Deal Score: A Smarter Way to Compare Rental Property Investments
This article is part of our How to Analyze a Rental Property series. If you haven’t seen the full example breakdown, it’s a great place to start.
Analyzing rental properties can feel overwhelming. With so many metrics—Cap Rate, Cash Flow, GRM, ROI—it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. That’s why PropertyAnalyzer created the Deal Score: a single 0–100 rating that captures the full investment profile of a property, tailored to your goals.
Whether you’re scanning dozens of listings or comparing your top three candidates, Deal Score gives you an instant read on which ones are worth your time—and which ones aren’t.
What Is Deal Score?
Deal Score is a proprietary rating system that summarizes all key investment metrics into one consistent, customizable score. It allows you to objectively compare properties side by side—no spreadsheet juggling required.
Scores range from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more closely the deal matches your target investment profile. The algorithm looks at a wide range of factors, including:
- Income performance (Cap Rate, Cash Flow, CoC Return)
- Expense ratios and operating efficiency
- Leverage, loan structure, and financing quality
- Risk-adjusted return based on user-defined targets
Each component is weighted based on what real investors care about: profitability, sustainability, and long-term value—not just flashy returns or unrealistic assumptions.
What Makes Deal Score Unique?
The most powerful part of Deal Score is that it’s fully customizable. You define your own thresholds for what makes a deal “good”—minimum cash flow, preferred Cap Rate, target CoC Return, max expense ratio, etc.
PropertyAnalyzer then grades each property against those thresholds. You get a transparent, objective score that adjusts to match your investing style—whether you’re conservative, aggressive, or somewhere in between.
How to Use Deal Score in Practice
Let’s say you’re evaluating a deal that earns an 8.4% Cap Rate and $594 in monthly cash flow. Those sound good—but how do they compare to your expectations?
In PropertyAnalyzer, you might set your targets as:
- Minimum Cap Rate: 7%
- Minimum Cash Flow: $300/month
- Minimum CoC Return: 8%
The platform automatically grades the deal against these benchmarks—and returns a Deal Score. For example, a score of 64 might suggest the deal meets your income goals but falls slightly short on risk metrics or expense load. You still get the full metric breakdown and can adjust your filters in real-time.
When to Rely on Deal Score
Deal Score is especially valuable when:
- You’re comparing multiple properties and want a fast, consistent way to rank them
- You’re screening new markets and want to stick to your risk profile
- You want to avoid overanalyzing every minor number and focus on the deals that matter most
It’s not designed to replace human judgment—but to give you clarity and confidence before you invest more time or money into deeper due diligence.
How It Fits With Other Metrics
Deal Score works alongside your key analysis tools—not in place of them. It enhances metrics like:
- Cap Rate — unleveraged yield
- Cash Flow — monthly income
- CoC Return — ROI on invested cash
- GRM — price-to-rent ratio
By scoring each deal based on those metrics (and more), you get the best of both: detailed analysis and a big-picture summary.
How Deal Score Is Calculated
Want to know exactly what goes into the score? Visit our full Deal Score Methodology page to see how each metric is weighted, how custom targets are applied, and what the score ranges actually mean. We believe transparency leads to smarter investing—and better decisions.
Bottom Line
Deal Score is the fastest way to compare and prioritize rental property investments—based on your own investing strategy. It’s fully transparent, highly customizable, and designed to help you move faster with confidence.
When used alongside cash flow, Cap Rate, and return metrics, it becomes your shortcut to smarter investing—without sacrificing depth.
