Rental Property Cash Flow – What it Means and How to Calculate

July 30th, 2010

Cash flow is probably the most coveted return from any investment. It seems prudent for those involved in real estate investing therefore to understand what it means and how to calculate it.

What It Means

Cash flow is all of a rental property’s cash inflows less all of its cash outflows. Think of it as all the money flowing in such as rent, loan proceeds, and interest on bank accounts less all the money flowing out like operating expenses, debt payment, and capital additions and you’ll get the idea.

When one speaks about cash flow, it’s generally referring to cash flow before taxes (CFBT) which doesn’t take into consideration the owner’s tax liability. There is another instance, however, known as cash flow after taxes (CFAT). This does account for tax liability and is essentially CFBT less tax liability. Both cash flows are important to rental property analysis and should be understood by real estate investors.

How to Calculate

Net Operating Income

less Debt Service

less Capital Additions

plus Loan Proceeds

plus Interest Earned

= Cash Flow Before Taxes (CFBT)

Cash Flow Before Taxes (CFBT)

less Income Tax Liability

= Cash Flow After Taxes (CFAT)

Let’s take a closer look at the calculation.

Net operating income (NOI) is gross scheduled income less vacancy allowance less operating expenses. Debt service is the total loan payment (first, second, third loans) including principal and interest. Capital additions (different from maintenance and repairs) are improvements to the property having a useful life of more than one year and likely to increase (not merely maintain) the life of the property. Loan proceeds refer to the proceeds obtained from subsequent financing not to the original mortgage, where you might obtain a $40,000 second mortgage to cover the cost of constructing a $40,000 garage for instance.

Let’s look at an example.

You have a property with ten tenants each paying $1,000 per month rent totaling $120,000 per year. You estimate a vacancy and credit loss of 5%. The property has operating expenses of $45,600 per year, and a first mortgage payment of $36,326 per year. In month six, you add a new roof at the cost of $20,000 and take out a $20,000 second mortgage to cover the cost of that construction. Your payment on this loan totals $881 for the remaining six months. What is your property’s CFBT?

Gross Scheduled Income 120,000

less Vacancy 6,000

= Gross Operating Income 114,000

less Operating Expenses 45,600

= Net Operating Income 68,400

less Debt Service 37,206

less Capital Additions 20,000

plus Loan Proceeds 20,000

CFBT = 31,194

If your tax liability in year one is $7,000, than what is your property’s CFAT?

CFBT 31,194

less Taxes Due 7,000

CFAT = 24,194

One final thought. The key to forecasting cash flows from a rental property you’re planning to purchase is to be realistic during your evaluation. It’s better to anticipate small or negative cash flows you plan to handle with personal funds than to encounter a surprise after you purchase the property. Try to avoid pie-in-the-sky rents and always include all expenses. Remember, you’ll be paying for the cash flow a property generates, so be sure you know what it’s most likely to be.

About the Author

James R Kobzeff is the developer of ProAPOD Real Estate Investment Software – Want to learn more about how you can create rental property analysis presentations in minutes?

See our solutions, sample reports, screen shots, and more at => http://www.proapod.com

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PC Game Crash – My PC Games Crash Too Often, What Shall I Do?

July 8th, 2010

Have you noticed that your PC games crash too often? What could be the reason behind this. Sometimes you are playing the game normally when suddenly the game shuts down itself. These problems and some others similar to these have been linked to the important settings in your Window. If due to some reason you could not take care of your operating system and have tried to preserve the important setting in it then such errors are bound to appear. However, it is not too late. You can still take some preventive measures.

To fix any PC game crash first of all try to figure out what could be errors behind it. Is it something related to the technical error in the game itself or your computer is the root cause of the problem. Mostly whenever there appear the technical issues you can easily identify them and notify the technical support about the errors. However, certain Windows errors are not easy to identify. And yet if these errors have been identified fixing them is another hectic thing. An ordinary PC user can not fix these problems by himself.

If you have noticed that not only the PC games crash suddenly but these also run slower then it is most likely due to Files Association Errors and some other errors in the Windows Registry. The file associations are the component of the Windows settings which store the information about the files and programs and define rules for those programs. If there occur the file association errors then your programs will not run properly. Similarly the registry errors in your system cause the programs to run poorly and crash frequently. You don’t necessarily need to change your system and buy a new one if you are trapped in this vicious circle of PC errors. To fix common PC errors it is recommended to use a high performance registry cleaner and PC optimizer software.

Keep in mind that Windows registry is the brain of the computer. When the health of brain is not good then you should expect no better from your computer. Most people think that that all infections in their computers have to do with the viruses and spywares. This, however, is not the case. A large number of PC problems have been caused by the registry corruption.

If your PC games crash too often you should start fixing with with the complete computer clean up and registry scan. The best way is to perform some antivirus and antispyware scan. After that scan your system for registry errors.

To completely remove the virus and spyware effect use a registry cleaner software because it also scans the hidden registry files which can have infections not removed through other computer security software.

To fix any PC game crash and to make your system faster follow the suggestion above.

Here is one valuable software recommended by PC experts to fix most common PC errors and crashes. To download click: PC Games Crash.

The recommended download (RegInOut) also helps to Speed Up Computer.

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