Report Glossary
Your DwellCheck report uses the same vocabulary institutional investors use. Here's what each one actually means.
Your down payment is cash you could have invested elsewhere — for example, in the stock market. This line estimates what that money would have earned (at a 7% assumed annual return, a common long-run stock market average) if you'd invested it instead of putting it into the house. It's not a bill you actually pay, but it's a real cost of tying up that cash in home equity instead of other investments.
What this property could realistically rent for per month if you (or a future owner) rented it out instead of living in it. This is the foundation for every institutional-style number below — it's the same starting point a REIT analyst would use to underwrite the property as a rental.
Annual rent divided by the purchase price, before any expenses are subtracted. It's the simplest, roughest measure of how much income a property could produce relative to what you paid — useful for a quick gut check, but it ignores costs like taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
Net operating income (rent minus operating expenses) divided by purchase price. This is the single number professional real estate investors use most to compare deals — a higher cap rate generally means more income relative to price. REITs and institutional buyers typically target cap rates in the 5–7% range for single-family rentals.
The price an institutional investor would be willing to pay for this property, based purely on its rental income and a target cap rate — ignoring the fact that someone might want to live in it. If the asking price is well above this number, it usually means the price is being driven by owner-occupant demand (people wanting to live there) rather than the property's income potential.
The gap between the asking price and the Investor Fair Value above. A positive number means you're paying a premium over what the rental income alone would justify — which is completely normal for an owner-occupied home, but worth knowing.
A projection of your financial position at the point you've told us you plan to sell or start renting out the home. It accounts for projected home value growth, how much of your loan you'd have paid down, and the total cost of owning the home over that period. If your mortgage gets fully paid off before this point, the loan balance and mortgage payment drop out of the math from that point forward.
The number of years it takes for the equity you've built (home appreciation plus principal paid down) to outweigh what you would have spent renting an equivalent home instead — regardless of whether or when you ever sell. This is one of the biggest drivers of your Deal Score, since it answers the question most owner-occupants actually care about: am I better off owning this than renting?
What the home is estimated to be worth at the point in your plan you're viewing, assuming a 3% annual appreciation rate — a conservative, long-run historical average for home price growth in the U.S.
How much you'd still owe on your mortgage at the point in your plan you're viewing. Even though you've been making payments, a meaningful chunk of early payments goes to interest rather than principal, so this balance often shrinks more slowly than people expect. Once you reach your loan term, this drops to $0 — you own the home free and clear.
The estimated cost to sell the home — agent commissions, closing costs, and similar fees — assumed here at 6% of the sale price, a standard industry estimate.
What you'd actually walk away with in cash if you sold the home at the point in your plan you're viewing: projected home value, minus what you still owe on the mortgage, minus selling costs.
The sum of every monthly 'True Cost of Ownership' payment (mortgage, taxes, insurance, HOA, maintenance, and opportunity cost) from the day you bought the home through the point in your plan you're viewing. This is what owning the home actually cost you over that period — not just your mortgage payments.
Net Proceeds at Sale minus Total True Cost Paid. This tells you, in dollars, whether owning and then selling the home at this point in your plan left you ahead or behind, after accounting for every real cost along the way.
If, instead of selling, you turned the home into a rental at the point in your plan you're viewing, this estimates the monthly profit (or loss) you'd see — projected rent at that future date, minus your projected total monthly ownership cost at that date. A negative number means you'd need to subsidize the rental out of pocket each month.