# Analyze a buy and hold rental

> Enter financing, rent and operating costs in Deal Analyzer to see monthly cash flow, cap rate and debt coverage for a long-term rental.

Use the **Buy & Hold** strategy when you plan to buy a property and rent it long term. This page covers the sections specific to a rental. The steps every strategy shares are in [Run the numbers](https://docs.reinvestorhub.ai/guides/find-and-evaluate-a-property/run-the-numbers/).

## What you need

| | Fields |
|---|---|
| **Required** | Property Address, City, State, ZIP Code, Purchase Price, Expected Monthly Rent |

Required fields have a red asterisk, and **Analyze My Deal** stays disabled until they are filled in. If some fields are missing, you see **Score withheld** instead of a Deal Score, with a banner listing what to add. If you check **Cash Purchase**, the loan fields are not needed.

## Enter your rental

1. **Choose Buy & Hold**

   In **Deal Analyzer**, under **Select Your Investment Strategy**, select **Buy & Hold**, then pick the property address under **Property Information**.

2. **Enter Purchase & Financing**

   Enter the **Purchase Price**, **Down Payment %**, **Closing Costs**, **Interest Rate %** and **Loan Term (Years)**. Check **Cash Purchase** for an all-cash deal. **Chat with Lenny** opens the financing coach.

3. **Enter the rent**

   Under **Rental Information**, enter the **Expected Monthly Rent**. **Chat with Annie** can help with rent, vacancy and expense assumptions.

4. **Enter your expenses**

   Enter **Annual Property Tax**, **Annual Insurance** and **Property Management %** (a percentage of rent). Optionally add **Owner-Paid Utilities (Monthly)** (Gas & Electric, Water, Sewer, Garbage, Lawn & Snow), the reserves **Vacancy Rate %** and **Maintenance Reserve %**, and **Monthly HOA**.

5. **Select Analyze My Deal**

   The button is in the results column on the right.

### Multi-unit properties

If you set **Property Type** to Duplex, Triplex, Fourplex, Multifamily (5+ units) or SFR + ADU, a **Unit Configuration (Up to 20 Units)** section appears with a row for each unit. Enter **BR**, **BA**, **Rent/Mo** (your expected rent) and **Market Rent** (the current market rate). Select **Add Unit** to add more, or the remove button on a row to delete one. Once you enter unit rents, **Expected Monthly Rent** is filled in from their total, shown as **Total Monthly Rent**.

### Comps

**Check Comps** is in the **Property Information** header. Buy & Hold has no ARV, so comps are for reference and have no **Use as ARV** button. See [Check comps and set ARV](https://docs.reinvestorhub.ai/guides/analyze-a-deal/check-comps-and-set-arv/).

> **What you should see:** a **Deal Score** card with a number from 0.0 to 10.0 and a badge, followed by your rental results.

## Read the results

The **Investment Summary** shows:

- **Monthly Cash Flow** and **Annual Cash Flow**: rent minus expenses and the mortgage. Negative numbers are red.
- **Cash-on-Cash ROI**: the yearly return on the cash you put in.
- **Initial Cash Out of Pocket**.
- **Cap Rate**.
- **Debt Coverage Ratio**: shown as a multiple such as 1.25x, or N/A on a cash purchase.

A **Deal Summary** card shows your **Total Investment**. Two sections open and close below: **Purchase Breakdown** and **Rental Income & Expenses (Monthly)**, which runs from **Monthly Rent** and **Vacancy Loss** through to **Total Expenses**.

The badge next to the score reads **Excellent Deal**, **Good Deal**, **Fair Deal** or **Poor Deal**. See [Deal Score](https://docs.reinvestorhub.ai/reference/field-reference/deal-score/) for how to use it.

> **Tip:** If the cash flow is thin, try a lower **Property Management %**, a different **Down Payment %** or a higher rent, then select **Re-Analyze Deal**.

## Save the deal to your pipeline

Select **Save to Pipeline**, at the top of the page or under the Deal Score. Fill in every required field first.

> **What you should see:** the message "Deal saved to pipeline!", then Deal Pipeline opens with your deal in the **Analyzing** stage.

## Next step

  - [Export a deal analysis PDF](https://docs.reinvestorhub.ai/guides/analyze-a-deal/export-a-deal-analysis-pdf/): Download a two-page report of this rental.
  - [Analyze a short-term rental](https://docs.reinvestorhub.ai/guides/analyze-a-deal/short-term-rental/): Compare against renting by the night.