ARV Calculator
Estimate a property's After Repair Value from comparable sales, apply the 70% rule, and see your rehab cost, holding cost, profit, and ROI on any house flip.
| Line Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Purchase Price | ₹1,50,000 |
| Rehab Cost (incl. contingency) | ₹49,500 |
| Holding Cost | ₹5,400 |
| Selling Cost (commission + closing) | ₹21,961 |
| Other Acquisition Costs | ₹2,500 |
| Total Project Cost | ₹2,29,361 |
| Rehab as % of ARV | 18.0% |
| Break-Even ARV | ₹2,25,435 |
Break-Even ARV is the resale value at which this deal's net profit is exactly zero, holding rehab, purchase, and holding costs constant.
Avg: ₹172/sqft from 3 comps
₹172/sqft × 1600 sqft
₹1,42,662
₹2,29,361
₹45,156
19.7%
Where the ARV Goes
Step-by-Step: How ARV, MAO, and Profit Are Calculated
The exact math behind your flip, one step at a time.
Step 1: Find the average price per square foot from comps
Divide each comparable sale price by its square footage, then average the results.
Average = ₹172 / sqftStep 2: Calculate the After Repair Value (ARV)
Multiply the average price per square foot by the subject property's square footage.
₹172 × 1600 sqft = ₹2,74,517Step 3: Apply the 70% rule
Multiply ARV by the rule percentage, then subtract the total rehab budget to find your maximum offer.
(₹2,74,517 × 70%) − ₹49,500 = ₹1,42,662Step 4: Add up the total project cost
Purchase price + rehab (with contingency) + holding costs + selling costs + other acquisition costs.
₹1,50,000 + ₹49,500 + ₹5,400 + ₹21,961 + ₹2,500 = ₹2,29,361Step 5: Calculate net profit and ROI
Subtract total project cost from ARV for profit, then divide profit by total cash invested for ROI.
₹2,74,517 − ₹2,29,361 = ₹45,156 (ROI: 19.7%)
After Repair Value:
₹2,74,517
ARV Calculator: Find a Property's After Repair Value in Seconds
Every house flip, wholesale deal, or BRRRR investment starts with one number: the After Repair Value, or ARV. This is the price a fixed-up property is expected to sell for once the renovation is done. Get this number wrong, and everything downstream, your offer, your rehab budget, your profit, falls apart with it. This free ARV calculator does the full deal math for you: it pulls the ARV from your comparable sales (comps), applies the well-known 70% rule to show your maximum offer, and lays out every cost in the deal, purchase price, rehab, holding costs, and selling costs, so you land on a real profit and ROI number before you ever make an offer.
This is not a plain single-input calculator. It is built for real investors running real numbers: enter as many comps as you like, switch between calculating ARV from comps or typing it in yourself if you already have an appraisal, adjust the rule percentage for your own risk tolerance, and see a full pie-chart breakdown of exactly where the ARV goes, purchase, rehab, holding, selling, and what is left over as profit.
What Is ARV (After Repair Value)?
After Repair Value is simply what a property is worth after every planned repair and upgrade is finished, not what it is worth today in its current, often rough, condition. If a run-down three-bedroom house is currently worth 150,000 dollars but similar renovated homes nearby sell for 280,000 dollars, then 280,000 dollars is the ARV, the number that matters most when deciding how much to pay and how much to spend fixing it up.
ARV is the single most important figure in any flip because almost every other decision flows from it. It sets your maximum purchase price, it caps how much you can reasonably spend on renovation, and it is the number a hard money lender or private lender will look at closely before approving financing for the deal.
How to Calculate ARV Using Comparable Sales
The most reliable way to estimate ARV is the comps method, looking at recently sold, renovated homes near the subject property that are similar in size, layout, and condition. The formula is straightforward: find the average sold price per square foot across a handful of good comps, then multiply that average by the subject property's square footage.
