Anyone who keeps rent (well) below market rates deserves to have the government come in with rent caps and force you to continue to offer discounts for the life of the property.  

The calculators helped me keep my numbers straight because I kept messing up taxes and cap rate stuff on my own.

Just like the store it caps at $400 off per order so any order over $4k break into multiple orders. 

That is in effect what you are doing and f you do not include PM fees in your underwriting.Your maintenance/cap ex fees is likely too low by a factor of 2.You are missing the misc charges like asset protection, bookkeeping/accounting/tax man, utilities due to property issues such as by a slab leak, legal/evictions, etc.The 50% rule is aggressive at this rent point and projects $82/month of cash flow.  

Maybe by year 5 you have real cash flow (meaning enough to cover sustained maintenance/ cap ex) and all other expenses).   

Lock a tight buy box by submarket and vintage, underwrite to in-place income first, then model stabilized rents with conservative expenses and a true cap-ex reserve.

Any insights on how you structure appraisal gap coverage (full vs partial, caps, etc.) would be really helpful for my next offer.

Austin’s vacancy rate is over double this.Your maintenance/cap ex is at least 2x low?

I also look at how “clean” the expenses are: taxes, insurance, PM, and reserves look properly accounted for here, which is important because a deal only works if nothing is hiding off-paper.A 7.5% cap with positive cash flow is respectable in this market, especially on a small multifamily.

Can look at your IRR, CoC return, ROE, Cap Rate, etc.