TROV Blueprint — About

How the tool works, what is modeled, what is verified, and what is coming next.

What is TROV Blueprint

TROV Blueprint is a two-stage residential real estate underwriting tool for 1-4 unit income-producing properties. It is browser-based, requires no account or login, and is currently free. It is built for investors who want to model deals with the same precision a lender uses — not just a back-of-napkin estimate.

It is suitable for both experienced investors who already understand terms like DSCR, NOI, and IRR, and for beginners who want to learn proper underwriting by working through real deal numbers in a structured and transparent system.

How It Works

Stage 1 — Screener

The Screener evaluates whether a deal is worth pursuing at the acquisition level. Run your numbers across three loan types — Conventional, FHA, and DSCR — and get a structured pass/fail verdict before committing to deeper analysis. The Screener is designed to be fast — enter your deal details and immediately see whether the numbers work at the acquisition level before spending time on full underwriting.

Stage 2 — Underwriting

The Underwriting engine takes your screened deal and projects it forward through a full hold period of up to 30 years. Model your proforma, refinance event, equity flow, capital recovery, and returns with the same depth a professional underwriter would apply. The Underwriting engine is deliberately detailed — every assumption is visible, every calculation is traceable, and every output is connected to real lender logic.

Module Guide

Stage 1 — Screener

Read Me — Disclaimers, tool overview, and email signup for development updates

About — What the tool does, how it works, module descriptions, verification status, and roadmap

Deal Dashboard — Summary view of all key screener outputs in one place including deal verdict

Deal Inputs — Enter your purchase price, loan type, financing terms, unit count, and property details

Loan Sizing — See how your loan is sized including DSCR three-constraint logic, FHA self-sufficiency test, and PMI and MIP calculations

Income — Enter gross scheduled rent by unit, vacancy rate, and other income sources

Expenses — Enter and categorize all operating expenses with individual line items

Cashflow — See your net operating income, debt service, and net cash flow after financing

Deal Metrics — Key acquisition metrics including cap rate, cash-on-cash return, DSCR, debt yield, breakeven occupancy and rent, OpEx ratio, and a deal verdict based on investor-set thresholds

Deal Sensitivity — Stress test your acquisition assumptions across Best, Base, Worst, and Stress scenarios with independent multipliers for rent, vacancy, interest rate, insurance, taxes, and variable expenses

Stage 2 — Underwriting

UW Dashboard — Summary view of all key underwriting outputs across the full hold period in one place

UW Inputs — Set your hold period, rent growth rate, individual expense growth rates, discount rate, and all underwriting assumptions

Refi Engine — Model a cash-out refinance event using three-constraint loan sizing with full cascade through all downstream calculations

Amortization — Full month-by-month amortization schedule for the entire hold period showing loan status as Original, Replacement, or Paid Off for each month

Debt Schedule — Annual debt service summary showing principal, interest, and mortgage insurance by year across the full hold period

Proforma — Full hold-period income and expense projection with every line item growing at its own individually set growth rate

Property Value — Track property value over the hold period using either the cap rate on NOI method or the fixed appreciation rate method with LTV tracking

Equity Flow — Operating cashflows separated by loan era showing original loan period versus post-refi period, refi cash-out as a distinct inflow, net rollable equity available to redeploy, and net sale proceeds at exit

Capital Recovery — Simple and discounted cumulative cashflows tracked from year zero through the hold period with payback milestones at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of initial equity recovered and an equity multiple growth chart

Exit — Model your sale price, broker fee, sale costs, debt payoff, and net proceeds to equity at the end of the hold period

Returns — Full return metrics including leveraged IRR, IRR from operations only, NPV, equity multiple, discounted equity multiple, cash-on-cash, and average annual cashflow

What Makes TROV Different

Several features in TROV Blueprint are not immediately visible from the surface of the tool. This section documents them explicitly so investors understand what is being modeled and why it matters.

FHA Loan Type Defaults to House Hacking Mode

When the FHA loan type is selected the tool automatically assumes the owner will occupy one unit of the property. Rental income used for qualification is calculated from the non-owner units only. This reflects how FHA owner-occupied financing actually works for 2-4 unit properties and eliminates a common modeling error where investors accidentally count all unit income including the unit they plan to live in. Most tools do not model FHA financing at this level of specificity — they treat all loan types as generic financing inputs.

FHA Self-Sufficiency Test Activates Automatically

For properties with 3 or 4 units using FHA financing the self-sufficiency test activates automatically without any user input. The tool calculates whether 75% of gross market rent from all units including the owner-occupied unit covers the full PITI plus mortgage insurance payment per HUD Handbook 4000.1. The result is displayed as a clear pass or fail. This test determines whether a 3-4 unit property can actually close with FHA financing — failing it means the deal cannot proceed under FHA regardless of the borrower's income or credit. No other residential underwriting software currently models this automatically.

DSCR Loan Sizing Uses Three Constraints Simultaneously

Most tools let you input a loan amount or a target DSCR ratio. TROV instead sizes the DSCR loan the way a non-QM lender actually does — by computing the maximum loan amount under three separate constraints simultaneously: a DSCR floor, an LTV cap, and a debt yield minimum. The actual loan amount is the minimum of all three and the tool identifies which constraint is the binding factor. This tells you not just what loan you can get but exactly why that is the limit — which is what a lender will tell you when they decline your requested loan amount.

