House Flipping Profit Calculator

A flip's profit is the sale price minus everything it took to get there: profit = ARV − purchase − rehab − buying costs − financing − holding − selling costs. New investors often only subtract purchase and rehab, then are surprised when agent commissions, closing costs, loan interest, points, property taxes, insurance and utilities eat most of the spread. This calculator itemizes each so nothing is missed.

Financing is modeled as an interest-only hard-money or private loan on a percentage of the purchase price, which is how most flip lenders structure it, plus upfront points. Return on investment is profit divided by the cash you actually supplied — down payment, rehab, closing, points, interest and holding costs. Annualized ROI scales that to a 12-month rate so you can compare a 4-month flip with a 10-month one.

The 70% rule is a quick screening guideline: maximum offer = ARV × 70% − repair costs. The 30% cushion is meant to cover selling costs, carrying costs, financing and a profit margin. In expensive markets where ARVs are high, some investors use 75–80%; in slow markets or on heavy rehabs they go lower. It's a filter, not a replacement for a full cost breakdown like the one above.

Base ARV on recent comparable sales of renovated homes nearby, add a contingency of 10–20% to the rehab budget, and assume the project takes longer than planned. If the deal still works under those conditions, it has a margin of safety. If you might rent the property instead of selling, compare with the BRRRR calculator.

Buy at $200,000 with cash, spend $50,000 on rehab, hold for 6 months at $1,000 a month, pay 2% to buy ($4,000) and 8% to sell ($28,000), then sell for $350,000. Total costs are $288,000, so profit is $62,000 on $260,000 of cash — a 23.8% ROI, or about 47.7% annualized. That looks healthy, but the 70% rule says the maximum offer should have been 350,000 × 0.70 − 50,000 = $195,000, so there's less cushion than the rule wants. Finance 80% of the purchase with a 10% interest-only loan and 2 points and you add $11,200 in financing costs — profit falls to about $50,800, but the cash required drops sharply and ROI on cash rises.