What should a property investment spreadsheet contain?
For a single investment property, a useful spreadsheet does not need to be complicated. At minimum, it should connect four types of information: the property's current value, its debt, its rental income and its operating expenses.
From those inputs, the spreadsheet can calculate the measures investors commonly use to understand the property: equity, loan-to-value ratio (LVR), gross rental yield, net rental yield and cash flow.
1. Property value and loan balance
An investor should record the current property valuation and current loan balance — not merely the original purchase price. Both change over time, and only the current figures describe the position you actually hold today.
Equity = Current Property Value − Loan Balance
LVR = Loan Balance ÷ Current Property Value × 100
Equity provides a simple estimate of the portion of the property's current value that is not represented by debt. LVR shows the loan balance relative to the property's current value and provides a simple measure of leverage.
The attached template records the valuation date and the loan balance date as well, so you can see when those figures were current rather than assuming they are up to date.
2. Rental income
Asking rent and actual rental income are not always the same thing. Vacancy, rent changes and other interruptions can affect the income a property actually produces.
The Akweno spreadsheet therefore calculates its trailing 12-month yield from Rental Income transactions recorded in the transaction ledger, rather than requiring the investor to enter a theoretical annual rent figure. That methodological choice matters: a property advertised at a certain weekly rent may have actually produced meaningfully less over the past year, and a transaction-based yield reflects that reality instead of the listing figure.
3. Property expenses
The spreadsheet records individual expenses in the transaction ledger and aggregates them by category. Recording individual transactions preserves the underlying history, while category aggregation makes the information useful for analysis.
These categories reflect the attached template and are not a complete list of what may be tax-deductible — they are not tax advice.
4. Gross and net rental yield
Gross Rental Yield = Annual Rental Income ÷ Current Property Value × 100
Net Rental Yield = (Annual Rental Income − Operating Expenses) ÷ Current Property Value × 100
Gross rental yield is a quick measure of rental income relative to property value. Net rental yield goes further by considering the operating costs required to produce that rental income.
The Akweno spreadsheet calculates both measures using the most recent 12 months of recorded transactions and the current property valuation. Gross yield uses transactions categorised as Rental Income. For net yield, operating expenses are deducted from rental income, but Loan Interest and Depreciation are excluded — this keeps the spreadsheet's net yield measure focused on the operating performance of the property itself, rather than the investor's financing structure or non-cash depreciation.
There is no single universally applied definition of net rental yield. Different calculators and investors may include or exclude different costs, so investors should understand the methodology behind the number they are comparing before using it to compare properties.
5. Expense analysis
Simply knowing total annual expenses is less useful than understanding their composition. The spreadsheet automatically aggregates the transaction ledger into expense categories and identifies the largest expense category.
A transaction ledger tells you what happened. Category aggregation begins to explain why the property produced the result it did.
What Akweno's calculator data tells us investors want to understand
Akweno Data Insight
We didn't choose the template's calculations only by looking at other property spreadsheets. Akweno's property investment calculators give us aggregated insight into the variables investors choose to change when exploring an investment.
Across Akweno calculator scenarios, property value has been the most frequently modelled variable, closely followed by rent. That behaviour suggests investors using Akweno's calculators aren't simply looking for a static record of their property — they frequently want to understand how changes in value and income affect investment performance.
Property value and rent drive yield
Rental Yield = Rental Income ÷ Property Value
If rental income increases while property value remains unchanged, yield increases. If property value increases while rental income remains unchanged, yield falls.
Rising property values are generally considered positive for an investor, but they can reduce the property's current rental yield if rental income does not increase at the same pace.
This observed behaviour is why the Akweno template includes property value, actual rental income and a simple what-if model — rather than functioning only as a transaction record.
Why we included simple yield what-if analysis
Because property value and rent are the variables investors most frequently model in Akweno's calculator data, we've included a deliberately simple what-if tool in the spreadsheet.
Rather than trying to turn Excel into a complex property forecasting model, the template takes the property's existing information as the baseline and lets the investor apply a percentage increase or decrease to property value and rental income. The spreadsheet then recalculates gross yield, net yield and LVR.
The loan balance and recorded operating expenses remain unchanged in this simple scenario — this is intentionally a basic sensitivity analysis rather than a full property forecast.
A simple property yield what-if example
Current
- Current property value
- $800,000
- Current loan balance
- $500,000
- Annual rental income
- $30,000
- Baseline gross yield
- 3.75%
- Baseline LVR
- 62.5%
What if? Value +10%, Rent +5%
- Scenario property value
- $880,000
- Scenario rental income
- $31,500
- Scenario gross yield
- 3.58%
- Scenario LVR
- 56.8%
The property has increased in value and the investor's LVR has improved, but gross rental yield has fallen because property value increased faster than rental income.
This illustrates why no single property metric should be viewed in isolation. The same scenario can improve one measure of investment performance while reducing another.
Gross yield vs net yield: which should you track?
