What's wrong with the house analogy for LBOs?

Here's a common analogy people use to explain LBOs to laymen: 

A house costs $100 to buy - financed using 90% of debt and 10% of equity. The owners buy the house and then rent it out for $25 dollars a year and use those $25/year to pay down debt. After 3 years, the owners sell the house for 100 dollars and now get $25 of equity. So MoM is 2.5x since they started out with $10 of equity. 

However, I was recently told that there were issues with this analogy but wasn't told why. 

What's the reason? 

4 Comments
 

You pay down $25 of debt per year...how does that get you to $25 of equity at the end of 3 years?

You start off with $90 of debt and $10 of equity.  $25*3 = $75 so you're able to pay down $75 of debt. $90 - $75 = $15. If the house is sold for $100, the remainder is the equity...or $85.

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