People who have been driven from their homes need things like dry goods, baby formula, water, diapers (for children and adults), toiletries, feminine products, blankets and jackets (cold weather is upon us), undergarments, shoes, gift cards for goods and groceries etc.The thing most people don't realize is that those who have lost their homes are looking at 2-3 years before they can rebuild, assuming they had adequate insurance to even rebuild at all.

I am starting to realize that there is no magic formula.

There is a basic formula they use in conjunction with typical market trends. 

The Underwriters usually have a specific formula they use to calculate long term rental income per Fannie Mae guidelines. 

I calculated our cap rate using the formula with the sale price for the property.

Take that rate, set your formula and drop in your purchase price for every property you analyze, quick and easy and no need to guess or rely on unreliable numbers.

It's the INVESTOR that either cash flows or Not.I do want to address something that seems to be a problem with most investors (if not all) who do not use Future Value formulas like the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) in a spreadsheet.Many Investors don't really think of Cash Flow as anything but your Rents minus expenses.HOWEVER, the reality is that Cash Flow is really something VERY BASIC.

But if the property needs $8K in repairs, then using the standard all-cash formula (70% of ARV minus Repairs), it's worth $23.5K at best to an investor.And, yes, a buy-and-hold investor might like the short-term cash flow, but what happens in three years, when the balloon comes due?

I remember reading about calculating the holding costs in your MAO formula by J.

I’ve come across he formula for dealing with Gross Rent Multiplier, which is the selling price of the property/gross rent per year.