Score a rental deal in seconds. Enter the price, rent, and financing for a graded scorecard — cap rate, GRM, DSCR, the 1% rule, and cash-on-cash — or run a quick guided check on how well the deal would actually hold up.
Five screening metrics at once — cap rate, gross rent multiplier, DSCR, the 1% rule, and cash-on-cash — each graded against common bands and rolled into a single 0–10 deal score.
Jim Miller, founder of PAM, built this scorecard on the same first-pass screen PAM runs before taking on a Milwaukee rental — cap rate, GRM, DSCR, the 1% rule, and cash-on-cash, graded against bands drawn from 17 years of operating history.
It reads a deal the way an asset manager does: no single metric gets the last word, the lender's DSCR test is in there, and the bands are sized to Southeastern Wisconsin — not a national average that doesn't fit the market.
Every screening number has a blind spot. Cap rate ignores financing; the 1% rule ignores expenses; DSCR ignores upside. Reading them together is how you separate a real deal from one that only looks good on one line.
Cap rate and gross rent multiplier both ask whether you're paying a fair price for the income — one net of expenses, one gross. Together they flag an overpriced building fast.
Debt service coverage — NOI over debt service — is what a lender checks. Below about 1.25 financing gets harder; below 1.0 the property can't cover its own loan.
If monthly rent is at least 1% of price, the deal is worth a closer look. It's a rough screen, not a verdict — but it kills obvious non-starters in one glance.
After the price tests and the lender test, cash-on-cash answers the only question that's actually yours: what does this pay you on the cash you put in?
Start with the Guided Assessment to score how well the deal would hold up, or jump to the Full Calculator to grade the five metrics on real numbers. Both update live.
Guided Assessment scores deal quality from eight quick questions about the buy and how it'll be run. Full Calculator grades cap rate, GRM, DSCR, the 1% rule, and cash-on-cash into a 0–10 score. Pick whichever fits what you know today.
Every metric on the scorecard — cap rate, GRM, the 1% rule — is divided by the price. Overpay and the whole score drops.
Rent is the income behind every metric. An optimistic rent inflates the whole scorecard on paper.
Four of the five metrics run on NOI — so understated expenses inflate cap rate, DSCR, and cash-on-cash together.
A clean scorecard means nothing if a deferred roof or foundation is about to land. Condition is the hidden metric.
Re-lease speed sets the vacancy assumption that NOI — and most of the scorecard — depends on.
Bad debt is the assumption no scorecard shows — a non-paying resident turns a strong deal score into a loss.
Rate and leverage set the DSCR and the debt-service drag on cash-on-cash — two of the five scorecard metrics.
A deal score is a snapshot at purchase; management decides whether the real numbers hold after closing.
Your approach vs. a typical investor vs. a PAM-managed deal, across 8 dimensions.
No green flags yet. Strengthen your answers to surface deal strengths.
Enter your numbers to surface risk signals.
How the operating quality behind your deal score stacks up against the market. Industry figures reflect independent research; PAM benchmarks reflect 450+ units under management and 17 years of operating history. “Your” values are process-correlated estimates from your answers above.
What this scores: the likelihood that the deal you're screening actually performs the way its metrics suggest — based on eight weighted dimensions of buy and operating quality, the same factors PAM underwrites before taking on a property.
Scoring model: each of the eight questions carries up to 10 points (80 max). Your raw score is normalized to 0–100 (raw ÷ 80 × 100). Deal confidence is modeled as 55% + score × 0.40, ranging from 55% (no process) to 95% (institutional grade); downside risk is its complement. Estimated exposure equals your downside risk multiplied by the cost of one bad operating year — re-lease, 1.5 months’ vacancy, make-ready, repairs, and bad debt — using Southeastern Wisconsin figures.
Data sources: U.S. Census Housing Vacancy Survey 2025 · RentCafe 2025 · Buildium / NARPM 2025 State of the Industry · AppFolio 2024 · Eviction Lab, Princeton University (2024) · Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (CCAP) · JPMorgan · Investopedia. PAM benchmarks reflect 450+ units under management and 17 years of operating history.
This tool provides a general screening score for educational purposes only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice. A high score is not a recommendation to buy, nor a low score a recommendation to pass — it reflects only your answers and rules of thumb. Consult a licensed professional and inspect the property before any purchase. Performance Asset Management is an Equal Housing Opportunity provider.
Four of the five metrics here are built on net operating income — so a tighter operating line raises the whole score, not just one row.
A 17-day average re-lease keeps effective income full, lifting NOI and with it cap rate, DSCR, and cash-on-cash at once.
A management fee capped at $250 a month protects NOI from an uncapped percentage as rents rise.
A no-cost CapEx and income-expense baseline replaces guessed expenses, so the score reflects the building you're actually buying.
Usually a combination, not a single number: a cap rate that's fair for the market, a price near or below the income it produces (GRM and the 1% rule), debt service coverage above ~1.25, and a positive cash-on-cash return. This tool grades all five and rolls them into a score so you can see at a glance whether the strengths outweigh the weak spots.
It says a rental's monthly rent should be at least 1% of the purchase price — $2,000 a month on a $200,000 home. It's a quick first filter to decide whether a deal is worth deeper analysis, not a buy signal on its own. Many solid deals in appreciating markets fall short of 1%, and some that clear it still don't cash-flow once expenses are counted.
Most lenders look for a debt service coverage ratio of at least 1.25 — meaning net operating income covers the loan payment with 25% to spare. Some DSCR loan programs go down to about 1.0, and higher-risk property types may require 1.40 or more. Below 1.0 the property doesn't generate enough to cover its own debt, which makes financing difficult.
Lower. Gross rent multiplier is price divided by annual gross rent, so a smaller number means you're paying less for each dollar of rent. A GRM of 4–7 is generally attractive; above 10 the property is expensive relative to its income. Because GRM ignores expenses, pair it with cap rate before drawing a conclusion.
Yes. The Guided Assessment scores how well a deal would hold up from how it's bought and run — no firm figures required. When you have a price and rent, the Full Calculator grades the five metrics, and a free PAM rental analysis replaces a guessed rent and expense load with real ones.
Four of the five metrics depend on net operating income, so the operating line moves the whole score. A 17-day average re-lease keeps income full, a management fee capped at $250 per month protects expenses, and a free CapEx baseline replaces guessed costs with real ones — so the score reflects how the property would actually perform under management.
Comparable rentals analyzed into a recommended rent range — emailed to you as a one-page PAM report.
OpenAnnualized return across the full hold — cash flow, appreciation, and loan paydown in one rate.
OpenCash-on-cash, cap rate, and first-year total return on the cash you actually put in.
OpenMonthly and annual cash flow after every expense and the mortgage, itemized.
OpenWhat empty days actually cost — and what a 17-day re-lease saves you.
OpenProject the wealth from holding and renting against selling and reinvesting.
OpenSkip the assumptions — get real, ZIP-level rent and a CapEx baseline for your actual property from PAM.
A score is only as good as the rent and expense numbers behind it. A free PAM rental analysis gives you a market-accurate rent and a CapEx baseline — so you can run this score on real inputs.