Cash-on-Cash vs. IRR

[Kyle Ropelato]

I'm new to BP and REI in general. I've been an agent for over a year in Utah and now looking to get some rental properties. I am reading a lot of books and watching a lot of webinars. A lot of investors talk about the cash-on-cash return that a property offers, but I just finished Frank Gallinelli's book, "What every real estate investor needs to know about cash flow...and 36 other financial measures" and in it he talks about how cash-on-cash can be very deceiving and a better metric to use is IRR.

Do any investors go to the length of trying to calculate IRR when they are analyzing properties? Or do you guys use cash-on-cash as a quick and dirty metric to know if you're interested in the deal or not? Has anyone been deceived by an initial cash-on-cash return?

If IRR is used, have you found a good tool to calculate it that integrates well with the BP calculators, seeing as how they only give you cash-on-cash?