Methodology
Every number on this site comes from a formula you can check, applied to data with a stated vintage, under assumptions you can change. This page is the whole of it. If something here disagrees with a figure on another page, this page is wrong and we want to know.
The panel
The panel is 53 residential assets across 15 Phoenix-metro submarkets, stamped at a vintage of September 1, 2026. It is selected to span product type, vintage, price and yield rather than to be representative in proportion — a screening tool is more useful when it contains the corners of a market than when it mirrors the middle of it.
Submarket medians are computed over the whole submarket, not over the panel rows inside it. The two are labelled differently everywhere they appear together, because a median over four rows is not a median over a submarket and presenting them as the same number would be misleading.
This is demonstration data. Every listing, price, rent, market figure and case study on this site is illustrative sample data built for a design template. Nothing here is a real property, a real transaction or a live MLS feed.
Baseline assumptions
Every cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR and cash-flow figure shown outside a calculator is computed on one fixed assumption set, so a column means the same thing on every row. Change any of them on a property page and every figure on that page recomputes; nothing else on the site moves, because the comparison set has to stay fixed to stay a comparison.
| Assumption | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Down payment | 25% | Typical investor DSCR-loan requirement |
| Interest rate | 6.75% | Nominal, 30-year investor product |
| Amortisation | 30 yrs | Fully amortising |
| Closing costs | 2.5% | Of purchase price, buyer side |
| Up-front rehab | $0 | Zero at baseline; set it per asset in the calculator |
| Vacancy & credit loss | 6% | Of gross scheduled income |
| Maintenance | 7% | Of effective gross income |
| Management | 8% | Of effective gross income |
| Capital reserve | 5% | Of effective gross income |
Two consequences worth stating plainly. First, operating expenses never include debt service — that separation is what makes a cap rate a property of the building and a cash-on-cash a property of your deal. Second, the maintenance, management and reserve percentages are taken on effective gross income rather than gross scheduled income, because you cannot pay a manager a percentage of rent you did not collect.
Expense estimation
Four lines are estimated rather than stated, and they are labelled as estimates everywhere they appear.
- Property tax — market value at the blended effective residential rate for the taxing city. Maricopa County assesses residential at 10% of full cash value and then applies the combined district rate; the rates used here are the blended effective ones, which range from about 0.52% in Mesa to about 0.66% in Buckeye.
- Insurance — a base landlord policy plus a rate on conditioned area, quoted per unit on multifamily, with a surcharge where there is a pool and a separate flood policy where the parcel sits in a mapped Zone AE.
- HOA — stated per asset where one exists. Carried as a fixed expense, payable whether or not the unit is occupied.
- Other fixed operating — pest, landscaping, common-area utilities and trash, by product type. Owner-paid water on the small multifamily rows is the largest single item in this category.
Rent estimates are achievable market rent for the unit mix as configured today, not in-place contract rent, unless a listing states otherwise. Where a listing has a vacant unit, both the in-place and the stabilised figure are shown.
Comparable selection
Rent and sale comparables are drawn from the panel itself rather than invented. Candidates are ranked on a composite of straight-line distance, unit size gap, bedroom count gap, and whether they share the subject’s submarket and product type. Same-submarket assets are preferred but never required, because a thin submarket would otherwise return nothing at all.
Multifamily is compared per unit, never per building. Rent per building tells you a fourplex beats a house, which is true and useless. Rent per unit against unit size tells you whether it actually does.
Estimated value history carries the current price backwards on the submarket median-price index. It is an index adjustment, not an appraisal and not a record of transactions, and it is captioned that way on every chart it appears in.
Metric definitions
- Cap rate
NOI ÷ purchase price - Net operating income divided by the purchase price. NOI excludes debt service, so the cap rate describes the asset, not the financing. Two buyers paying the same price for the same building compute the same cap rate whatever their loans look like.
- Net operating income (NOI)
EGI − operating expenses - Effective gross income less every operating expense: taxes, insurance, HOA, maintenance, management, reserves and any owner-paid utilities. It never includes mortgage payments, depreciation or capital improvements.
- Gross scheduled vs effective gross income
EGI = GSI − vacancy & credit loss - GSI is what the property would collect at full occupancy and market rent. EGI is what it actually collects after vacancy and uncollected rent. Underwriting to GSI is the single most common way a screen overstates a return.
- Cash-on-cash return
annual pre-tax cash flow ÷ cash invested - Annual cash flow after debt service, divided by the actual cash out of pocket: down payment plus closing costs plus rehab. Unlike the cap rate it is a property of the deal, not the building — change the leverage and it changes.
- Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR)
NOI ÷ annual debt service - How many times over the net operating income covers the mortgage. Most residential investor lenders want 1.15–1.25 or better. Below 1.00 the property does not pay its own debt and the difference comes out of the owner.
- Rent-to-price ratio
monthly rent ÷ purchase price - The "1% rule" written as a number. It is a screen, not an analysis: it ignores taxes, insurance, HOA, condition and vacancy entirely. Useful for cutting 500 listings to 50; useless for deciding between two of them.
- Operating expense ratio
operating expenses ÷ EGI - The share of collected income consumed by operations. For Phoenix single-family in this panel it typically lands between 35% and 45% once taxes, insurance, management and reserves are all carried honestly.
- Break-even occupancy
(operating expenses + annual debt service) ÷ GSI - The occupancy at which cash flow is exactly zero. A property that breaks even at 96% occupancy has almost no room for a single slow turn.
- Gross rent multiplier
price ÷ gross scheduled income - Price as a multiple of annual gross rent. A fast comparability check within one submarket and product type; misleading across them, because it ignores the expense structure entirely.
- Days on market
days since list date - Cumulative days on market for the current listing. In a high-inventory submarket a long DOM is usually a supply signal rather than a property signal — read it next to the submarket inventory line, not alone.
Fair housing policy
Investor-facing analysis is exactly where neighbourhood language leaks into demographic proxying, and the Fair Housing Act applies to it in full. The rule we apply to every page, every chart caption and every research note on this site: describe the asset and objective market data — never the people.
What that permits: price, rent, cap rate, days on market, inventory, absorption, permit counts, distance to employment centres, school district boundaries as a factual location attribute, flood zone, mechanical age, HOA status, water provider, zoning.
What it excludes, anywhere on this site: neighbourhood "character", "family-friendly", "up-and-coming", "safe", "desirable area", "good schools" as a quality judgement, or any other proxy for race, colour, religion, sex, familial status, national origin or disability.
Parcel is committed to the letter and the spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the nation. We describe properties and objective market data only. We do not, and will not, market on, or provide analysis based on, race, colour, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, disability, or any proxy for them.
What this is not
Not investment, tax or legal advice. All returns shown are estimates produced by a model from assumptions you can change, not offers, appraisals or guarantees. Real results differ. Consult your own licensed advisers before acting.
Demonstration site. Parcel is a fictional business created for this design template. Every listing, price, rent, market figure and case study below is illustrative sample data, not a real property or a real transaction. Photography is representative stock imagery and does not depict the addresses shown.
It is also not an appraisal, a loan quote, a title search, an inspection, or a substitute for any of them. A model tells you what an asset earns under assumptions. It cannot tell you that the sewer lateral is cast iron.