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Cash Flow
What hits your bank account after operating expenses and debt service. (And it’s often overstated when CapEx reserves are ignored.)
Wealth Leakage Report
Most landlords think cash flow = success. Sophisticated investors track all four engines of return. This quick diagnostic shows what your equity is really earning — and what it’s costing you to wait.
Answer a few questions → get your ROE estimate and the most likely leaks.
Every year you wait, your equity usually rises faster than your return.
Free diagnostic • Estimates are fine • No opinions. Just numbers.
The Landlord Lie
You bought a property 12–18 years ago for $525K. Today it’s worth $1.05M. Your cash flow is about $1,600/month (after debt + operating expenses). You think: “I’m doing great.”
But when you calculate your actual Return on Equity — what your current equity is earning — the number is often closer to 4–6%.
That’s not a moral judgment. It’s just math. And math is exactly what most landlords never see.
Cash flow is not the score.
The 4 Engines of Wealth
Cash flow matters — but it’s only one engine. Real performance comes from the full stack.
When you add all four engines together and compare that total to the equity you have tied up today, you get one number that tells the truth: Return on Equity (ROE).
ROE answers the only question that matters: If this equity were cash, would you still keep it here?
What hits your bank account after operating expenses and debt service. (And it’s often overstated when CapEx reserves are ignored.)
Your tenants paying down your loan. It’s real wealth creation — and most owners never count it.
Depreciation can shield income and reduce taxes — if you’re taking it correctly and consistently.
Value growth builds equity — but it can also crush ROE if income doesn’t rise with it.
The spreadsheet doesn’t lie.
Where Your Wealth Is Leaking
Wealth leakage isn’t one thing. It’s usually a stack of small leaks that compound for years. This diagnostic flags the most common ones fast.
If you’re not taking it consistently, you’re donating money to the IRS... and they're not exactly famous for spending it wisely.
Your property got richer. You didn’t. That’s how ROE quietly dies.
Your “cash flow” is inflated until a major repair makes you pay for it all at once — with money you already spent in your head.
If you’re doing the work, you’re paying yourself $0/hour and calling it “profit.”
Expenses don’t explode. They creep. And creep kills returns.
Depreciation recapture + capital gains can turn ‘selling’ into a tax ambush if you didn’t plan.
You can’t fix what you don’t measure.
What Sophisticated Investors Do
When ROE drops, you have three real moves. Most landlords do none of them — they just keep holding and hope the market saves them.
Calculate ROE, tax drag, and the leaks. Not “how it feels.” Not “what Zillow says.” The actual return on the equity you have tied up today.
Raise income, control expenses, reserve CapEx, and stop ignoring hidden costs. Sometimes the best move is to tighten the property — not sell it.
If the property can’t be optimized enough, sophisticated investors redeploy equity into a better performer. A 1031 exchange is how they do it without getting crushed by taxes. The goal isn’t to sell. The goal is to stop letting your equity sit there and rot.
Truth first. Options second.
Final step
This takes about 3 minutes. If the numbers look fine — great. If they don’t… you’ll finally know what to do next. Most landlords never run this because they’re afraid of what it will say.
The numbers don’t care what you “feel.”