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Long-Term Rentals06 · Wealth & Exit

What your equity is earning, and what it costs to move it.

Holding a rental is a decision you keep making, whether or not you revisit it. This discipline measures what the property is actually returning, prices the exit before you choose one, and then works the three decisions that follow. Nine guides, in the order they depend on each other.

Start here →See the guides in order →

Start here · The guide to read first

Cash Return on Current Equity & the Wealth Engines

A rental builds wealth through several engines running at once, and most owners never separate them. This names the ones that genuinely create economic value, separates them from the ones that only change how the results accumulate, and shows why cash return on current equity asks a different question from cash-on-cash.

Matt Nunn · 13 min read

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What it covers

  • Net worth, liquidity and income are three different things
  • The engines that genuinely create economic value
  • Why leverage and tax timing are not engines
  • The capital base cash return on current equity measures against
Reading order

The guides, in order.

Basis first, because everything at a sale is measured from it. Then what a sale actually costs once the pieces land in the same year, then the route that defers the gain instead of paying it, and last the decisions that rest on all of it.

  1. Basis

    The number every exit is measured from, and what the depreciation taken along the way turns that gain into.

  2. What a sale actually costs

    The pieces taught separately all land in the same tax year. This is where they are assembled.

  3. Deferring, and deciding

    The route that moves the gain rather than paying it, then the decisions it feeds: which route, whether the property still deserves its capital, and whether you are ready for the next one.

Decision guides

When there is a real choice.

Judgment calls, not how-tos. Each one weighs the options against your position and the cost of acting, rather than answering for you.

  1. Decision

    Sell, 1031, or Refinance?

    What each route does to your ownership, tax, cash, leverage and calendar — including the fourth one usually left off the list. It compares; it does not recommend.

    Read the guide →
  2. Decision

    Does This Property Still Deserve My Capital?

    Keeping a property is a decision, not a default. A periodic review of one property, built on what each exit route would cost and kept separate from whether to act.

    Read the guide →
  3. Decision

    Am I Ready to Buy the Next Property?

    Check five readiness floors in order, then weigh tax position, portfolio fit and opportunity cost.

    Read the guide →
The Profitable Real Estate Operator, by Builders Finance

A letter for people who run property as a business. One idea at a time on the financial side of ownership — what changed, what it means, and what an operator should do about it. Written for short-term and long-term rental owners alike.

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