📊 Rental Yield Calculator
Enter the purchase price, the rent, the weeks you expect it to stand empty, and what the purchase really cost you — and see the gross yield, the net yield, and the return on your own cash.
🏠 Price, Rent & Costs
What is a Rental Yield Calculator?
It turns a purchase into the three numbers that decide whether a let is worth owning. Gross yield is the headline: annual rent over the purchase price, the figure an agent quotes. Net yield is the same sum after your running costs and after the weeks the property earns nothing — because a place empty three weeks a year collects 94% of its advertised rent, not 100%. Cash-on-cash return is the one an investor actually lives on: what is left after the mortgage, measured against the deposit, the buying fees, and the refurbishment that came out of your account.
Most yield calculators stop at the first of those. That is not a small omission — voids and costs routinely take a third off the headline number, and leverage can turn a respectable yield into a property that costs money every month to hold. Seeing all three side by side is the difference between a listing's claim and your own arithmetic.
The mortgage here uses the same standard amortization as our Mortgage Calculator, so the two pages cannot disagree about the same loan. For a luxury hold where appreciation dominates the return, the Luxury Home ROI Calculator models capital growth over a holding period instead.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good rental yield?
There is no single number, because yield is the price of risk as much as a measure of quality. City-centre flats in expensive markets often show gross yields of 3–5%, while cheaper regional stock can show 7–10% and carry more voids, more repairs, and slower capital growth. The figure that matters is the net yield after costs and empty weeks, compared against what the same money would earn somewhere else for the same amount of work.
What is the difference between gross yield and net yield?
Gross yield is annual rent divided by the purchase price, and it ignores every cost — it is the number in the listing. Net yield takes off your running costs (management, insurance, repairs, ground rent, safety certificates) and the rent you never collect because the property stood empty. The gap between the two is routinely a third of the headline figure, which is why a property that looks like 7% can behave like 4.5%.
How many weeks a year should I assume the property is empty?
The standard planning allowance is 5–8% of annual rent, which is about 2.6 to 4.2 weeks a year. That covers the normal gap between tenancies plus the odd slow re-let. If you are letting in a seasonal market, to students, or at the top of the local price range, assume more. Assuming zero is the single most common way a rental projection flatters itself.
Why does cash-on-cash return differ so much from yield?
Yield measures rent against the purchase price; cash-on-cash measures the money left over after the mortgage against the money that actually left your account — deposit, buying fees, and refurbishment. On a leveraged purchase those are very different denominators, so a modest yield can be a strong cash-on-cash return, or a decent yield can turn negative once the mortgage is paid. Both numbers are shown here because neither one alone tells you whether to buy.
Does this include tax?
No. Rental taxation depends on where you are, how you hold the property, what other income you have, and how mortgage interest is treated in your jurisdiction — all of which move the answer more than any assumption we could make for you. Treat these figures as the pre-tax picture and take the net cash flow to an accountant before you commit.