Introduction: Best Investment Property Calculators
The real estate investment business is a potentially lucrative business venture that draws the interest of thousands of people. The ability to build equity while also making a monthly income from rent is a deal that many people feel they simply can’t pass up.
In many cases, the rate of return on a quality real estate investment competes with the potential interest gained on CDs, annuities, or other investments in the stock market. But to be able to follow the gains on your investment, you’ll need an investment property calculator to discover how to calculate the rate of return on your investment.
When you decide to save money with a bank CD or when you invest in a mutual fund, bond, or any other type of long-term investment, the financial institution that manages your investment usually sends you monthly statements with neat and easy-to-read graphs that show your rate of return, monthly losses or net gains, and other important information pertinent to your investment. When you invest in real estate, however, no one will be sending you these statements. A property investment calculator is a simple tool that you can find for free online that will help you stay on top of your investment and learn how to calculate rate of return on investment.
In this brief article, Advisory HQ will look at the multitude of benefits that different types of property investment calculators offer. We’ll begin by looking at what a real estate investment calculator can do for you. We’ll then go on to look at how you can manage the mortgage or loan that you took out for your investment with an investment property loan calculator.
Since not all real estate return on investment calculators are the same, we’ll then go on to look at the different types of real estate investment calculators including rental property investment calculators, investment income calculators, investment property mortgage calculators, and others. We’ll finish by helping you answer the question that all real estate investors want to know: how do you calculate return on investment?
Best Investment Property Calculators
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What Does a Real Estate Investment Calculator Do?
Real estate investment calculators help you manage the terms of your investment. Unless you hire a private accountant, you will be the only person in charge of keeping track of how much you owe on the loan you took out to buy the property and how much you are earning on your investment.
Many people are attracted to the potential profits in real estate investment but simply do not have the financial knowledge to understand the terms of their investment. The failures in real estate are mostly attributed to investors who either buy properties without first using a monthly investment calculator or people who simply don’t know how to calculate the rate of return on their investment.
Some real estate investors mistakenly believe that the only math they’ll have to do is subtract their monthly mortgage payment from their monthly income from rent. Unfortunately, real estate accounting is much more complicated than that. Rental property investment calculators and real estate return on investment calculators make the difficult math related to managing your investment easy to understand and reduce the complexity to simply putting some numbers into a calculator.
Nonetheless, you will need to know which rental investment calculator or investment property calculator to use. Just as not everyone gets into real estate investment for the same purposes, different real estate investment calculators have different functions.
Below we will discuss the different purposes of a wide variety of investment property calculators. But first, we’ll look at what every investor wonders: How can an investment property loan calculator help you manage your mortgage?
How an Investment Property Loan Calculator Can Help You Manage the Terms of Your Loan
Whether you are buying your first home or taking out another mortgage for your fourth rental home, one of the most important aspects of any type of real estate investment is to stay on top of your mortgage. An investment property mortgage calculator is a simple tool that you can find online that will help you manage your monthly payments and understand your options for paying off your loan.
Goodmortgage.com provides one of the best investment property calculators that is both easy to use and fairly detailed in the amount of information that you are provided with. Their property investment calculator can help you understand the possible financial outcomes of the purchase and later rental of a home that you purchase.
To use this investment income calculator, you have to fill out a number of boxes, including the purchase price of the home, the down payment, the loan interest rate and other information regarding your loan. You’ll also be asked to put in information regarding your proposed rental income.
This real estate investment calculator will then give you detailed information regarding your potential rental income after payment and expenses, potential tax deductions, and the yearly addition of net worth to your home.
What makes this monthly investment calculator unique is that you can choose to not put in any rental income if you are not planning on renting the property you purchased. You can thus determine the different rates of cash flow and how the yearly addition to net worth changes with different investment strategies.
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The Different Types of Investment Property Calculators
Renting a home is only one way of investing in real estate. Luckily, there are a number of investment property calculators that specialize in helping you answer, “How do you calculate return on investment?” We’ll look at three different types of investment property calculators below.
- Rental Investment Calculator
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The most common method of real estate investing is to rent out the investment property you purchased. Obviously, for rental investment calculators to be useful, you’ll need to make sure that you actually have a tenant full-time. Researching the market where you are planning on purchasing a future rental home is an important first step everyone should take.
