Cash flow by year of ownership: building the table for your own deal

Almost every pre-purchase calculation collapses into a single percentage — and that is exactly why it is useless at the moment the money is actually needed. A percentage does not tell you in which month you will have to make the next instalment, pay for furnishing and live through a quarter without a tenant all at once. Only a calendar does: a table with inflows and outflows down the side and years of ownership across the top. This page is not about what the metrics are called — gross yield, net yield, ROI, IRR and cash-on-cash are defined separately in the guide to return metrics. Here we assemble the thing those metrics are calculated from.

Why the table matters more than the ratio

Any metric can be derived from a cash flow. A cash flow cannot be derived from a metric. A 5% annual yield describes equally well a deal where you paid everything up front and receive an even stream, and a deal where money goes out for three years running, the unit then sits empty for six months, and the result is rescued by the sale price. The first needs one sum of money; the second needs that sum plus patience plus a reserve in specific months.

So the order is: calendar first, percentages second. And the calendar has a practical output the ratio does not — the maximum cumulative drawdown: the point at which the largest total amount has left your pocket. That, not the list price, is the sum you must be able to commit.

One rule everything else follows from

The table records movements of cash, not the moment an obligation arises. A line goes in the year the money actually leaves or reaches the account. Not when the contract is signed; not when the invoice is issued; not when the cost "relates" to a period.

Every awkward detail below follows from that rule: the tenant's deposit counts as an inflow even though it is not yours; rent prepaid for a year lands entirely in the year received; replacing appliances lands in one year although it serves for five. As accounting this is wrong. For planning your own money it is the only thing that works.

What belongs in inflows and what in outflows

Note the asymmetry: inflows are few and predictable, outflows are many and some of them happen only once. It is the one-off lines that most often drop out of models — not because nobody knows about them, but because there is nowhere to put them in a table made of a single "average year".

Four kinds of year, not one

The average year of ownership is a construct that does not occur in reality. Years come in at least four kinds, and each has its own set of lines.

The purchase year: costs without revenue

This is the simplest year by composition and the most underrated by effect. It contains outflow only, and its size is set not by the price of the unit but by the payment schedule. Two deals for the same amount on different schedules produce completely different calendars.

What must appear as lines rather than as a footnote: the instalments on exactly the dates in the contract; conveyancing and registration; the legal review; transfers and bank charges; travel costs if you went to see the project. The full list of what belongs to entry is set out in the guide to purchase costs, and the base you measure entry against is covered in effective net price.

If construction runs for several years, there will be several such years, each containing outflow only. That is normal and not a modelling error. The error is failing to notice how many years in a row money leaves without a single receipt.

The handover year: the densest year in the table

The year you receive the keys differs from every other in that a large payment, large one-off costs and a first, still partial receipt all land together. This is usually where the maximum cumulative drawdown sits.

1. The final contractual instalment — as a rule the largest one.
2. Acceptance and snagging: some of the work is paid for by the owner even when the defects are acknowledged.
3. Furnishing, appliances, curtains, kitchenware, the small things a unit needs to be let. This is its own line, not "a bit on top of the price".
4. Building charges and utilities start on the handover date, not on the tenant's move-in date. An empty unit also costs money.
5. Finding the first tenant: the time until move-in and the letting commission.
6. The tenant's deposit — an inflow that does not belong to you.

There is one practical conclusion from this year: income begins at move-in, not at handover, and the gap between those dates is paid for by you. Put it in the table at an honest length — the period you consider realistic for your own unit, not zero.

The ordinary year: where periodic costs hide

An ordinary year of ownership looks calm: rent collected less charges, management, routine repairs, insurance and taxes. The problem is that some costs are neither annual nor one-off but periodic — they come back every few years.

A change of tenant means letting commission, a void between occupants, cleaning and minor works for the new one. Appliances and furniture wear out and are replaced. Redecoration comes round at roughly the same rhythm as tenant generations. Buildings occasionally levy a special charge for common-area works.

There are two acceptable ways to reflect this, and they must not be mixed. First: put the cost in the specific year you expect it — then the table honestly shows a dip that year. Second: spread it evenly across all years — then the average year is realistic but the dip is invisible. For sizing a reserve the first is more useful; for comparing properties with each other, the second.

The sale year: an ordinary year plus a transaction

The exit year is almost never a full one, and that is the thing most often broken. Rent runs to the date the unit is vacated or the deal closes, ownership costs cover the actual months, and the buyer's money arrives as a single sum on the closing date.

The lines forgotten most often: the refund of the tenant's deposit on move-out — money you once received and are now giving back; the cost of preparing the unit for sale; the transaction costs and exit taxes; and the period when the unit is already vacant for sale but not yet sold, which has no rent and all the ownership costs.

That last one matters especially if you plan to sell empty. It is not an abstract risk but a specific number of months with outflow, and it should be visible in the table.

