How Many Doors It Takes To Replace Your Income
A spreadsheet for people who earn well, have money sitting somewhere, and still do not own a rental property. You fill in six boxes. It tells you how many properties would replace your income, how long that takes at the rate you actually save, and which single obstacle is standing in front of you right now.
What lands in your inbox
- The Wealth Gap Spreadsheet. Six yellow cells. Every formula visible, so you can check my arithmetic rather than trust it
- A guided version you paste into ChatGPT or Claude if you would rather be asked one question at a time. A free account is enough
- The Four Stress Tests, one page, for judging any property you look at afterwards
- The Waiting Cost Calculator, further down this page. Yours whether you buy or not
$9. Instant access. Works in any country and any currency.
Is this for you?
Worth thirty seconds, because nine dollars spent on the wrong thing still costs you an evening.
The person I built this for. A founder, an executive, a consultant, or somebody senior in a job they are good at. Income is strong. Savings or equity are sitting somewhere earning very little. Rental property has been on the list for a year or two, and there is always a reason this is not the month.
Not because they are lazy or frightened. Because nobody has ever told them what number they are aiming at, so every listing looks like a maybe and none of them look like a decision.
Yes, if
- You earn well, and nearly all of it depends on you continuing to show up
- You have savings or equity sitting somewhere with no plan attached to it
- You have been thinking about rental property for over a year and still own none
- You would rather see the arithmetic than be handed a strategy
- You can handle the answer being further away than you hoped
No, if
- You already own rentals and know what each one clears after everything
- You want to be told which city or which street. This gives you a target, not a shopping list
- You want the strategy first. The number comes before the strategy, and this is the number
- You are hoping to hear a small figure. Sometimes the honest answer is 22 properties
It works in any country and any currency, because you supply the local figures. I am in Ottawa. You very likely are not.
A High Earner Needs One Number Before Anything Else
Not a strategy. Not a market. Not a course. One number.
The gap between what your money does today and what it would need to do for your income to stop depending on your calendar.
Everything downstream gets easier once you have it. What kind of property to look for. How many. Whether you are five years away or eighteen months. Whether you can start now or need to fix something first.
Without it you are shopping. And shopping is what the people who got burned were doing.
So what is it, exactly?
It is a spreadsheet. Six yellow cells to fill in, and the answers appear as you type. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, no login. It opens in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets.
Every formula is visible. I have not hidden the workings, because the whole point is that you can check the arithmetic rather than take my word for it. If you disagree with an assumption, change it and watch the answer move.
If a spreadsheet is not how your brain works, the same thing comes as a guided version you paste into ChatGPT or Claude. It asks you one question at a time and produces the same result. A free account is enough. Use whichever you prefer, or both.
Here is the whole thing, worked through on a real building, so you can see what it does before you decide.
The six things you type in
Your income. What you can put aside each month. Any debt payments. The monthly figure that would mean your calendar stops deciding your income. And roughly what a rental costs and rents for in the area you would actually buy in.
That last pair is the one I will not guess for you. I do not know what property costs where you live, and any tool that claims to is inventing it. You look up three comparable places, take the middle figure, and yours will be right.
What comes back
I ran it on an Ottawa building I underwrote this month. Two units, $655,000, and nineteen months of the seller's real statements rather than a listing's promises.
At 20% down
The property clears about $188 a month after honest operating costs and the mortgage.
To reach $4,000 a month, that is 22 properties.
At 35% down
Same building, same rent, same costs. Smaller mortgage, so it clears about $731 a month.
To reach $4,000 a month, that is 6 properties.
Twenty-two, or six. One assumption apart. That is the kind of thing you cannot see until the numbers are on paper, and it is the reason people spend years working hard on the wrong lever.
Those are the figures the spreadsheet gives at 46% operating costs, 4.50% and twenty five years. Open it, change one assumption, and watch them move. That is the point of it.
The Gameplan then does the part that is genuinely hard to do for yourself: it works out how long the first deposit takes at the rate you actually save, and names which single obstacle is first for you out of deposit, debt, borrowing capacity, or not yet being able to read a deal.
In 2013 I was certain mine was the deposit. I saved harder for two years. It was the debt, and saving harder was making it worse.
$9. Instant access.
What The Gameplan Builds For You
Answer the questions. In about 10 minutes it produces a written gameplan built around your situation, not a generic one.
- Your Wealth Gap, As A NumberThe monthly distance between your income today and the income that would let your calendar empty without your money stopping. Most people have never calculated this. It is usually smaller than they feared.
- How Many Doors Close ItBased on realistic cash flow per property in your market, not a fantasy number from a guru in a different country. If the answer is three, you stop thinking about thirty.
- Your Realistic TimelineHow long this takes at your current savings rate, and what changes if you adjust one input. You will see immediately which lever actually moves the date.
- What Is Standing In Your Way Right NowWhether your first obstacle is deposit, debt, borrowing capacity, or simply not knowing how to read a deal. Different obstacles need different first moves, and most people work on the wrong one.
- Your Next 30 DaysOne page. Specific to your gap and your obstacle. Not a reading list.
Included with the Wealth Gap Gameplan
The Waiting Cost Calculator
What another year of waiting actually costs you, in your numbers.
This is not a scare tactic. It is the arithmetic most people avoid doing because they suspect they will not like the answer. Change any box and the numbers update as you type.
