A common obstacle to the novice cashflow investor is a fear of not being able to perform complex financial calculations. If you fall into this category than you've come to the right place, Real Estate investing, especially for cashflow, requires only the most basic calculations of income and expenses. Furthermore, the same simple calculations are sufficient whether you are looking at a small duplex, a rental property with only two units, or if you buying an entire apartment complex. As an example let's look at the numbers if you had purchased a duplex that rented for $1,000 per month. Obviously there are going to be regular expenses including utilities and maintenance, not to mention property tax and insurance. For the purpose of this example we will assume that these expenses add up to $200 per month and that the property has a mortgage of $700 per month. Incidentally some expenses such as insurance, property tax, and in some cases even maintenance are included in the mortgage payment, making your job even easier. Also bear in mind that many smaller or incidental expenses will be paid directly by the tenants themselves, especially in the case of commercial property. Getting back to our example, all we need to do is subtract all the expenses from the income and the difference will be our monthly profit. So for our example subtracting the $200 expenses from the $1,000 rent leaves $800, $800 minus the $700 mortgage payment gives us a total profit of $100 per month. Now see how the same simple formula can be applied to a much larger and more profitable apartment complex. Say you are looking to purchase an apartment complex with ten, four-unit buildings, and let's say each unit rents for $300 per month. While it's true that with a property of this type there are additional expenses, such as management and landscaping, the essential calculations are still the same. In this example we will assume the expenses are $4,000 per month and the mortgage payment is $5,000 per month. Again we will use the simple formula of income minus expenses equals profit. To find the total income we multiply $300 per unit times four units for an income of $1,200 per building, since there are ten buildings it becomes $12,000 per month total. Our expenses came to $4,000 per month which leaves $8,000 to cover the mortgage, since the mortgage payment is only $5,000 per month that leaves us a total profit of $3,000 every month. These are essentially the same steps you would use to calculate the profit for any cashflow investment including shopping malls, Churches, Government buildings, and even skyscrapers. While they may take many different forms the essential parts are income, usually from rents, and expenses, usually a combination of property expenses and financing expenses. Also it should go without saying that you want to be making money not losing it, while there are investors who sometimes purchase properties that cost them money every month, this practice is better left to professionals with the time, money and experience to handle them. As a novice investor you should only purchase a property if the profit is a positive figure, this simplifies the process and gives you more room for the mistakes that usually come with learning something new. A great way for new or aspiring investors to get some experience is to begin analyzing the numbers of real life properties to see whether or not they would make a profit. Lastly, for those who could not keep up with these basic examples here is the best part you don't really need to do the analyzing. One of the best aspects of Real Estate investment is that much of it is handled by professionals like Real Estate agents and property managers, who can advise whether a property makes sense as an investment or not. Additionally, today there are many software programs and even cell phone apps available that can easily do all the calculation for you. Ultimately what matters most is that you see the properties for their profit potential, and remember to analyze more than one so you can begin building a basis for comparison, that way you'll be able to tell the good deals from the not so great.