Why paper profit and money in the account diverge

This divergence is not an accounting nicety but the reason investors suddenly find themselves short of cash at a moment when the deal is formally on plan. There are three sources.

• Other people's money in your account. The deposit and prepaid rent arrive immediately and make a year look good, although the first is refundable and the second belongs to future months. A useful habit is to keep the deposit on its own line and mentally never spend it.
• Large costs in a single year. Furnishing serves for years and is paid for once. The year you buy the furniture looks loss-making although nothing bad has happened.
• Price growth that is not yet cash. Appreciation improves the paper result and delivers nothing until the deal closes. Until the unit is sold, your cash flow consists solely of rent less costs.

Hence a simple test for any model: if appreciation appears in the income line of every year rather than as one sum in the sale year, the model is showing hope rather than money.

How to build the table in one evening

1. Set the horizon in years and write the years across the top: from the first payment to the sale year inclusive.
2. Mark which of the four kinds each year is: purchase, handover, ordinary, sale.
3. Copy the contractual payment schedule into the table literally, by date, not in equal shares.
4. Add the one-off lines to the years in which they occur: conveyancing, furnishing, commissions.
5. Start the rent later than handover by the period you consider realistic.
6. Create separate lines for the deposit received on move-in and refunded on move-out.
7. Place periodic costs in specific years rather than as an averaged figure.
8. Close the sale year: partial rent, exit costs, taxes, proceeds on one date.
9. Total each year and run a cumulative total. Find the deepest point — that is your required capital.
10. Only now calculate percentages, using the return metrics, and test the table against a bad scenario in the stress test.

An illustrative table

All figures below are notional units, chosen round for the arithmetic. They are not prices, rents or costs of any real project, not market data for Cambodia and not a forecast. The example shows the shape of the table, not an expected result.

Suppose a unit is bought off-plan on a three-year payment schedule, let after handover, and sold in the middle of the sixth year.

What the table shows and the percentage does not. First: the maximum drawdown is 107 units in year three — that is the sum you must be able to commit, although the unit itself cost 100. Second: the cumulative total only turns positive in the sale year; for five years running the deal takes money. Third: year five looks weaker than year four not because rent fell but because the appliance replacement landed in it. Fourth: the two units of deposit received in year three went back to the tenant in year six — they sat in the account the whole time and were never income.

And separately: the 17-unit result here depends entirely on the net proceeds of the sale. Remove the sale and the cumulative total after six years is still deeply negative. That is not a property of the example but of any off-plan deal with a multi-year horizon.

What to check in the finished table

• Is there at least one year with costs and no rent. If not, you have probably forgotten the gap between keys and move-in.
• Does the schedule in the table match the contract by date, not only by total.
• Do furnishing and conveyancing appear as separate lines in specific years.
• Are there years carrying periodic costs, or is every year of ownership identical.
• Does the deposit appear twice — on receipt and on refund.
• Does appreciation arrive as one sum in the sale year rather than in slices each year.
• Is the sale year partial, and are exit costs included.
• Do you know the maximum cumulative drawdown, and does it fit the money you actually have.

Frequently asked questions

How is a cash flow different from a yield calculation?

A yield is a single ratio collapsed out of one year of ownership. A cash flow is a calendar: how much money leaves and arrives in each particular year, including the years when there is no income yet but payments are already due. Any metric can be derived from a cash flow; a cash flow cannot be reconstructed from a metric. So build the table before you calculate percentages, not after.

Which year should transaction costs and furnishing go in?

The year the money actually leaves the account, and as a separate line rather than buried in the price. Conveyancing and registration costs fall in the year of signing and payment; furnishing and preparing the unit for letting fall in the handover year. Spread them evenly across the holding period and the table shows a smooth flow where in reality there was one deep drawdown — and you will underestimate the cash you need to have on hand.

Why does paper profit differ from money in the account?

Three reasons. First, other people's money sitting in your account: the tenant's deposit and rent prepaid for months ahead arrive at once, but the deposit is refundable and the prepayment belongs to future periods. Second, large one-off costs that occur once every few years and ruin one particular year even though the average year looks smooth. Third, price growth: it improves the paper result but delivers no cash until the sale closes.

How should the sale year be treated in the table?

As an ordinary year plus a transaction. It contains rent for the months up to exit, ordinary ownership costs for a partial year, the refund of the tenant's deposit, selling costs and exit taxes, while the buyer's money arrives as a single sum on the closing date. The sale year is almost never a full year: planning the proceeds for the first of January of the following year is a classic modelling error.

Sources

NovAsia editorial corpus on preparing an investment decision · practice supporting buyers in Phnom Penh · checked July 2026. There are no market indicators on this page: rents, yields, vacancy levels and price growth rates are not quoted, and the numbers in the illustrative section are invented to show the shape of the calculation and expressed in notional units. Taxes are not broken out in the example: rates and procedure depend on your status and are confirmed by a tax adviser. This content is for general information only, is not individual investment, legal or tax advice, and contains no promise of results.