The address: 37 Charleston Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.

The agent: Young's.

The property: Pre-63 property divided into six units for €1.4 million. This represents a cost of €9,395 per sq m (€873 per sq ft).

The look: fairly unattractive red-brick tacked on to a residential road.

The features: once a family home, this 149sq m (1,600sq ft) property is divided into three bedsits and three one-bed units. The agent says that two of the units are in good condition but the rest are in need of an overhaul. It has four car-parking spaces to the front and a large L-shaped rear garden. The agent says that some mistake the odd-shaped garden as a potential site but there is no access to it. He says there may be scope to sell parts of the garden to the neighbours whose houses surround it.

How much for an investor? With stamp duty at 9 per cent and legal fees of 0.5 per cent, the acquisition cost is €1,534,470. The current annual rent is €37,500 when one month's costs and one month's void is taken into account. The annual repayments on a 90 per cent mortgage at a PTSB tracker rate of 4.15 per cent over 20 years would be €92,824, which would leave a rental shortfall of €55,324. On an interest-only mortgage the annual repayments would be €56,700, leaving a shortfall of €19,200.

An investor would break even on the rent with a 36 per cent mortgage at the same rate over 20 years - this would leave a surplus of €16,375 on an interest-only mortgage. This represents a yield of 2.7 per cent.

Potential: the agent says that the current annual rent could be increased to €50,000-€55,000 given the building's strong rental location.

Verdict: to achieve better rents an investor would need to pump money into refurbishing the property. This would still leave a big shortfall in rent for all but investors who can afford to take out a 36 per cent mortgage or less (see above).

• Calculations by Simply Mortgages