Did you get a market analysis on the property to establish a good selling price.

Because I'm raising this extra equity up front, my cash on cash returns are lower than I'd like in the early years even though my cap rate and project IRR are where I need them to be.2.

Project took too long.

So how do you know that your projected $25K Rehab will cover every possible CapEx item.  

Any sort of shortcut is not to replace a proper analysis and thorough due diligence, but if you're analyzing a ton of deals, a quick a shortcut may be helpful to determine if a deep analysis is warranted.

@Jim Growfer think it's okay to use the 50% rule to quickly gauge NOI and determine if a project is worth deeper analysis. 7% interest is high and yes, that would be a bad deal if you only netted $10k on a $2 million purchase.

Tell us about your project. 

Using 50% as a guide may give you an inaccurate analysis.  

There's also a lot of potential appreciation on the horizon: the city is supposed be building a greenway on the block, there are a lot of construction projects in the neighborhood and a lot of new, high-end condos have recently completed construction a few blocks away.

The entire 2 flat project with an addition at the top took me about a year.