Capital Commitment Calculator

As long as your property is unsold, your equity – the market value minus the outstanding mortgage – is locked up in the property. You can neither invest it elsewhere nor use it for new projects.

Every month of marketing time extends this commitment and causes real costs: forgone returns and ongoing holding costs. These are exactly the costs the calculator makes visible.

Opportunity costs are the profit you forgo because tied-up capital cannot work elsewhere. If you could invest your released equity at, say, a 5 percent return, every month of waiting costs you one twelfth of that annual return in purely arithmetical terms.

With 370,000 euros of tied-up equity and a 5 percent alternative return, that amounts to more than 1,500 euros per month – without any invoice ever landing in your mailbox.

The calculator first determines your tied-up equity (market value minus outstanding mortgage). From this, it calculates the monthly opportunity costs based on your expected alternative return and adds the monthly holding costs.

It then compares two scenarios: the traditional marketing period you expect and the faster off-market sale. The difference is your potential saving in time and money.

Only the capital that actually flows to you after the sale is tied up. The outstanding mortgage balance is repaid to the bank upon sale and would not be available to you for other investments afterwards anyway.

That is why the calculator applies the opportunity costs only to your net equity. The ongoing holding costs, by contrast, arise regardless of how the property is financed.

Enter all monthly costs that continue to run during the marketing period:

• service charges and operating costs
• property tax
• building insurance
• maintenance and minor repairs
• energy costs for vacant properties, where applicable

For vacant properties, these costs hit in full, as there is no rental income to offset them.

That depends on what you plan to do with the released capital. As a guide, the calculator offers three presets: 3 percent for conservative investments such as fixed-term deposits or bonds, 5 percent for a mixed portfolio, and 7 percent for growth-oriented investments such as equities or new real estate projects.

If you are already planning a specific follow-up investment, use its expected return.

With public marketing via portals, six to twelve months often pass between listing the property and signing the notarised sale contract – depending on location, property type, price level and market phase. Viewings, price negotiations and checking prospective buyers' financing take additional time.

Enter your realistic expectation in the calculator; six months is a common average to start with.

OFFMARKET24 does not market your property publicly. Instead, it presents it specifically to vetted institutional investors whose stored acquisition profiles match your property. Rather than waiting for prospects, you immediately reach buyers who are ready to purchase and have secured financing.

As a result, the average marketing period is around 42 days – which is why the calculator uses two months as the default for the off-market scenario.

Every month of waiting erodes the overall return on your investment twice over: you pay ongoing holding costs while simultaneously forgoing the return the tied-up capital could earn elsewhere.

Especially with high-value properties, this quickly adds up to five-figure amounts that never appear on any utility statement but significantly worsen your effective sale result. The calculator makes this hidden effect transparent.

Not necessarily. Off-market does not mean a distressed sale; it means approaching suitable buyers in a targeted way. Institutional investors pay market-level prices for good properties – they value discretion and fast, professional execution.

Also run the numbers: even a slightly lower price can be economically better if it saves you months of opportunity and holding costs. That is exactly the comparison the calculator provides.

Yes, although lower ones. Rental income cushions the running costs, but your equity remains tied up and cannot flow into higher-yielding projects. If your rental yield is below the expected alternative return, opportunity costs still arise in the amount of the difference.

In that case, set the monthly holding costs correspondingly lower or reduce the alternative return by the rental yield.

The calculator is aimed at anyone who wants to put a sale decision on a sound economic footing: owners torn between selling immediately and waiting, developers and project builders with capital tied up in existing properties, and brokers who want to demonstrate the value of fast marketing to their clients.

Especially in a B2B context, capital commitment is often the strongest argument for the off-market route.

The calculation is a model based on your inputs and serves illustrative purposes. Actual marketing periods, returns and costs depend on the property, its location and the market phase, and may differ.

Use the result as a basis for decision-making and as a conversation starter. In a free demo, we will gladly show you what marketing period is realistic for your specific property.