Commercial Real Estate Calculator — Free Cap Rate & DSCR

Commercial underwriting is rent per foot, occupancy, and operating load — then the cap rate the market will pay for that NOI. The 95% occupancy case tells you what the building is worth if you actually lease it.

Pick a type so you remember what you are modeling — office, retail, industrial, or mixed. The math is the same shape. Gross potential income is square feet × rent per square foot per year. Effective gross is GPI × occupancy. Operating expenses are a percent of EGI. NOI is EGI minus that opex. If your broker's OM shows opex as a dollar amount, convert it to a percent so you can stress occupancy without rebuilding the whole sheet.

Cap rate is NOI / price. Cash-on-cash uses price minus loan as equity. DSCR uses the same debt service math as residential. Price per foot is how you compare two ugly warehouses without falling in love with the one that has a mural. Value at 95% occupancy takes NOI at 95% and capitalizes it at the current cap rate. If that value is far above your price, you are buying vacancy with a story. If it is below, even a full building does not save you.

Occupancy is the lever. An 82% occupied retail strip is not an 82% quality tenant mix. This tool will not credit you for a national tenant versus a month-to-month vape shop. You have to haircut rent per foot yourself. Put in the rent you believe survives a rollover, not the rent on the remaining eight months of a lease that will not renew.

Debt terms on commercial are often shorter amortization and higher rate than a house. Type the actual quote. A 25-year amortization at 7.5% will move DSCR more than another coat of paint on the analysis.

Use multifamily when the income is per door. Use this when the income is per foot. Use land if the play is entitled dirt rather than in-place rent.

Share the cap, DSCR, and 95% value with a partner. If they only want to talk about 'upside in the unused parking lot,' make them type a rent for it.

The identities

GPI = Sqft × Rent PSF
NOI = EGI − (EGI × OpEx%)
Value@95 = NOI@95 / Cap

EGI uses occupancy, not vacancy percent. Cap is current NOI / price.

How people blow the result

• Using asking rent on vacant bays as if they were leased.
• Ignoring replacement reserves inside a too-low opex percent.
• Cap-rate shopping without looking at DSCR on the actual loan.

FAQ