Estimate your potential profit on a fix-and-flip deal using the 70% rule and your real cost estimates.
This calculator uses two connected ideas that professional and first-time flippers both rely on: the 70% rule for setting a ceiling on what you should pay, and a full cost-and-profit breakdown for figuring out what a specific deal will actually put in your pocket. Enter the After Repair Value you expect the home to sell for, your realistic renovation budget, the price you plan to pay, and your holding and selling costs. The calculator first works out the 70% rule maximum offer — 70% of ARV minus your repair estimate — so you have an independent check on your purchase price. It then adds purchase price, repairs, holding costs, and selling costs together into a total cost figure, and subtracts that total from ARV to estimate your profit. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is saved; every calculation runs in your own browser the moment you click the button.
A flip is not just "buy low, sell high." Between the day you close on the purchase and the day you hand the keys to a buyer, money keeps leaving your account even though the house isn't generating any income. Property taxes accrue. Insurance premiums come due. If you financed any part of the purchase or renovation, interest adds up every month the loan is outstanding. Real estate agents and closing costs take a bite out of the sale price before you ever see it. A calculator that only compares purchase price to sale price will make almost every deal look better than it really is, because it quietly ignores everything that happens in between.
ARV is your best estimate of what the home will sell for once renovations are complete — not what it's worth today. The most reliable way to estimate ARV is to pull recent, closed (not just listed) sales of comparable homes within about a half-mile, sold in the last three to six months, similar in square footage, bedroom/bathroom count, lot size, and finish quality. Overestimating ARV is the single most common way flippers talk themselves into a bad deal, because every other number in this calculator is measured against it.
This should be a contractor-quoted or detailed line-item estimate, not a guess based on a walkthrough. Include materials, labor, permits, dumpster and debris removal, and a contingency buffer for what you'll find once walls are opened — older homes routinely surface plumbing, electrical, or structural issues that don't show up in a pre-purchase inspection. A common rule of thumb among experienced flippers is to add roughly 10–15% on top of a contractor's bid specifically to absorb these surprises, especially on homes built before 1980.
The price you'll actually pay to acquire the property, including any assignment or wholesale fee if you're buying from another investor. This is the number the 70% rule is meant to keep in check — if your planned purchase price is higher than the 70% rule's maximum offer, that's a signal to renegotiate, walk away, or make sure your ARV and repair estimates are conservative enough to justify the extra risk.
Every cost of simply owning the property while it sits unsold and under renovation: property taxes prorated for your ownership period, homeowner's or builder's risk insurance, utilities you keep on for contractors, HOA dues if applicable, and loan interest if you financed the deal. Holding costs scale directly with how long the project takes, which is why realistic timelines matter as much as realistic budgets — a renovation that runs two months over schedule can quietly erase thousands of dollars of profit.
The costs of getting the finished home sold: real estate agent commissions (commonly a combined 5–6% of sale price in the U.S., though this varies by market and is negotiable), seller-side closing costs, title fees, and any staging or professional photography expenses. Many first-time flippers forget to budget for these until the closing statement arrives, at which point it's too late to plan around them.
The calculator opens with a sample scenario so you can see how the pieces fit together before you enter your own numbers. With an ARV of $280,000, estimated repairs of $35,000, a purchase price of $165,000, holding costs of $4,500, and selling costs of $16,800, the 70% rule sets a maximum offer of $161,000 (70% of $280,000 is $196,000, minus $35,000 in repairs). The planned purchase price of $165,000 sits close to that ceiling — a reasonable position if the ARV and repair estimates are solid, but one with little room for error if either turns out to be optimistic. Adding purchase price, repairs, holding costs, and selling costs gives a total cost of $221,300. Subtracting that from the $280,000 ARV leaves an estimated profit of $58,700, or roughly 21% of ARV. That margin is what has to absorb any repair overruns, a slower-than-expected sale, or a softer resale market — which is exactly why experienced flippers treat a single-number profit estimate as a starting point for questions, not a guarantee.
This tool gives you a fast, transparent estimate based on the numbers you enter — it does not appraise your property, verify your repair quotes, account for financing terms like interest rate or loan points unless you've folded them into holding costs yourself, or factor in capital gains or investment tax treatment, which varies by how the property is held and how long you own it. It also can't tell you whether your ARV estimate is realistic — that depends on genuine comparable sales research in your specific market. Treat the result as a starting estimate to sanity-check a deal, not as a substitute for a contractor's bid, an appraisal, or advice from a licensed tax or real estate professional.