Fix & Flip Calculator — Free ARV, MAO & Profit Analyzer

A flip is a spread between what it costs to own the house and what a retail buyer will pay after it looks finished. This calculator keeps every dollar that sits between those two numbers on one screen.

Most bad flips are not bad houses. They are incomplete math. Purchase price looks cheap until you add the loan points, six months of insurance and utilities, and an eight percent selling bill. By the time the listing photos are shot, the 'forty thousand dollar deal' is a five thousand dollar job that ate your Saturday. The fix is not a thicker spreadsheet. It is a complete all-in number that updates while you are still on the phone with the listing agent.

Start with purchase, repairs, and after-repair value. Then force the hold into the open: months on the market plus monthly carrying cost. Selling cost is a percent of ARV, not a hope. If you are using hard money, the loan, rate, and points belong in the same breath as the rehab budget. Interest is not a footnote. Points are not 'the lender's problem.' They are cash that left your account.

All-in is purchase + repairs + closing + (hold months × monthly hold) + finance cost. Finance cost is loan × rate × hold/12 plus loan × points. Net sale is ARV × (1 − selling %). Net profit is net sale minus all-in. Cash invested is whatever all-in the loan did not cover. ROI is net profit over that cash. MAO uses the seventy percent rule: ARV × 0.70 − repairs. That MAO is a governor, not a trophy. If your purchase is above it, you are asking the spread to work harder than most retail markets will allow.

The badge is blunt on purpose. Fifty thousand and up is a fire deal worth sprinting for. Twenty thousand is still a good wholesale-to-flip or a first project if your hold is honest. A thin profit is a warning, not a celebration — one change order wipes it. Zero or worse is a pass. Walk. There will be another house this week.

Read the result the way a private lender will. They do not care that you 'know a crew.' They care that ARV is conservative, that selling cost is not 3%, and that hold months match the real permit and contractor calendar in your city. If you have to shave the rehab to make the badge turn green, the badge is doing its job. Put the real number back and either renegotiate purchase or let it go.

Use this before you write an offer, not after you have emotionally bought the granite. Share the summary with a partner in one tap. If the numbers only work in your head, they do not work.

The identities

MAO = ARV × 0.70 − Repairs
Net profit = ARV × (1 − Sell%) − All-in

All-in includes purchase, repairs, closing, hold, interest, and points.

How people blow the result

• Leaving selling cost at 0% because you 'might list with a friend.'
• Counting the loan as free money and reporting ROI on a $0 cash-in.
• Using best-case ARV from the nicest comp two streets over.

FAQ