Calculator.net offers a simple and easy to use rental property investment calculator. Besides asking for the basic information regarding the purchase price, down payment, interest rate and loan term, this calculator also asks you to input the monthly rent you will charge plus the annual increase percentage rate.
Furthermore, this rental property investment calculator is unique in that it offers a space for you to put in a percentage for your calculated vacancy rate and possible management fee as well. Since many markets will have sporadic times of vacancy, it is important to factor in a vacancy rate. For example, if you are renting out a home near a university campus and most of your tenants are college students, you may have 2-3 months out of the year (during summer vacation) when you are vacant.
Yahoo.com also offers another quality rental property investment calculator that can help you easily calculate the return on your investment (ROI).
If you are considering purchasing a rental property with many units, such as an apartment complex or condominium, Financial Mentor offers perhaps the most detailed rental property investment calculator that allows you to calculate for different number of units as well as take into account diverse fees such as landscaping fees, legal fees, and even elevator fees. Furthermore, it allows you to also calculate income not only from rentals but also from other services such as laundry services, homeowner fees, etc.
- Investment Income Calculator for Real Estate Flip Properties
For many people, renting properties is too much of a hassle. Dealing with late payments, unorderly tenants, and damage to the properties can be a frustrating experience. The real estate trading market is more like Wall Street’s day traders as opposed to buy-and-hold investments for the long term. There are a number of investment income calculators to help you calculate potential profits on properties that you purchase with the aim of selling again quickly.
To be successful in this area of real estate, you need to do your homework and have an eye for hot markets or markets with the potential for high equity. While it is very possible to get stuck with a property that you just can’t seem to sell, most real estate traders are able to flip a quick profit when they find areas with high equity. A real estate investment calculator tailored for real estate “flip” properties can help you comprehend the benefits and potential profits for your investment.
Biggerpockets.com offers a unique investment income calculator that they call flip analysis and reporting tool. According to their website, you can
“[E]stimate your potential house flip profit the easy way, calculate potential profit over customizable timelines, include all the costs to determine the true value, create printable PDFs to show lenders or partners, and avoid paying too much for your next flip.”
Though this real estate investment calculator is a bit more difficult to use than other options, it will offer you a detailed report that you can then use for your investment purposes. You can see potential earnings for different time frames, including six months and a year.
- Investment Property Mortgage Calculator for Wholesale Properties
Wholesaling is a real estate strategy aimed at making a quick profit. According to Investopedia:
“Real estate wholesaling is similar to flipping except that the time frame is much shorter and no repairs are made to the home before the wholesaler sells it. A real estate wholesaler contracts with a home seller markets the home to his potential buyers, and then assigns the contract to the buyer.”
For investors interested in making a quick return on investment, wholesaling is an interesting real estate strategy. Since there is such a quick turnaround time, it is important to use a quality investment property mortgage calculator to help you calculate costs and potential profit. There are a number of investment property calculators for wholesaling on the internet, though you will have to pay for them.
Houseflippingspreadsheets.com offers a quality real estate return on investment calculator designed specifically for wholesaling. Though you will have to pay for this real estate investment calculator, it will provide you with a detailed spreadsheet analyzing fixed costs, repair costs, and the rehabber profit. This investment property calculator will also subtract the wholesaler’s fee to help you determine different allowable offers.
Biggerpockets.com offers a comparable investment property calculator for wholesalers. This real estate return on investment calculator comes in two versions allowing you to sell a house to another flipper or to a rental property cash buyer.
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How Do You Calculate Return on Investment?
For whatever type of real estate investment that you choose, you will need to how to calculate the rate of return on investment. While investment property calculators and rental property investment calculators can help you, it’s always good to learn how to calculate this on your own as well.
While most real estate investment calculators are fairly detailed, there is always the possibility of specific, unique circumstances in your investment that you can’t simply plug into a monthly investment calculator. This simple guide on how to calculate return on investment is a must-read for anyone planning on getting into real estate investment.
How a Rental Property Investment Calculator and Other Monthly Investment Calculators Can Work for Your Real Estate Business
Even if you can’t remember how to do long division by hand or habitually forget your multiplication tables, you can still be successful in the real estate investment business with the help of real estate investment calculators and rental property investment calculators. With a little bit of time and follow up, you can make sure that your real estate investment is making you a profit for the long run.
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