Seller Finance NPV Calculator — What is My Note Worth?

If you're carrying a seller-financed note, its market value isn't the remaining balance — it's the present value of the future payments at today's discount rate. Enter your monthly payment, remaining term, optional balloon, and the discount rate a note buyer would use, and see what the note is worth right now.

The yield a note investor expects to earn — the same thing as the discount rate. Common range: 8–16%.

The remaining balance, on top of that month's regular payment. If you have a payoff figure that already includes the payment, subtract one payment first.

Net Present Value of Note

$140,350.65

This is what the future payment stream is worth today at a 10% discount rate.

Total of all future payments

$460,000.00

300 monthly payments + $100,000.00 balloon

Discount to present value

$319,649.35

Time value & risk premium combined

Need more power? Try GoFlexi's full TVM Calculator

The GoFlexi Time Value of Money tool handles every scenario this free calculator doesn't — uneven cash flows, IRR, solving for any missing variable, and an editable amortization schedule.

Plus the full GoFlexi seller-finance suite — wrap mortgages, ARM modeling, tax-benefit estimates, lessons, and more.

About This Seller Finance NPV Calculator

Net present value (NPV) is the financial-industry answer to one of the most common questions seller-financiers ask: what is my note actually worth today? When a seller finances a property sale, the remaining principal balance on the amortization schedule is not the same as the price a note investor will pay. Investors discount the future payments back to today using a target yield — their discount rate — to compensate for risk and time. The higher the discount rate, the lower the present value. This calculator runs that math directly: it sums every monthly payment plus any balloon, each one discounted back to today at the rate you choose, and shows the total present value.

The classic use case is a seller deciding whether to sell the note for a lump sum. If you're holding a note paying $1,200 a month for 25 more years with a $100,000 balloon, and a note buyer offers you $145,000, is that fair? Punch the numbers in. If today's market discount rate for similar notes is 10%, the NPV at 10% is roughly $151,000 — the buyer is offering a small discount under market. If they'd offered $120,000, you'd see immediately that the implied discount rate is much higher than market and you'd push back. Note buyers do this calculation in their heads; this tool puts the same math at your fingertips.

The second use case is figuring out the right discount rate. Note pricing isn't a single number — it depends on the borrower's credit, the property's loan-to-value ratio, payment history, and current market yields. As a rough guide: clean owner-occupied notes with a strong borrower trade in the 8–10% range; investor-owned notes with thin equity or a thin payment record can trade at 12–18% or worse. Try several discount rates to see how sensitive your note value is to each — that sensitivity is exactly what you'll be negotiating over.

This calculator is the NPV math primitive — you supply the discount rate and the cash flows, and it does the discounting. If you'd rather have help estimating the discount rate itself, our free Note Appraisal Calculator builds it from real deal characteristics: lien position, investment-to-value ratio, seasoning, payer credit, property type and condition, and the state's foreclosure timeline. Use this NPV calculator when you already have a target yield in mind (e.g., a buyer at your target rate, sensitivity analysis across rates, or checking an offer you've already received) and the appraisal calculator when you want a market-value estimate without picking a rate yourself. For any other time-value-of-money problem — solving for an unknown variable, analyzing uneven cash flows, computing IRR — the GoFlexi TVM calculator handles it.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is NPV in the context of a seller-financed note?

NPV — net present value — is the lump-sum amount that's economically equivalent today to the stream of future payments your note will produce. If your note pays $1,000 a month for 30 years with no balloon, the total payments add up to $360,000, but the NPV at a 9% discount rate is only about $124,000. That's because a dollar received in year 25 is worth far less than a dollar received today, and the discount rate determines exactly how much less.

What discount rate should I use to value my seller-financed note?

The discount rate is the yield a note investor would expect to earn on a note like yours. It depends on borrower credit, property type, equity (down payment), payment history (seasoning), and current market conditions. As a rough guide: a well-seasoned owner-occupied note with a strong borrower might trade in the 8–10% range. Investor-owned notes, thin-equity deals, or notes with limited payment history typically trade in the 11–16% range. New unseasoned notes often trade higher. Try a few rates to see your range.

How do I include a balloon payment in the present value calculation?

Toggle on the balloon option and enter the balloon amount; the calculator treats it as paid at the end of the remaining term you entered. It adds the discounted balloon to the discounted stream of monthly payments to get the full NPV. For most seller-financed notes the balloon is the bulk of the value — a small monthly payment for a few years followed by a large balloon means most of the present value sits in that final payment.

How is NPV different from the remaining principal balance?

Remaining principal balance is the amount the borrower still owes on the loan amortization. NPV is the economic value of the payment stream at a market discount rate. They're equal only when your note rate exactly matches the market discount rate. If your note carries 6% and the market wants 10%, your note's NPV is below the principal balance. If your note carries 10% and the market wants 8%, your NPV is above the balance — your note is worth a premium.

Why does the present value drop so fast as the discount rate rises?

Because each payment is discounted by (1 + rate)^t, and t grows large for distant payments. A payment 25 years out at a 6% discount is worth 23 cents on the dollar; at 12% it's worth only 5 cents. Long-tail payments are extremely sensitive to the discount rate. This is why note investors care so much about getting the rate right and why a higher-rate note (which front-loads more interest) is worth disproportionately more.

Can I use this calculator to value a partial note sale?

Not directly. This tool prices the full remaining stream. If you want to sell only the next 60 payments and keep the rest (a partial note sale, common in the note investing world), you can approximate it by entering only those 60 payments as the term and leaving the balloon off — the result is the present value of just that slice. Real partial-sale pricing typically gets a slightly different yield from a full-stream sale, so treat the result as a rough estimate.

What's the difference between NPV and IRR?

NPV asks 'at this discount rate, what is the cash flow stream worth today?' IRR asks the inverse: 'given this purchase price and these cash flows, what discount rate makes them equal?' If a buyer offers you a price for your note, the IRR they'll earn is the discount rate at which the NPV equals that price. The GoFlexi TVM calculator computes IRR directly on uneven cash flows.

Does this work for interest-only or principal-only notes?

This calculator assumes a level monthly payment — the typical fixed-rate amortizing or interest-only-with-balloon seller-financed note. For more exotic structures (escalating rates, principal-only periods, or wrap mortgages), the full GoFlexi calculator and TVM calculator handle them.

Is this for valuing notes I'm holding or notes I'm buying?

Both. If you're a seller deciding what your note is worth before listing it for sale, run the math at the market discount rate. If you're a note investor evaluating a deal, run it at your target yield to see your maximum bid. Same math, opposite sides of the table.

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