The paper aims to identify problems associated with the assessment of residential real estate for pri-vate investors, as well as to define and characterize a private investor. A decision-making algorithm for private investors in residential real estate is presented, which allows individual characteristics of the investor to be taken into account. With the help of this algorithm, private investors can independently assess residential real estate for personal purposes. The proposed algorithm provides the basis for building a financial model of private investment in residential real estate. The study tested this algo-rithm, presenting a specific example of residential real estate assessment for investment purposes. The calculation results show the effectiveness of the proposed procedure in understanding investors’ interests in the residential real estate market. Moreover, the presented procedure can be easily digit-ized, thus allowing an unqualified private investor to use it as a practical guide in the assessment of residential real estate investment properties. In digital form, the proposed algorithm can be used as a smartphone application.