New Investor Needs Help with Learning to Underwrite Deals Better

New to Real Estate · Paducah, KY · Member since 2026 · 13 posts · 8 votes

Hey!! I'm a new investor wanting to learn how to underwrite deals to the point I can do it with my eyes closed!! If you have any tips on ways for me to underwrite or how you practiced underwriting it would be very much appreciated!! I'm struggling with finding the typical appreciation of my market for housing any tips!!

Any advice is very much appreciated!!

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Seth McGatheyBusiness Member
Real Estate Agent · Milwaukee WI · Member since 2024 · 317 posts · 251 votes
2w
My recommendation is either borrow a calculator someone else has created or better yet, create your own in Google Sheets. Go over which numbers you care about price/rent ratio, cap rate, cashflow, etc. You can find the equations online. Then plug them into a Google sheet so that you can plug in the relevant numbers like price, rent, taxes, etc and it should spit out your numbers you care about. Then just do it. Take several properties a day and run the numbers. Doesn't matter if they all end up being terrible deals, but you should start to see patterns the more you do it.

That is the high overview. I can dig deeper with you if you want more help.
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Gregory AcsPro Member
Lender · MD · Member since 2025 · 133 posts · 52 votes
2w
I'd start by underwriting as many deals as you can, even if you never plan to buy them. The goal isn't to predict appreciation perfectly—it's to get comfortable analyzing cash flow using conservative assumptions for rent, vacancy, repairs, taxes, insurance, financing, and reserves. If a deal still makes sense with cautious numbers, you'll usually make better decisions than relying on optimistic projections.
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Ken M.
Investor · Get yourself trained before doing something inadvisable. · Member since 2024 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes
2w
Quote from @Kayden Wahl:
Hey!! I'm a new investor wanting to learn how to underwrite deals to the point I can do it with my eyes closed!! If you have any tips on ways for me to underwrite or how you practiced underwriting it would be very much appreciated!! I'm struggling with finding the typical appreciation of my market for housing any tips!!
Any advice is very much appreciated!!
I have a sheet that I provide for free to get people started. Just DM me and we'll get it to you.
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Joseph Zimmerman
Investor · Chicago · Member since 2026 · 17 posts · 11 votes
2w
I got better at this by going back. I keep the assumptions I underwrote each property on, 5% vacancy, 5% maintenance and 5% CapEx, and every month I run the actuals against them in my custom P&L. After a year you stop guessing at reserve percentages, because you have your own.

The standard NOI convention leaves CapEx out, so I keep an all-in line that folds actual CapEx back in. My DSCR drops on that line.

On appreciation, I underwrite the cash numbers and let appreciation land where it lands. My condo and my house have both moved in ways I never modeled, and neither move changed whether the deal worked.
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Arman AhmedPro Member
Real Estate Agent · Columbus Cleveland Dayton, OH · Member since 2024 · 2k+ posts · 904 votes
2w
Quote from @Kayden Wahl:
Hey!! I'm a new investor wanting to learn how to underwrite deals to the point I can do it with my eyes closed!! If you have any tips on ways for me to underwrite or how you practiced underwriting it would be very much appreciated!! I'm struggling with finding the typical appreciation of my market for housing any tips!!
Any advice is very much appreciated!!
Hey Kayden, the best way to get comfortable with underwriting is to run a ton of deals and use the same simple template every time. I’d focus on actual rents, realistic expenses, rehab costs, and conservative appreciation instead of trying to predict the market perfectly. I’d also practice on a few different Midwest markets so you can see how the numbers change from market to market.
[email protected]614-418-6081
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David Krulac
Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
2w
@Kayden Wahl For me #1 is you need to know VALUE. You can't tell a good deal from a less than good deal unless you know what real value is. Pick an area, a zip code, a subdivision and become the expert of value there, then use those same skills to branch into more and more areas. The zipcode where I bought my first property I ended up buying I ended up buying 27 more propertis in that same zipcode. Its been a very productive area for me.
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Ken M.
Investor · Get yourself trained before doing something inadvisable. · Member since 2024 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes
10h
Quote from @Kayden Wahl:
Hey!! I'm a new investor wanting to learn how to underwrite deals to the point I can do it with my eyes closed!! If you have any tips on ways for me to underwrite or how you practiced underwriting it would be very much appreciated!! I'm struggling with finding the typical appreciation of my market for housing any tips!!
Any advice is very much appreciated!!
Typical appreciation is usually at the county level for loosely populated areas. It's always best to compare to what has already sold, not what's on the market now. Since we deal with people all over the country, training on that kind of thing, I've seen huge variations in pockets of the country as well. There are historical numbers (long term) and current market conditions, you need to compare both.
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