Your market
Your plan
What one year of waiting costs
How to read this
The number at the top is money that would have arrived in your account and did not, because the property was not bought. It is not a projection of wealth. It is rent minus costs, which is the most conservative way to measure this.
It leaves out two things on purpose. Appreciation, because nobody honest can forecast it and it differs wildly by market. And tax treatment, because that changes at every border.
So treat the figure as a floor rather than a full picture. The real cost of waiting is usually higher than what you see above.
Three honest caveats
The 50% allowance is a planning rule of thumb. It covers vacancy, repairs, management, insurance and taxes together, before any loan payment. It is deliberately conservative and will be wrong in both directions in different markets. Replace it with real local figures once you have them.
Waiting is sometimes the right call. If your first obstacle is a deposit you do not have, or debt that needs clearing, then this year is not wasted, it is preparation. This calculator measures the cost of hesitation, not the cost of getting ready.
Mortgage rules, tenancy law and tax treatment change at every border. I teach the arithmetic and the judgment. You confirm the rules where you live. This is an educational tool, not financial, tax, mortgage or legal advice.
The calculator shows what waiting costs. The Gameplan tells you the gap, and how many doors close it.
Choose How You Want To Work
Same arithmetic either way. Pick whichever suits how you think.
The Spreadsheet
Open it, fill in the yellow cells, watch the number appear. Every formula is visible and every assumption is yours to change. Works in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. No account needed.
The Guided Version
Paste it into ChatGPT or Claude and be walked through it one question at a time. A free account is enough. Nothing to install.
You get both. Use one, use the other, or start with the spreadsheet and let the guided version read your totals back to you.
I am showing you the spreadsheet on purpose. If someone will not show you their math, ask yourself why.
After you check out
The First Door Review
Once you have your number, most people hit the same wall. A target tells you where you are going. It does not tell you whether the house in front of you gets you there.
So on the next page I will offer you this, once, and you can take it or skip it.
You send me your gameplan numbers and one property you are considering. I record fifteen minutes walking through it, screen shared, with your figures up. No call to book and no timezone problem. You keep the recording.
What comes back:
- A verdict, plainly stated. Contender, not yet, or walk away
- Your walk-away number, so you have it before you get attached
- The questions to put to a lender or surveyor before you make an offer
- What to confirm locally, because rules differ where you live
$197, offered on the next page only. Not yet found a property? Send your numbers anyway and I will map what you should be hunting for.
Included
The Four Stress Tests
The rent, the vacancy, the repairs, the exit. The one page I run every deal through before a dollar moves. If a property survives all four it is worth looking at. If it does not, I walk without regret. This is the whole method on a single sheet.
The Waiting Cost Calculator
What another year of waiting actually costs you, in your numbers. Not a scare tactic. Just the arithmetic most people avoid doing because they suspect they will not like the answer.
What Happened Next For Some Of Them
- FIRST property cleared $1,000 of positive net income
- EARNED 15% in the first year of ownership
- KEPT her business, closed her first deal, rent now covers the mortgage
These are my clients' numbers in my market. The method is what travels, not the market. Your results will depend on your situation, your local rules, and what you do next.
How It Started
In 2013 I had a government job, a house, and about $65,256 of debt. I used to lie in bed doing the math in my head. It never came out right.
Then I noticed neighbours converting basements and garages into rental units. Nothing clever. Just people quietly solving the same problem I had.
I turned my basement into a rental. The rent cleared the debt. I refinanced, kept the house as a rental, and bought the next one. That one basement became a seven figure portfolio, a six figure business, and a private lending company.
The part nobody tells you is that the first move was not brave. It was arithmetic. I sat down and worked out how much monthly income I actually needed and how many rented rooms would produce it. Once the number was on paper, the decision made itself.
Most people never get to that number. They stay in the fog where real estate is a feeling, and feelings are where expensive mistakes come from.
That number is the whole of what this spreadsheet does. It is the thing I worked out by hand on a kitchen table, turned into six cells so it takes ten minutes instead of a fortnight.
Michael B. Arthur · investor · co-author of No Sweat Real Estate Investing · LinkedIn Top Voice in Real Estate
For years I did what most people do. I looked at properties, felt something, and went looking for reasons to justify the feeling. It is an expensive way to learn.
Now I do not guess. I underwrite. I stress-test the rent, the vacancy, the repairs and the exit before a dollar moves. It is less exciting and it works far better.
I teach the arithmetic and the judgment. You confirm the rules where you live, because mortgage rules and tenancy law change at every border. The math does not.
I am not special. I just learned to run the numbers before I ran my mouth.
The Wealth Gap Gameplan
Normally $47
$9
One payment. Instant access. Works in any country and any currency.
What happens the moment you pay.
1. You land on a page with the download. The spreadsheet, the guided AI version, and the Four Stress Tests sheet.
2. The same links arrive by email within a minute, so you cannot lose them.
3. Open the spreadsheet, fill in six cells, and read your number. Nothing to schedule, nobody to speak to.
If anything does not open, reply to that email. It reaches me and I answer it myself.
There are no refunds, and I would rather say so here than bury it.
You have the files the moment you pay. There is no way to hand them back, and I am not going to build a returns process into a nine dollar product.
What I will always do is fix things. If a file will not open, a link is broken, or something does not work the way this page says it does, reply and I will sort it out. That is not a refund and it is not conditional.
This page tells you exactly what you get, and the whole method is written out above. If it is not for you, please do not buy it.
You will know your number before you finish your coffee.
