Return on investment, measured against the cash you actually put in. See cash-on-cash, cap rate, and a full first-year total return — cash flow, loan paydown, and appreciation — on one screen, whether or not you have your figures yet.
Three returns on one screen — cash-on-cash (what the property pays you each year on the cash you tied up), cap rate (the yield on price, ignoring financing), and a first-year total ROI that adds loan paydown and appreciation.
Jim Miller, founder of PAM, built this model on the same assumptions PAM uses to underwrite real Milwaukee rentals — drawn from live data across Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, and Southeastern Wisconsin.
It reports return the way an asset manager actually reads a deal: vacancy and real operating expenses in, financing counted honestly, and cash-on-cash separated from cap rate — not one flattering number in isolation.
“ROI” means different things to different investors. This tool reports the three that matter for a leveraged rental, because each answers a different question — and they rarely agree.
Annual pre-tax cash flow divided by the cash you invested. It answers the simplest question: what does this property pay me each year on the money I tied up?
NOI divided by price, ignoring financing. Cap rate lets you compare the property itself against other deals, independent of how you borrow.
Cash flow plus principal paydown plus appreciation, over cash invested. It captures the wealth you build in year one, not just the cash that hits your account.
A bigger loan shrinks the cash you invest, which can lift cash-on-cash — but it raises debt service and risk. The tool shows the trade-off as you move the down payment.
Start with the Guided Deal Assessment if you don't have exact figures yet, or jump to the Full Calculator for precise cash-on-cash, cap rate, and total ROI. Both update live.
Guided Deal Assessment scores your return quality from eight quick questions and flags its strengths and risks. Full Calculator runs the exact returns. Pick whichever fits what you know today — and answer with what's actually true, not best-case hopes.
ROI is set the day you buy — overpay and no operating skill earns it back. Price is the denominator under every return.
Rent is the numerator behind cap rate and cash-on-cash. Misprice it and the whole return moves with it.
Understated expenses are the most common reason a projected return never materializes — they come straight out of NOI.
Re-lease speed sets the vacancy drag — every empty month is income your return never collects.
Screening rigor drives bad debt — the fastest way for a positive cash-on-cash to turn negative.
Leverage swings cash-on-cash both ways: a smaller down payment lifts the percentage but raises the debt-service drag and the risk.
Reserves decide whether a bad month is a line item or a forced sale that erases the return entirely.
Most of your return is decided on the operating line after closing — that's a management question.
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 return 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 cash-on-cash and total return you project actually materialize — 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). Return 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) · Plante Moran · Investopedia. PAM benchmarks reflect 450+ units under management and 17 years of operating history.
This tool provides general estimates for educational purposes only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice. “Process estimate” figures are modeled correlations from your answers, not guarantees of any outcome. Consult a licensed professional before investing. Performance Asset Management is an Equal Housing Opportunity provider.
The biggest swing in a rental's ROI is rarely the purchase price — it's the operating line. Three PAM numbers feed the inputs above.
Management is capped at $250 a month, so a higher rent doesn't quietly inflate your largest controllable expense the way an uncapped percentage does.
A 17-day average days-on-market keeps effective gross income high, which is the numerator behind cap rate and cash-on-cash alike.
A sub-1% eviction rate over 17 years keeps bad debt from silently turning a projected positive return negative.
Cash-on-cash counts only the cash that hits your account — annual pre-tax cash flow divided by the cash you invested. Total ROI is broader: it adds the equity you build through loan paydown and appreciation in the same period. A property can be modest on cash-on-cash but strong on total ROI once paydown and appreciation are counted.
It depends heavily on the market. In many Midwest residential markets a 5–7% cap rate is solid and 7%+ is strong, but a lower cap rate can be acceptable in a high-appreciation area. Because cap rate ignores financing, it's best used to compare one property against another, not to judge your financed return — use cash-on-cash for that.
Cash-on-cash divides cash flow by the cash you invested. A smaller down payment shrinks the denominator, so the percentage rises — as long as the property still cash-flows after the larger mortgage payment. The catch is risk: more leverage means higher debt service and a thinner cushion if rent dips or a big repair lands.
No. All returns are pre-tax. Depreciation can shelter a meaningful share of rental income from tax, while depreciation recapture and capital-gains tax apply at sale. Those depend on your situation, so this tool reports the pre-tax return and you should confirm the after-tax picture with a tax professional.
Start with the defaults: roughly 35–45% of effective rent for operating expenses and a 5% vacancy allowance are reasonable placeholders for a Milwaukee single-family or small multifamily — or use the Guided Deal Assessment, which scores your return without exact figures. A free PAM rental analysis replaces them with a real CapEx and income-expense baseline.
Mainly through the expense and income lines. A management fee capped at $250 per month protects the largest controllable expense, a 17-day average time-to-leased keeps income full, and a sub-1% eviction rate over 17 years limits bad debt — together moving the NOI that both cap rate and cash-on-cash are built on.
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.
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.
OpenScore a deal on cap rate, GRM, DSCR, the 1% rule, and cash-on-cash at a glance.
OpenSkip the assumptions — get real, ZIP-level rent and a CapEx baseline for your actual property from PAM.
These returns run on assumptions. PAM runs on your actual address, current rent, and a no-cost CapEx baseline — so you can replace every estimate above with real figures.