PMI and MIP Cancel Mid-Amortization

For Conventional loans PMI cancels automatically in the month when the loan balance falls to 80% of the original purchase price. This cancellation is reflected in the actual monthly cash flow projections and annual proforma rather than being estimated or ignored across the full hold period. For FHA loans MIP cancels after 132 months provided the original loan-to-value ratio was 90% or below at origination. FHA loans originated with an original LTV above 90% carry MIP for the life of the loan. Both cancellation events update the cash flow projections automatically in the month they occur. Most tools either ignore mortgage insurance entirely or apply it as a flat cost for the full hold period which overstates long-term costs and understates returns on deals held beyond the cancellation point.

Dual Property Valuation Methods

The Property Value module offers two distinct methods for tracking property value across the hold period rather than forcing a single approach. The cap rate method derives the property value each year by dividing that year's projected NOI by the exit cap rate — this ties value directly to operating performance and market yields, meaning the property is worth more when rents grow and expenses are controlled, which is how buyers and lenders actually price income-producing properties. The appreciation rate method compounds the original purchase price annually at a fixed rate — simpler but useful for stress testing value assumptions independently of operating performance. Both methods feed live into the LTV calculations on the amortization schedule, the refinance engine constraint sizing, the equity flow era separation, and the exit proceeds calculation. Choosing the wrong method or defaulting to one without understanding the difference can meaningfully change every downstream return metric — TROV surfaces both explicitly so the investor makes a conscious choice rather than accepting a hidden assumption.

Two Completely Independent Sensitivity Systems

The Screener and the Underwriting engine each have their own independent sensitivity system with Best, Base, Worst, and Stress scenarios. The Stage 1 system adjusts acquisition-level variables — rent, vacancy, interest rate, insurance, taxes, and variable expense multipliers. The Stage 2 system adjusts hold-period variables — rent growth rate, individual expense growth rates, exit cap rate, refinance rate, refinance LTV, refinance closing costs, and discount rate. These systems operate independently so you can stress test your entry assumptions separately from your long-term hold assumptions without the two interfering with each other. No other residential underwriting tool currently implements dual independent sensitivity systems at this level.

The Refinance Engine Cascades Through All Downstream Calculations

The refinance event is not a static input. When you set a refinance trigger the tool looks up the actual property value at that exact month from the live proforma, looks up the actual remaining loan balance from the amortization schedule at that month, sizes the replacement loan using the same three-constraint logic used for DSCR acquisition, computes net cash-out after paying off the old loan balance and all closing costs, and then cascades the replacement loan through the debt schedule, proforma, equity flow, capital recovery, and returns calculations. Every downstream number updates automatically to reflect the actual post-refinance reality. Changing any upstream assumption — rent growth, expense growth, property value method — automatically flows through to the refinance event and all outputs beyond it.

Dual IRR Distinction

The Returns module shows two separate IRR calculations rather than a single blended number. Leveraged IRR includes the complete equity cashflow stream — all operating cashflows, refinance proceeds, and sale proceeds. IRR from Operations Only uses just the annual operating cashflows and excludes both the refinance cash-out event and the exit sale proceeds. This distinction matters because it separates how well the property performs as an income-generating asset from how much the returns depend on financing strategy and exit timing. A deal with a strong operations IRR is fundamentally sound. A deal where the leveraged IRR is high but the operations IRR is low is depending heavily on the exit or the refinance to generate returns — a meaningful risk distinction that a single blended IRR number hides.

Verification Status

TROV Blueprint is a translation of a rigorously built Excel workbook into a web application. Every module is a direct implementation of the underlying workbook logic. However the web implementation has not yet been fully audited against the workbook on a module by module basis. The table below reflects the current audit status honestly. All modules should be treated as unaudited until marked Audited. A full page by page audit is currently in progress.

ModuleStatusNotes
Returns — Leveraged IRRAuditedGround truth confirmed at 27.06% via automated test suite
Returns — IRR from Operations OnlyAuditedConfirmed via automated test suite alongside leveraged IRR
Stage 1 EngineAudit In ProgressAutomated tests pass — full manual page by page audit pending
Stage 2 EngineAudit In ProgressAutomated tests pass — full manual page by page audit pending
Deal DashboardNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Deal InputsNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Loan SizingNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
IncomeNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
ExpensesNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
CashflowNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Deal MetricsNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Deal SensitivityNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
UW DashboardNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
UW InputsNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Refi EngineNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
AmortizationNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Debt ScheduleNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
ProformaNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Property ValueNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Equity FlowNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
Capital RecoveryNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit
ExitNot Yet AuditedAwaiting full audit

Roadmap

Currently in active development

  • Full page-by-page audit of all modules against the underlying workbook
  • Verification of all Stage 1 and Stage 2 calculations
  • UI refinements based on early user feedback

Planned future features

  • User accounts with saved deals
  • PDF report export
  • Property data integration for automated address lookup available at all tiers
  • Portfolio tracking across multiple deals
  • AI batch processing for deal pipeline analysis and automated deal ranking