Who builds this
TrueCap is built by one person, a rental investor in Philadelphia. It started as the tool he wanted for his own underwriting — a way to get from an address to a source-labeled first-pass answer — and it's still how he runs the deals he considers.
What TrueCap does
Paste a listing and see whether it works at the asking price, what price makes it work, and what could break the deal: monthly cash flow, cap rate, cash-on-cash return, DSCR, a Deal score, and the Offer Ceiling — your walk-away price based on your targets.
The core analyzer is free with no signup, and your first complete decision is included. It is built for real estate agents who screen and present deals for investor clients, and for investors buying for their own portfolio; both use the same analyzer.
A paid plan adds unlimited saved deals you can edit, the Offer Ceiling and downside checks on every deal, 10-year projections, a portfolio dashboard, deal comparison, and lender-facing Pro report exports. Free keeps up to 5 saved deals.
How the numbers are built
Every analysis starts from labeled inputs. Rent can start from HUD's Fair Market Rent benchmark for the area and the mortgage rate from FRED's national 30-year series; property tax is always your local number, because no benchmark stands in for an assessor's bill. Each starting value carries its source label, and you can replace any of them before you rely on the result.
The output is a decision, not a score: cash flow after reserves, DSCR, cap rate, cash-on-cash return, Buy Box fit, and the Offer Ceiling — the highest price that still meets your targets — with the best next step and the assumptions most likely to move the answer.
The core formulas behind it (cash flow, cap rate, cash-on-cash return, DSCR, the mortgage payment, and the Offer Ceiling) are published and versioned on the methodology page, so a partner or lender can check the math instead of taking the label on faith.
Why the math is opinionated
Most rental calculators will produce whatever number you want to see: leave vacancy at zero, skip the CapEx reserve, and everything cash-flows. TrueCap's defaults lean conservative on purpose. Vacancy, maintenance, and CapEx reserves are in the math from the first run, and the verdict says plainly when a deal doesn't work at the asking price. Every assumption is editable — the point isn't to hide the levers, it's to make the first number you see one you could defend to a lender. A deal that only works with optimistic inputs isn't a deal, and finding that out on screen is much cheaper than finding out after closing.
The analyzer's core formulas are documented, down to the conventions, on the methodology page.
Get in touch
TrueCap is a small operation, which means email actually gets read. Questions about the math, a number that looks off, or something you wish the analyzer did: hello@usetruecap.com.