DSCR calculator
Enter the property’s numbers and the rate you were offered, and you get the coverage ratio a lender will look at — plus a plain-English reading of what the result actually means.
Quick answer
The DSCR calculator divides monthly rent by the property’s total monthly obligation: principal and interest on the loan amount at the rate you enter, plus one twelfth of annual property taxes, one twelfth of annual insurance and any monthly HOA dues. It returns the coverage ratio and a band-based interpretation. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere, and the result is an estimate for planning — not a quote, an offer or an approval.
Property and loan inputs
Coverage result
Enter a rate to see the coverage ratio.
Rent, loan amount and the interest rate you were offered are the three inputs needed. Taxes, insurance and HOA dues then complete the obligation the ratio is measured against.
How to read the result
A ratio of 1.00 means the rent covers the obligation exactly. Below 1.00, the property does not pay for itself at that loan amount. Between roughly 1.20 and 1.35 there is a working cushion, and above 1.35 you have real room to spare. Those bands are conversational shorthand, not rules: the only floor that matters on your file is the one the lender quoting it applies.
What the ratio is not is a cash-flow statement. Most business-purpose programs test gross rent against the obligation without deducting vacancy, property management or a maintenance reserve, so a property can clear a lender’s floor and still lose money in a realistic month. That is why the calculator has a separate allowance field: it does not change the ratio, and it does change the cash-flow line at the bottom where your actual ownership cost lives.
What the calculator deliberately leaves out
- Any rate. The field starts blank because we do not publish rates and do not want a prefilled number to read as an offer. Use the rate from a real lender quote.
- Closing costs and lender fees. Georgia adds an intangible recording tax on the instrument securing a long-term note at $1.50 per $500 of the note’s face amount (O.C.G.A. § 48-6-61), plus title work, attorney fees and recording charges.
- A tax reassessment. If the county revisits the parcel after your purchase, the tax figure and therefore the ratio will move. Change the tax field and watch what happens.
- The actual insurance premium. Coastal wind and flood coverage, roof age and system age all move it. Use the quote you have, not an estimate.
Try the two changes that matter most
On a Georgia file, the two highest-yield experiments are usually tax and insurance. Take the property you are considering and rerun the ratio with the tax figure you expect after a reassessment rather than the seller’s current bill. Then rerun it with an insurance premium from a real quote rather than a rule of thumb. If the deal still clears, you have learned something useful. If it does not, you have learned it before you wrote the offer.
Once you have a ratio in hand, the honest next step is to compare it against the programs that will actually consider your file. That is what we do — send the address and the rent and we will tell you which lenders this scenario clears.
Want a second opinion on the arithmetic?
Send the property and the rent. We will model the coverage against real programs, name the weak point, and tell you what would have to change if the file does not clear.