Your Cap Rate Is Only Telling You Half The Story

Here's the thing about cap rate: it's the number everyone leads with, and it's also the number that leaves out the one detail that actually determines what a deal pays you — your financing.

Cap rate is unlevered. It tells you what a property yields if you paid cash for it, no mortgage involved. Almost nobody does that. The second you put financing on a deal, your actual return — what shows up in your pocket after the mortgage payment — can look completely different from the cap rate on the listing sheet. Sometimes better. Sometimes a lot worse.

A 5% cap rate deal financed well can out-earn a 7% cap rate deal financed poorly. Nobody tells you that part when they're pitching you the number.

So I built the tool that tells you the rest

We put together a free Cap Rate & Deal Analyzer that goes past the headline number and shows you what actually matters once real terms are in the picture:

• Cap rate — the standard calculation, done properly, with vacancy and full operating expenses accounted for
• DSCR — whether the property's income actually covers the mortgage payment lenders will require (most want 1.20–1.25 minimum)
• Cash-on-cash return — the number that actually reflects what you're earning on the money you put in, after financing
• Reverse calculator — tell it your target cap rate and it tells you the max price that gets you there
• Break-even occupancy — the minimum occupancy that keeps the deal covering itself
• Benchmark ranges by asset class — multifamily, office, retail, industrial, hospitality, mixed-use — so you know if a number is actually good or just good-sounding

Change any input and everything updates live. No spreadsheet, no waiting for someone to run the numbers for you.

One more thing worth saying out loud

We don't just finance commercial deals in Nova Scotia, or Atlantic Canada, or wherever happens to be close to our office. We source capital wherever the capital is — across Canada, for whatever property type the deal calls for. Multi-unit, retail, industrial, mixed-use, we've structured it. If you're running numbers on something and want a second set of eyes before you go further, that's exactly the conversation we like having.