Investment Score & Grade
A 0–100 composite score, and a letter that ranks a property against every other active San Diego listing today.
The grade is a ranking, not a verdict. “A” means top 10% of what is on the market right now — it does not mean the property makes money. In today’s San Diego market, a Grade A listing can still be several hundred dollars a month negative at standard financing. Read the cashflow figure next to the badge; the letter only tells you where this property sits in the queue.
Formula
Score = Cashflow (50) + Cap Rate (30) + CoC (20)
Each component is clamped to its point ceiling, so the score always lands between 0 and 100. The grade is then assigned by percentile rank across the full active market — never against a fixed cutoff.
What the 100 points are made of
Full cashflow 50 points | Monthly rent minus principal, interest, taxes, insurance, HOA, vacancy (8%), property management (10%), maintenance (1%/yr) and capex (5%/yr). $0/mo scores the full 50; −$2,500/mo scores 25; −$5,000/mo scores 0. |
Cap rate 30 points | Net operating income divided by price. A 3% cap rate earns the full 30 points; 1.5% earns 15. |
Cash-on-cash return 20 points | Annual pre-tax cashflow divided by cash invested. +10% earns the full 20; −25% earns 0. |
Everything is computed at the same default scenario: 20% down, 7% interest, 30-year fixed, 8% vacancy, 10% management, 5% capex, 1%/yr maintenance. Change the assumptions on any listing page or in the cashflow calculator and the economics move with them.
How the letter is assigned
Every active listing is scored, the scores are ranked, and the grades are cut by percentile. The cutoffs move as inventory moves — the same property can shift a grade without changing price, because the market around it changed.
| Grade | Rank | Share of market | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Top 10% | about 1 listing in 10 | Scores in the highest decile of everything active in San Diego right now. The best available economics — not necessarily good economics. |
| B | Top 30% | the next 20% | Above the market’s middle. Usually worth a closer look at a different price or a different down payment. |
| C | Top 80% | the middle 50% — the plurality grade | The broad middle of the market. Most listings land here by design. |
| D | Bottom 20% | the lowest fifth | Weakest rental economics in the current set. Often high-HOA, high-price-per-rent, or luxury product that was never priced as a rental. |
Why a Grade A can still lose money every month
San Diego prices and San Diego rents have not moved together for years. At today’s prices and today’s interest rates, the great majority of coastal San Diego listings are cashflow-negative at 20% down once vacancy, management, maintenance and capex are charged against the rent. Ranking them against each other does not change that — it only tells you which ones are least negative.
That is why the letter and the cashflow figure are always shown together, and why the letter is never presented as a recommendation. San Diego is, on this engine’s own numbers, primarily an appreciation and equity-build market; rental cashflow at standard leverage is the exception, not the rule. Anyone telling you otherwise about this market is selling something.
The practical use of the grade is triage. It sorts ~3,000 listings into a queue worth working through, so the underwriting effort goes to the top of the market instead of the middle of it.
What “break-even” means here
Break-even rent is the monthly rent at which the property covers every modelled cost — mortgage principal and interest, property tax, insurance, HOA, vacancy, management, maintenance and capex — and nets exactly $0/mo. If break-even rent is $5,400 and the estimated market rent is $4,200, the property is $1,200/mo short at the assumptions shown.
Two levers close that gap: a lower purchase price, or more cash down (which shrinks the loan, and therefore the payment, at the cost of a lower cash-on-cash return). Both are modelled live on the listing page and in the calculator — move the down-payment slider and watch the gap close.
Two related figures are worth separating. Simple cashflow (“after PITI”) is rent minus mortgage, taxes, insurance and HOA only. Full cashflow also charges vacancy, management, maintenance and capex — and it is full cashflow, not the simple figure, that drives the score and the grade. A listing can look near break-even on the simple number and be several hundred dollars a month negative on the full one.
Limitations
- The grade is relative to today’s active inventory only. It is not comparable across markets, and not comparable to the same property’s grade six months ago.
- Rent is an estimate. Every listing carries a confidence indicator on its rent figure; a low-confidence rent produces a low-confidence score.
- It uses one financing scenario. Cash buyers, 40% down, assumable loans, seller carrybacks and 1031 exchanges all change the answer completely.
- It models a long-term rental. Short-term rental, house-hacking, ADU addition and value-add renovation are not in the score.
- It ignores appreciation, principal paydown, depreciation and the tax treatment of losses — which, in this market, are where the return actually comes from.
- Land, rental and mixed-use listings are not scored at all — they show no grade rather than a misleading one.
How Prop2Profit Uses This Metric
The score sets the default “Best ROI” sort on the listings page, drives the grade filter, and orders the featured properties on the homepage. Zip-level grades on Neighborhoods use the same percentile logic, but rank zip codes against each other rather than individual listings.