how leverage moves the return in both directions.

Why use our cash-on-cash return calculator?

This metric measures your deal, not just the property. Two investors can buy identical duplexes at the same price and earn wildly different cash on cash returns because one financed at a better rate or put less money down. A cap rate describes the building; cash on cash describes what your money is doing inside it. You want both numbers, and they answer different questions.

Deriving debt service from your actual loan terms keeps the output honest. Plenty of quick calculators ask you to type in a monthly payment, and people guess low. Here the rate and term produce the payment, and if you want to see the full amortization picture behind it, our mortgage payment calculator breaks it down month by month.

Counting all of the cash is where this calculator refuses to flatter you. The down payment is obvious, but closing costs and rehab money are just as gone from your bank account, and leaving them out inflates the return. Our closing costs estimator helps you put a defensible number in that field instead of a hopeful one.

A word on leverage, because this is where I have watched people fool themselves. A bigger loan can push the cash on cash percentage up while making the deal more fragile, since the cash flow behind that pretty percentage gets thinner. A high return on a deal that goes negative the month a furnace dies is not a high return. The calculator shows both the percentage and the monthly dollars precisely so you look at them together.

And as with every calculator on this site, the numbers are yours alone. Nothing uploads, nothing is logged, and I never see what you are thinking about buying.

Who is this tool for?

Comparing financing offers on the same property is the cleanest use. Same house, same rent, two loan quotes: run each through and see which one leaves you a better return and a fatter monthly cushion. Sometimes the lower rate with higher fees loses, and this is how you find out before signing.

Choosing a down payment size is the second one. Twenty, twenty five or thirty percent down produce different returns and very different cash flow buffers, and our down payment calculator helps you work out what each level means for your savings. The right answer depends on your appetite for thin months, and seeing the numbers side by side beats guessing.

Screening rental listings with realistic totals is the habit worth building. A property that looks great on price alone can turn mediocre once real closing costs and a rehab budget join the denominator. Thirty seconds here saves a weekend of viewing houses that never penciled.

Some people also use it to compare a rental against other places their cash could sit. The calculator gives you the honest pre-tax number to weigh; what you compare it against is your call, and I am not going to pretend a web tool knows your situation.

Frequently asked questions