AI deal scoring on MultiVest Engine blends eight components into a single score from 0 to 10, and a deal landing at 3.1 gets flagged Poor before you spend a day building a full pro forma. Third-party lender quotes put Freddie Mac multifamily pricing in the 5.69% to 6.10% range in mid-July 2026, and $162 billion in multifamily loans mature this year, a 56% jump from 2025, the exact backdrop this scoring model exists to catch early. Here is what each of the eight components measures and how to read the number once you have it.
What the Deal Score Measures
An AI deal score is not a single guess. It is a blended output built from eight components, each scored on a 0 to 10 scale and rolled into an overall number with a plain-language label such as Poor, Fair, or Strong. You control which components count toward the blend, and the platform shows the breakdown behind every number instead of hiding it.
The eight components are:
- Pro-Forma Cap Rate: Projected NOI divided by purchase price.
- Pro-Forma Expense Ratio: Projected operating expenses as a share of projected income.
- Pro-Forma Rent Loss: Projected vacancy and concessions as a share of gross potential rent.
- NOI Growth: Projected NOI increase over the hold period.
- Current Cash-on-Cash: In-place annual cash flow divided by total cash invested.
- IRR: Projected annualized return across the full hold, including exit.
- Current DSCR: In-place net operating income divided by annual debt service.
- Current Break-Even Occupancy: The occupancy level where income covers debt service and expenses exactly.
Measuring Profit Potential: Cap Rate, NOI Growth, Cash-on-Cash, and IRR
Four components score the return side of the deal. Cap rate and cash-on-cash use straightforward formulas:
Pro-Forma Cap Rate = Projected NOI / Purchase Price
Current Cash-on-Cash = Annual Net Cash Flow / Total Cash InvestedNOI Growth measures the spread between your year-one NOI and your projected exit-year NOI, and IRR accounts for every projected cash flow across the hold, weighted by timing. A deal scores well here when the underwritten upside is real and grounded in market comps, not when the assumptions are simply optimistic.
Measuring Risk: Expense Ratio, Rent Loss, DSCR, and Break-Even Occupancy
The other four components measure how much room the deal has before it fails.
Break-Even Occupancy = (Operating Expenses + Debt Service) / Gross Potential Rent
Current DSCR = In-Place NOI / Annual Debt ServiceA DSCR below 1.0x means the property does not generate enough income to cover its own debt payments today, regardless of what the pro forma projects for year three. A break-even occupancy near or above the submarket's average vacancy rate leaves no cushion for a bad quarter. Expense ratio and rent loss score how realistic your projected operating costs and vacancy assumptions are against the numbers you underwrote.
Why Pro-Forma and Current Numbers Get Scored Separately
Three components carry the Pro-Forma label: cap rate, expense ratio, and rent loss. These come from your underwritten assumptions, the numbers you enter before you own the property. Three other components carry the Current label: cash-on-cash, DSCR, and break-even occupancy. These come from in-place performance, the numbers the property produces today. NOI growth and IRR span the full hold period and pull from both.
Scoring both sets side by side catches a specific failure mode: a deal with a strong pro-forma cap rate and healthy projected NOI growth still earns a Poor score if current cash-on-cash runs negative and current DSCR sits below 1.0x. Projected upside does not offset a property losing money right now.
Reading a Poor Score: A Worked Example
Here is what a Poor score looks like once you open the breakdown. Overall score: 3.1 out of 10.
- Pro-Forma Cap Rate: 6.9%, scored 5 out of 10
- Pro-Forma Expense Ratio: 40.2%, scored 5 out of 10
- Pro-Forma Rent Loss: 11.2%, scored 2.5 out of 10
- NOI Growth: 36.0%, scored 10 out of 10
- Current Cash-on-Cash: -2.3%, scored 0 out of 10
- IRR: 5.6%, scored 0 out of 10
- Current DSCR: 0.85x, scored 0 out of 10
- Current Break-Even Occupancy: 83.4%, scored 2.5 out of 10
Four of the eight components drag this score down: negative cash-on-cash, a sub-1.0x DSCR, a weak IRR, and a break-even occupancy running close to what many submarkets post as average vacancy on their own. The pro-forma cap rate and NOI growth numbers look strong, which is exactly why an operator working from a spreadsheet alone might miss the risk sitting underneath the projection. The blended score does not let a strong pro forma hide a property failing its debt coverage test today.
How MultiVest Engine Handles This
Every deal you underwrite in MultiVest Engine generates this eight-component score automatically, with each component tied to the exact calculation behind it. Open the breakdown to see all eight, and use Edit Components to choose which ones count toward the blended number, so you build a score weighted toward current performance, pro-forma assumptions, or both depending on how you plan to hold or exit the deal.
With $162 billion in multifamily debt maturing this year against agency pricing in the high 5% to low 6% range, a deal failing DSCR and cash-on-cash today carries real refinance risk at its next maturity date. The score surfaces this before you commit hours to building the full model by hand.
The Bottom Line
An eight-component score works only when you know what feeds it. Check whether a Poor score comes from weak pro-forma assumptions, weak current performance, or both, since the fix for each differs. A deal with a strong cap rate and negative cash-on-cash needs a repriced offer or a capital injection, not a rosier rent growth assumption. Open the breakdown before you trust the overall number, and decide component by component whether the deal is fixable or dead.