Add a feasibility for a unit

What a unit costs to buy and may return, on your assumptions, and in your comparison reports.

How to do it

1. 1

   Edit the listing and go to the Feasibility step. Add a sheet for a unit type (or the listing as a whole). Its name in reports is made for you from the unit and the listing; type your own to change it.

2. 2

   A listing with more than one payment plan: choose the plan on each sheet, and add a sheet per plan for the same unit (50/50 and 30/70, say). The share before the keys and the after-handover gap follow the plan.

3. 3

   Type your rent a year, the service charge per sq ft and the growth you expect a year. The price, size, handover and the share paid before keys come from the listing; change them under Price, size and fees, with the admin fees.

4. 4

   Key Deal works it out row by row as the feasibility template does: the total cost to buy, net rent, the gross and net return on the price, the net return on the total cost, growth to handover, and the total return a year (the net return on the total cost plus the growth rate). For off-plan: the cash before keys, the net return and the growth a year on it, and the cash return a year. With a mortgage: its rate, the cash flow after it, and the net return after the mortgage and after the interest alone, on the cash put in. A listing can hold up to 24 sheets (for example each unit type for residents and non-residents).

5. 5

   Under Let as, choose Short-term for a holiday home (nightly rate, occupancy, the operator's fee and electricity and internet come off the rent) or Commercial (the fit-out and the value after it, with 5% VAT on the price, admin fee and fit-out).

6. 6

   Save the listing. A comparison report with this listing then has a Feasibility page; when a listing has several sheets, choose the unit in the Compare panel.

7. 7

   Off-plan with payments after handover: the sheet shows what the buyer still pays a year after the keys, against the net rent, and the gap to fill a year and a month (read from the payment plan, or type the share and the years).

8. 8

   A ready (secondary) home adds the buyer's agency fee (2% unless you change it) and, with a mortgage, the return on the cash put in. Put the years you expect to hold it.

9. 9

   Add a mortgage (share of the price, rate, years) to see what holding it 5 to 25 years leaves. The service charge rises each year by your inflation rate (3% unless your agency or you set another, in Settings; or type a rate on the sheet for that sheet alone), and values are also shown in today's money. The rent rises by the same rate unless you type a Rent escalation on the sheet.

10. 10

    With a mortgage, the sheet names its rate (Mortgage at 4.5%) and splits the first year's payments into interest and loan repaid. Net return after mortgage takes both off the rent; Net return after interest takes only the interest, because the loan repaid is the buyer's own money building equity. When a mortgage costs about what the property earns, the first barely moves from the net return: that is the arithmetic, not a fault.

11. 11

    Each holding period shows the rent that year, the rise in value on what was paid, that year's return on the purchase price and the total return on the cash put in: these grow the longer it is held. The averages a year (CAGR on the form, IRR) ease off with time, because a gain is spread over more years.

12. 12

    Have the developer's sales offer? Drop the PDF or a photo of it on Fill in from a sales offer, or press it and choose the file: the price, size, unit, fees and the share paid before and after the keys are filled in from it. Your rent, growth and service charge stay yours. A scanned offer (a picture of the page, or a photo) is read too. Check what it read against the offer, and type in anything it missed.

13. 13

    Every figure rests on your assumptions and says so. After saving, the sheets' headline figures are on the listing's team section and its Details page. Clients see them only in the reports you make, never on the listing page.

14. 14

    For one project on its own, press Open feasibility (on the listing's Details page, or in the team section of the live page) or Feasibility report under For your client. Each unit shows its price, net return and total return a year, with a bar, so the units compare at a glance; press Open on a unit to see its whole feasibility (what it costs, earns and grows, the cash, the mortgage and the years held) and change any figure for this client (price, rent, growth, service charge, fees, payment plan, mortgage, inflation, rent escalation: for this report only): the figures work themselves out again as you type. Tick the units for the report, type the client's name for the cover, and add a second currency beside AED if you like. Then download (on a phone, Preview it, then Send the PDF, which opens your phone's share sheet with the file): a cover with the headline figures, then for each unit what it costs, earns and grows, the years held, and the payment schedule, instalment by instalment with the month it falls in and its amount on the unit's price.