As an example, if three comparable renovated homes sold at roughly 170 dollars per square foot on average, and the subject property is 1,600 square feet, the estimated ARV comes out to 272,000 dollars. This calculator runs that exact math automatically, just enter each comp's sold price and square footage, and the subject property's square footage, and it computes the average price per square foot and the resulting ARV instantly.
What Makes a Good Comp?
Not every recently sold house nearby is a useful comp. The best comps share the same general size, bed and bath count, lot size, and, importantly, the same renovated condition the subject property will be in once work is finished, not its current as-is condition. A comp that sold as a fixer-upper will drag your ARV estimate down artificially.
Good comps are also recent, ideally sold within the last three to six months, and located close by, generally within a half-mile to a mile in most markets, since prices can shift meaningfully block by block. Pulling three to five solid comps and averaging them, exactly what this calculator's comps table is built for, produces a far more reliable estimate than relying on just one sale.
The 70% Rule Explained
The 70% rule is the most widely used quick-math formula in house flipping for deciding a maximum offer. It states: Maximum Allowable Offer = (ARV × 70%) − Estimated Rehab Costs. The idea is that an investor should never pay more than 70 percent of a property's after-repair value, minus whatever it will cost to fix it up, leaving enough room for holding costs, selling costs, financing costs, and a real profit margin.
As a worked example, a property with a 280,000 dollar ARV and a 45,000 dollar rehab budget gives a maximum offer of (280,000 × 0.70) − 45,000, which equals 151,000 dollars. Pay more than that, and the deal's margins get thin fast once every other cost is accounted for. This calculator lets you adjust that percentage freely, some investors use 65% in slower or riskier markets, others push to 75% in hot markets with fast resale times, since the right number depends heavily on local conditions and an investor's own risk tolerance.
Why 70% and Not 100%?
The 30 percent gap between ARV and the rule's purchase-price ceiling isn't arbitrary, it exists to cover every cost that shows up between buying the property and selling it that isn't the purchase price or the rehab budget itself. Selling costs alone, agent commissions plus closing costs, commonly eat up 6 to 10 percent of the final sale price on their own.
On top of that sit holding costs, property taxes, insurance, utilities, and loan interest, that accumulate every single month the property sits unsold, plus a contingency buffer for the renovation budget running over, which happens on the large majority of flips to some degree. What's left after all of that is the investor's actual profit, and the 70% rule is really just a fast way of making sure that leftover slice stays meaningfully positive.
Estimating Your Full Deal Costs
Purchase price and rehab budget get most of the attention, but they are far from the only costs in a flip. Holding costs, property taxes, insurance, utilities, HOA dues, and loan interest, add up every month the property is owned and unsold; a typical flip taking four to six months to complete can easily rack up several thousand dollars in holding costs alone.
Selling costs are usually the next biggest chunk: real estate agent commissions typically run 5 to 6 percent of the sale price, and closing costs on the seller's side commonly add another 1 to 2 percent. This calculator's inputs cover every one of these categories individually, purchase price, rehab with a contingency buffer, holding costs by the month, agent commission percentage, closing cost percentage, and any other acquisition costs like inspections or loan points, so nothing important gets left out of the final profit number.
Why a Rehab Contingency Buffer Matters
Renovation budgets almost never come in exactly as planned. Hidden issues behind walls, permit delays, material price swings, and contractor scheduling problems are the norm on flips, not the exception, and experienced investors build a contingency buffer directly into their rehab budget rather than getting surprised by it later.
A common rule of thumb is adding 10 to 20 percent on top of the estimated rehab cost as a cushion, more for older homes or properties with unknown structural or systems issues, less for straightforward cosmetic-only renovations. This calculator includes a contingency percentage input specifically for this, so the adjusted rehab figure used in every downstream calculation, the 70% rule, total project cost, and profit, already reflects a realistic buffer rather than an optimistic best case.
Calculating Profit and ROI on a Flip
Once every cost is accounted for, net profit is simply ARV minus the total project cost, purchase price, adjusted rehab cost, holding costs, selling costs, and any other acquisition costs added together. Return on investment, ROI, takes that profit and divides it by the total cash actually put into the deal, then expresses it as a percentage, a far more useful number than raw profit alone when comparing deals of different sizes.
