Single-family homes & townhomes in the Twin Cities metro. Every default below starts from a real local number — current mortgage rates, Hennepin County taxes, actual metro rents, and typical townhome HOA dues — so you can change the deal, not fight the math.
This one choice changes the defaults that matter most — HOA dues, insurance, and who pays for snow, lawn, and exterior repairs.
Small changes, big swings. Here's the same deal at different rents and rates — this is how you find the price or rent that actually makes a deal work.
Rent grows at your rent-growth rate, taxes and insurance track the home's value and inflation, and your tenant pays down the loan every month. Cash flow is only one of three ways a rental pays you — the other two are loan paydown and appreciation.
No jargon without a translation. These are the same definitions a lender or an experienced investor would use.
The money left after everything is paid — mortgage, taxes, insurance, HOA, management, repairs, reserves, and an allowance for empty weeks. Positive means the property pays you; negative means you pay it every month.
Cash flow = Effective rent − all expenses − CapEx reserve − mortgageThe rent you actually collect, not the rent on the listing. If a home sits empty about 18 days a year (5% vacancy), a $2,400 rent really behaves like $2,280.
Effective rent = Rent × (1 − vacancy %)Effective rent minus every cost of operating the property. It deliberately leaves out the mortgage, because the building's performance shouldn't change just because of how you financed it.
NOI = Effective income − operating expensesNOI as a percentage of the price. A $390,000 home with $15,600 of NOI has a 4.0% cap rate. Higher usually means more income per dollar of price — often with more risk or more work attached. In the Twin Cities today, listed single-family homes commonly pencil to roughly 3.5–5% cap rates at full asking price.
Cap rate = Annual NOI ÷ Purchase priceYour yearly cash flow as a percentage of the cash you actually wrote checks for. It's the number to compare against other places that same money could go.
Cash-on-cash = Annual cash flow ÷ total cash investedHow many times over the rent covers the mortgage. 1.00 means it just barely covers it. Many investor (DSCR) lenders want 1.20–1.25 or better; below 1.00, the property can't carry its own loan.
DSCR = Annual NOI ÷ annual mortgage paymentsAn old screening shortcut: monthly rent should be at least 1% of the purchase price. At today's Twin Cities prices and rates, almost nothing listed passes it — a typical $390,000 home renting for $2,400 is at 0.62%. Use it to spot unusually strong deals, not to reject every normal one.
Rent ÷ price = 0.62% in the example aboveMinnesota taxes a non-homestead rental at a 1.25% class rate versus 1.00% for an owner-occupied homestead on the first $500,000 of value. If you're converting a home you lived in into a rental, expect the tax bill to jump — budget the rental number, not your old one.
Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis Park, Plymouth, Edina, Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Hopkins and Minnetonka (registration) all license or register non-owner-occupied rentals, with inspections attached. Confirm the requirement and fee for the specific city before closing — it belongs in your expenses, which is why this calculator carries a small monthly line for it.
The HOA usually covers exterior maintenance, the roof, lawn, and snow — which is why the townhome preset lowers insurance (you insure the interior; the association's master policy covers the structure) and reserves. The trade-off is a $300–$450 monthly dues bill that rises over time and the risk of special assessments. Read the association's budget and reserve study, not just the dues.
Furnaces fail in January, pipes freeze, and snow removal is not optional. Single-family landlords either pay for lawn & snow service or require it of the tenant in the lease — either way, put a number on it. This calculator averages it monthly so a Minnesota winter doesn't ambush your cash flow.
Snapshot taken November 7, 2026. Defaults are starting points for planning — always replace them with the actual tax bill, insurance quote, HOA dues, and rent for the specific property you're analyzing.
Found a property you want checked? Bring the address — Allison Deal, Pemberton Real Estate — and we'll run it with the actual tax bill, real HOA dues, and a rent estimate for that street, not metro averages.