Both. Gross yield provides a quick way to compare rental income with property value, while net yield gives a better indication of the property's operating return after expenses.
| Measure | Gross yield | Net yield |
|---|---|---|
| Rental income | Included | Included |
| Property value | Included | Included |
| Operating expenses | Not included | Included |
| Useful for quick comparison | Yes | Yes |
| Reflects operating costs | No | Yes |
| Requires expense records | No | Yes |
Neither measure by itself represents the investor's complete investment return. Rental yield — gross or net — is distinct from capital growth, total return, cash-on-cash return and ROI, each of which accounts for different parts of the picture.
Why record individual income and expenses?
This template uses a transaction ledger instead of simply asking the investor for annual totals. The ledger structure is straightforward: Date, Type, Category, Description, Amount.
- Preserve the underlying income and expense history
- Identify the largest expense categories
- See when costs occurred
- Distinguish rental income from other property income
- Calculate trailing-period results
- Investigate unusually large costs
Annual totals tell you the result. The underlying transactions make that result explainable.
Keeping a single-property spreadsheet simple
This template is deliberately designed for analysing an individual investment property. If you want to use the same structure for another property, you can copy the worksheet — but the workbook does not attempt to consolidate multiple properties into a portfolio view.
Keeping the scope narrow allows the spreadsheet to remain understandable, transparent and easy to modify. This template does not attempt to provide:
- Consolidated portfolio reporting
- Cross-currency portfolio conversion
- Automated property valuations
- Portfolio-level historical performance
- Purchase and sale scenario modelling
- Long-term property forecasting
This is simply the defined scope of this free single-property template.
When does property investment software become useful?
For an investor tracking one property, a well-structured spreadsheet may provide everything needed for straightforward record keeping and performance analysis.
Purpose-built property investment software becomes more useful when the job expands beyond maintaining and analysing an individual property — for example, when consolidating multiple properties, tracking portfolio performance over time, working across currencies, or modelling decisions that affect the broader portfolio. If you're still working through the fundamentals of what to track for one property, see Property Tracking Fundamentals or how it compares in Akweno vs Excel.
Want to take your property data further?
Akweno is property investment software for understanding property and portfolio performance, modelling investment decisions and tracking investments over time.
Download the free property investment spreadsheet
Track one investment property's value, loan, income, expenses, gross and net yield, LVR and simple what-if scenarios in Excel.
No sign-up required · Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)
Property investment spreadsheet FAQs
- What should I track in a property investment spreadsheet?
- At minimum, a single property's current value, its loan balance, its rental income and its operating expenses. From those four inputs you can derive the numbers that actually describe the investment: equity, loan-to-value ratio (LVR), gross rental yield, net rental yield and net cash flow. Recording income and expenses as individual dated transactions — rather than just annual totals — also lets you see when costs occurred and which categories are driving the result.
- How do I calculate gross rental yield in Excel?
- Gross Rental Yield = Annual Rental Income ÷ Current Property Value × 100. In Excel this is a single division formula referencing the cell holding your total rental income for the year and the cell holding your current property value. It is a fast way to compare rental income against value, but it does not account for any of the costs of holding the property.
- How do I calculate net rental yield in Excel?
- Net Rental Yield = (Annual Rental Income − Operating Expenses) ÷ Current Property Value × 100. There is no single universally applied definition of net rental yield — methodologies differ on which costs count as "operating expenses." In the Akweno template, operating expenses are deducted from rental income, but Loan Interest and Depreciation are excluded, so the resulting figure reflects the property's own operating performance rather than how it is financed.
- What expenses should be included in net rental yield?
- This is where methodologies genuinely differ, and no answer here should be taken as tax advice. In the Akweno template, everyday operating costs — property management, rates, insurance, repairs, utilities, land tax and similar categories — are included, while Loan Interest and Depreciation are excluded, since one reflects financing and the other is a non-cash accounting item rather than money actually spent operating the property.
- How do I calculate LVR on an investment property?
- LVR = Loan Balance ÷ Current Property Value × 100. It expresses your outstanding loan as a percentage of what the property is currently worth, and is a simple way to track how much leverage you are carrying as both the loan balance and the property's value change over time.
- Should loan interest be included in net rental yield?
- Methodologies vary. The Akweno template excludes loan interest from its net yield calculation, on the basis that yield should describe how the property performs independently of how you chose to finance it — two investors with identical properties but different loans would otherwise show different "property" returns.
- Should depreciation be included in net rental yield?
- The Akweno template excludes depreciation from net yield because it is a non-cash expense — it can reduce taxable income without ever being a real cash outflow in the year it is claimed. Excluding it keeps the net-yield figure focused on the property's actual operating cash performance.
- Can I use this spreadsheet for multiple properties?
- The template is designed for a single investment property. You can copy the property worksheet for each additional property you own, but the workbook does not consolidate them into a portfolio view — each copy remains a separate, self-contained analysis.
- Can I model changes in rent and property value?
- Yes. The Basic Yield What-if section starts from the property's existing information and lets you apply a percentage increase or decrease to property value and rental income. It then recalculates gross yield, net yield and LVR from those scenario figures, so you can see the effect of a value or rent change without touching your actual recorded data.