Are initial rehab expenses considered part of longterm cash flow?

[Kevin S.]

Not for flippers but for buy and hold specifically, say you're evaluating a property you've owned for 7 years. Your cash flow for Year 1 is wildly different than your cash flow for Years 2-7, and that difference is a large initial rehab.

So what's the bigger problem? The fact that you're using cash flow to evaluate it in the first place (should be using another calculation?), or the fact that the rehab was factored into cash flow?