A flip that nets 40,000 dollars in profit on a 200,000 dollar total investment delivers a 20% ROI, while a different flip netting the same 40,000 dollars on a 350,000 dollar investment only delivers roughly 11.4%, a meaningfully weaker deal despite an identical dollar profit. This calculator computes both figures automatically, along with a profit-margin percentage measured against the ARV itself, giving a complete picture of how strong a deal really is, not just how big the number on paper looks.
A Full Worked Example
Picture a distressed property with three solid comps averaging 175 dollars per square foot, on a 1,600 square foot subject property, giving an ARV of 280,000 dollars. The investor plans a 45,000 dollar rehab with a 10% contingency, bringing the adjusted rehab budget to 49,500 dollars. Using the standard 70% rule, the maximum offer comes to (280,000 × 0.70) − 49,500, or 146,500 dollars.
Say the investor secures the property at 145,000 dollars, comfortably under the maximum offer. Add six months of holding costs at 900 dollars a month (5,400 dollars total), 6% agent commission plus 2% closing costs on the 280,000 dollar sale (22,400 dollars combined), and 2,500 dollars in other acquisition costs, and the total project cost comes to roughly 224,800 dollars. Net profit lands at about 55,200 dollars, a strong result, and this calculator produces every one of these figures instantly the moment the inputs are entered.
Common Mistakes When Estimating ARV
The single most common mistake is using comps that aren't actually comparable, sales that are too far away, too old, too different in size, or, most critically, comps that sold in as-is or fixer-upper condition rather than fully renovated. This quietly inflates or deflates the ARV and throws off every number that follows from it.
Other frequent errors include underestimating the rehab budget with no contingency buffer at all, ignoring holding costs entirely on the assumption a flip will sell instantly, and forgetting selling costs until the very end of a deal, by which point an offer has often already been made. Running every cost through a single calculator, exactly what this tool is designed for, catches these gaps before they become expensive surprises mid-project.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ARV in real estate?
ARV stands for After Repair Value, the estimated market value of a property once all planned renovations and repairs are complete. It's the key number investors use to set a maximum purchase price and rehab budget for a flip.
How do you calculate ARV?
The most common method is the comps approach: find the average sold price per square foot from several recently sold, renovated comparable homes nearby, then multiply that average by the subject property's square footage. This calculator does that math automatically from the comps you enter.
What is the 70% rule in house flipping?
The 70% rule says an investor should pay no more than 70% of the After Repair Value minus the estimated repair costs. The formula is: Maximum Offer = (ARV × 70%) − Rehab Costs. It leaves room for holding costs, selling costs, and profit.
Is the 70% rule always accurate?
No, it's a quick rule of thumb, not a precise calculation. It works well as a fast first filter, but actual profit depends on your real holding costs, selling costs, and local market conditions, which is why this calculator also computes a full line-by-line project cost and profit figure.
How many comps should I use to estimate ARV?
Most investors use three to five recently sold, renovated comparable properties within a similar size range and close proximity to the subject property, ideally sold within the last three to six months, for the most reliable average.
What should I include in a rehab contingency?
A contingency is a buffer added on top of your estimated rehab cost to cover unexpected issues like hidden structural problems, permit delays, or material cost increases. A common range is 10% to 20% of the base rehab estimate, higher for older or higher-risk properties.
What costs besides purchase price and rehab affect flip profit?
Holding costs (taxes, insurance, utilities, loan interest for the months the property is owned), selling costs (agent commission and closing costs), and other acquisition costs (inspections, appraisals, loan points) all reduce final profit and should be included in any realistic deal analysis.
How is ROI different from profit on a flip?
Profit is the raw dollar amount left after all costs are subtracted from the ARV. ROI (return on investment) divides that profit by the total cash actually invested in the deal, giving a percentage that lets you compare deals of very different sizes on equal footing.