← Blog · Sellers By Josh DeShong · July 2026 · 4 min read

Run the tired-landlord math before the next make-ready runs it for you

There's a moment every burned-out landlord remembers: standing in an empty Lewisville rental at 8 p.m., looking at carpet that needs replacing again, doing math on a notepad. This article is that notepad, done properly.

The number you tell people vs. the number that's true

"It rents for eighteen hundred and the payment's eleven — I clear seven hundred a month." That's the cocktail-party version. The honest ledger charges the rental for everything: vacancy between tenants (even one month a year is 8% of gross), repairs and maintenance (the 2 a.m. water heater fund — on an older house, budget 10% of rent), make-ready and leasing costs each turnover (paint, floors, and a leasing fee can eat two months of "profit" in one bite), taxes and insurance creeping up annually, and management — either the 8–10% you pay a company or the truth that you've been doing a part-time job for free.

Run those lines on a typical aging single-family rental and the seven hundred a month collapses to two or three — sometimes less. On a paid-off house the cash flow looks better, but then the real question changes: is this the best thing two or three hundred thousand dollars of your equity could be doing?

The return-on-equity test

Divide your true annual cash flow by what you'd walk away with if you sold today. If the rental nets four thousand a year against two hundred thousand of trapped equity, you're earning 2% for the privilege of being on call — before appreciation, which you can get from assets that never call you. Appreciation and the mortgage paydown are real; count them. But count them next to the weekends, too.

Signals it's time

• The house needs a big system — roof, HVAC, sewer line — and writing that check feels like reinvesting in a job you want to quit.
• You inherited the landlord role, not chose it (the accidental landlord who kept the old house "temporarily," five years ago).
• Every turnover gets more expensive and you find yourself hoping the tenant never leaves, which is how below-market rent and deferred maintenance compound each other.
• You've started avoiding the tenant's calls. That one's the tell.

If the math says sell

You've got the standard menu — wait out the lease and list, or sell with the tenant in place, which we covered in selling a rental with tenants. And one more consideration your CPA should weigh in on: years of depreciation get recaptured at sale, and if you're rolling into another investment, a 1031 exchange may defer the whole tax question. Do the math with someone licensed before you sign anything. Sometimes the answer really is "keep it" — but make it a decision, not a default.

This article is general information for Texas property owners, not legal, tax, or investment advice. Depreciation recapture and 1031 exchanges have strict rules — talk to your CPA before selling a rental. Figures are illustrative.