Calculator
Real Estate Investment Calculator
Real Estate Investment Calculator
Purchase
Income & Expenses
Loan & Tax
This runs the full hold end-to-end: cash out at purchase, after-tax rent each year (losses refunded at your marginal rate under negative gearing), then sale proceeds after agent costs, loan payout and CGT with the 50% discount. It is a first-pass screen, not a substitute for a depreciation schedule or state-specific duty quote.
Annualised Return on Cash
9.1%
Deal Analysis
A strong projection: 9.1% annualised on $187,500 invested, multiplying your cash 2.40× over 10 years. Rent growth and capital growth compound together while the loan is steadily repaid — remember these assumptions are estimates, and a one-point miss on either cuts this result materially.
*Projections assume constant growth and interest rates with rent and expenses escalating together; actual results vary. Stamp duty varies by state and property type — use a state-specific quote. Educational only, not investment or tax advice.
The Whole Property Deal on One Page
Property is Australia's favourite investment and its least analysed one. Buyers obsess over the purchase price and the weekly rent, then discover at sale time that the real verdict was always written by a longer list: stamp duty, buying costs, loan repayments, rising expenses, agent commissions and capital gains tax. A property can look cash-flow positive every year of ownership and still be a mediocre investment once the entry and exit costs are counted — or run a manageable shortfall for a decade and still compound into an excellent result because leverage amplified steady growth. This calculator runs that whole arc in one pass. It starts from the cash you actually hand over — deposit plus duty and legals — models each year's after-tax rent (with losses refunded at your marginal rate under negative gearing), grows rent and expenses over your holding period, amortises or holds the loan interest-only, then sells: deducting agent costs, paying out the loan balance and settling CGT with the 50% discount for holdings beyond twelve months. What comes out the end is the number that actually matters — your annualised return on invested cash and the multiple on your money — so a $100,000 deposit decision can be judged against shares, super contributions or simply a bigger deposit elsewhere. It is deliberately a first-pass screen: precise enough to rank real candidate properties, simple enough to run ten scenarios before lunch.
From Deposit to After-Tax Proceeds
Cash invested equals the deposit percentage of price plus upfront costs (stamp duty, legals, inspections) entered as a percentage of price — five percent is typical for established property, though duty scales by state. Each year, rent grows at your assumed rate, expenses grow alongside it, and the loan either amortises principal-and-interest over its term or sits interest-only. Net rental income is taxed at your marginal rate if positive; a loss is refunded at the same rate, which is negative gearing's entire mechanism. The loan balance tracks month by month until paid off or sold. At sale, the property is worth today's price compounded at your capital growth assumption. Selling costs come off the proceeds, the loan is paid out of what remains, and CGT applies to the gain measured ATO-style: selling costs reduce capital proceeds while buying costs join the cost base, then the taxable gain is halved for any hold beyond twelve months and taxed at your marginal rate. The two headline outputs are the money multiple — total after-tax proceeds plus cumulative rent, divided by cash invested — and the annualised return that multiple implies across your holding years. Because leverage sits underneath everything, small changes in the growth assumptions move the answer dramatically: run each deal at one point less growth and one point more rates before trusting it.
Expert Insights
Judge the Return on Cash, Not the Return on House
A property growing 4% with a 20% deposit delivers roughly double-digit equity growth because the whole asset moves while your cash stake is a fifth of it — but only if yield covers the carrying costs along the way. The same house at a 60% deposit behaves like a bond. The annualised-return-on-cash output exists precisely because leverage makes raw growth percentages meaningless: compare this tool's result against what the same deposit would do inside a diversified portfolio before assuming property wins by default.
Transaction Costs Set Your Minimum Hold
Buying costs near five percent and selling costs around two-and-a-half percent mean roughly eight percent of value evaporates on every round trip before tax. Flip a property within two years and those costs consume most of two years' growth; hold for fifteen and they dilute into noise. If the projected return collapses when you add three years to the hold, the deal depends on appreciation arriving fast — speculation wearing an investment's clothes.
Negative Gearing Is a Refund, Not a Return
A geared loss refunded at your marginal rate still leaves you worse off than not losing the money — $10,000 of shortfall returned $3,700 at a 37% rate is a net $6,300 out of pocket. Gearing only makes sense when the asset's expected growth plus eventual income justifies funding the gap for years. Watch the year-one after-tax cash flow readout: if losses widen faster than rents grow, you are underwriting the bank's interest bill with your salary, and a single rate rise compounds against you twice.
Actionable Tips
- 1
Set Buying Costs From a Real Duty Quote
Stamp duty differs enormously across states and concessions differ by buyer status — use your state revenue office calculator for the exact figure, add conveyancing, inspections and lender fees, then enter the total as a percentage here. Foreign-buyer surcharges can add another seven to eight percent in some states. An honest cost base up front stops the projection flattering itself.
- 2
Stress Every Deal Twice Before Offering
Run the analysis as entered, then rerun with capital growth cut by a point and the interest rate up half a point. If the annualised return falls below what diversified index funds have historically delivered, the property needs a better story than hope — stronger yield, a sharper buy price, or value-adding potential you can name specifically.
- 3
Compare Interest Only Against P&I Honestly
Interest-only maximises the tax refund and minimises the monthly outlay, which is why investors default to it — but it also means the loan balance never shrinks, so every dollar of profit must come from growth. Toggle both settings and look at the money multiple gap: that gap is the price of flexibility, and with IO terms typically capped around five years before reverting, the reversion shock belongs in your planning too.
Real-World Examples
Priya Ranked Two Suburbs Instead of Guessing
Priya was torn between a $780,000 inner-ring unit yielding 4.3% and a $560,000 outer-ring house yielding 4.9% with cheaper duty. Running both through the calculator at identical growth assumptions showed the unit's higher body-corporate and the house's stronger yield nearly cancelling out — annualised returns within half a point of each other. She chose the house for its lower absolute cash exposure, having replaced suburb loyalty with arithmetic.
Daniel Found His Gap Year Was a Tax Year
Daniel planned to flip a renovated townhouse within eighteen months. The projection showed a healthy gross gain — gutted by CGT without the discount? No: eighteen months qualified for the 50% discount, but the round trip of duty, agent fees and interest consumed almost exactly his expected profit at the conservative growth case. He extended his planned hold to five years, where the same numbers produced a respectable annualised return instead of a coin flip.
The Karims Sized Their Exposure Honestly
The Karims could afford a $1.1 million investment property on their joint incomes, but the projection at realistic growth showed their after-tax cash flow absorbing $14,000 a year in gearing losses for the first five years — money that had been funding their own super contributions. They bought at $800,000 instead, kept the contributions running, and the calculator's side-by-side totals showed the smaller property beating the stretch buy on invested-cash return anyway.
Glossary of Terms
- LVR (Loan-to-Value Ratio)
- The loan amount divided by the property value — an 80% LVR means a 20% deposit. Above 80%, lenders mortgage insurance usually applies.
- Money Multiple
- Total after-tax proceeds plus cumulative rent divided by the cash invested — a 1.8× multiple means every invested dollar came back with eighty cents of profit.
- CGT Discount
- The ATO concession taxing half of a capital gain for assets held longer than twelve months, applied before your marginal rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about this topic.
Ivy Sinclair-Wren
Financial Chaos Analyst
Ivy Sinclair-Wren is a Financial Chaos Analyst covering investing, AI, wealth psychology, and the emotional consequences of opening finance apps during market crashes. Based in Melbourne, she specializes in demystifying the Australian tax code and helping users navigate the intersection of spreadsheet logic and human irrationality.