How Much Cash Flow Should Your Rentals Make?

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Investing, Business

4.8 • 16.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every new real estate investor asks one question: How much cash flow should my rental property make? For years, you’d hear things like “$200 per month per door” or “it has to hit the 1% rule”. But with so many of these rules outdated, we need a 2026 refresh on real estate cash flow. In today’s housing market, what is good cash flow for a rental property? This is how much your rental properties should cash flow each month to help you reach financial freedom. We’ll show you exactly how to calculate cash flow, the cash flow goal Dave personally sets for his portfolio, and when a property doesn’t need to cash flow based on other crucial factors. Plus, how to create your “worst case scenario” when analyzing a rental property, so even if everything goes wrong all at once, you’ll still be able to pay your mortgage, keep your rental going, and not lose sleep. Is the cash flow you’re making enough, or are you falling behind? We’re sharing it all in this episode. In This Episode We Cover How much cash flow should you be making on a rental property (in 2026)? How to calculate cash flow, cash-on-cash return, and other crucial money metrics Why Dave doesn’t care (too much) about year one (or day one) cash flow Breaking even on your rental? Why this isn’t a bad thing if you’re in a specific situation The cash-on-cash return a rental property has to hit for Dave to move forward on it And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1233 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertise@biggerpockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How much cash flow should your rental actually make? Because it may sound great if a property
0:05.2	will cash flow 200 bucks a month, but if you have to invest 100 grand to buy that deal,
0:10.2	that's a bad deal. So today I'll explain how to think about cash flow like an experienced
0:15.2	investor, how to calculate the number correctly, how to decide what your minimum cash flow
0:20.4	target should be. I'll walk you through
0:22.2	a simple deal example and explain why cash on cash return matters much more than the raw dollar
0:27.8	amount you're earning, and I'll give you my take on how to adjust your cash flow analysis for the
0:32.1	2026 market. And I'm just going to go ahead right now and spoil this entire episode and say that my answer is 7%.
0:40.1	I want a 7% cash on cash return by year two for any property I buy right now.
0:46.3	But that is just my number.
0:48.3	Yours is going to be different.
0:50.2	And by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to calculate your number.
0:54.9	So if you want to stop guessing about IRAs and cap rates and start evaluating deals that will build your net worth, you can't miss this episode.
1:07.9	What's up, everyone? I'm Dave Meyer, chief investment Officer at Bigger Pockets, and a guy who has
1:13.1	literally analyzed thousands, I don't know, maybe tens of thousands of real estate deals.
1:19.4	And today I'm sharing how I think about cash flow as I continue to buy residential properties
1:24.3	in 26. We're going to start today by just defining cash flow for anyone
1:29.2	who is new around here or for people who are confused on how to calculate it, because there's a lot
1:35.0	of bad information out there about what is cash flow. The proper definition of cash flow is
1:41.8	taking your total income, so that's all of your rent for a specific
1:45.9	property, and then subtracting all of your expenses. That does include your mortgage. It includes
1:51.8	taxes and insurance, but it also includes some of those variable expenses like repairs,
	...

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