House Flipping Calculator: Profit and Cash Return
Model a resale project in this house flipping calculator: you enter acquisition costs, carrying costs count, and the only financing is a purchase loan.
What This Calculator Does
Plug in a buy, a renovation and a resale, and you get an estimate of pre-tax profit in nominal terms. The cash you spend on acquisition counts. Carrying and selling costs do too. Financing is a fixed loan on the purchase, nothing more. You'll see the return on total capital apart from the return on your own cash, and if the sale leaves a cash gap, it stays on screen.
Who Is This For
It's built for investors, real estate agents and clients sizing up a particular Florida resale with their own cost figures and lender quotes. It isn't a verified valuation, a lender's decision, a tax calculation or a complete cash-management plan.
How It Works
You fill in eight inputs. For the property: purchase price, after-repair resale value and rehab budget. For holding: monthly carrying cost and full months held. For the deal itself: selling costs as a percent, cash acquisition costs and loan amount. If a cost doesn't apply, type 0. Buying all cash? Set the loan to 0. The interest your lender quoted goes inside the monthly carrying cost and nowhere else, so it's counted once; leave principal paydowns out. When results come back, read the project return against the return on your cash, and check whether sale proceeds land positive or negative. Confirm every quote, and rerun the numbers whenever an assumption moves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which costs come out of the profit?
Everything you spend, taken off the after-repair value: purchase price, rehab and cash acquisition costs first, then the monthly carry multiplied by the months held. Selling costs go last, figured once on the resale value you typed. Count as acquisition cost only cash you paid and can't get back, after subtracting any credits you're able to use. Leave out refundable escrow deposits, reserves you never touch and anything another input already covers. Your monthly carry is where the lender's quoted interest belongs. Property tax, insurance, utilities and other repeating bills can sit there as well. The calculator needs all eight inputs entered explicitly, and it never quietly counts a blank cost as zero.
Project ROI versus ROI on your own cash: what's the difference?
Same pre-tax profit, different denominators. For project ROI, the base is the full outlay: what you paid for the house, the rehab, your purchase costs and every month's holding costs. For your-cash ROI, take that outlay and subtract the purchase loan. Selling costs shrink the profit, yet neither base includes them, since the sale proceeds pay them. So the cash you walk away with, less the cash you put in, is your profit. If none of the money is yours, the your-cash ROI is simply blank, not 0% and not an unlimited return. Neither figure is a yearly rate. Nor is either an IRR.
Which loans can this calculator model?
A purchase loan, and nothing else. It can run from 0 to the purchase price, the principal never changes, and you repay all of it at resale. The interest your lender quoted must already sit in the monthly carrying cost. Paying off the loan reduces cash from the sale without hitting profit again. Rehab, acquisition and carrying costs are paid in cash. There's no amortization and no additional draws. Financed fees, construction lending and loan terms that shift aren't modeled either. For the real number, ask your lender for a dated payoff statement; this projection isn't one.
Is a total loss possible, and can money be owed at the sale?
Yes. Setting the ARV to 0 lets you test a total loss, though that's a what-if exercise, not a prediction or a confirmed value. A loss on the project shows as a negative profit, and the calculator leaves it there. Sale cash can go negative too. When it does, you'd have to bring extra money to pay the selling costs and clear the purchase loan; the figure is never raised to zero. Because losses can outrun the cash you invested, your-cash ROI can sink below −100%. What's left out: tax on the profit, refunds and the real cash you'd need at closing.
Is the 70% rule a safe maximum offer?
No. Think of it as a quick rule of thumb: take 70% of the ARV and subtract rehab, with 0 as the floor and the result cut down to the cent. It doesn't take purchase, holding or selling costs out as separate items. That's why it can't prove a profit. It isn't a legal ceiling on your offer, a verified appraisal or a loan approval either. Offering below that number still leaves you needing the complete cost breakdown and real quotes for the property.
How does it treat months, cents and estimates?
The hold period takes whole months, in a 1–36 range. Type 2.0 and it reads 2, not 20. Fractions are rejected. Each amount can go up to $2 billion. Selling costs accept 0%–30% with up to four decimal places; the form sets that range, and it isn't a market rate. Selling costs are rounded to the cent a single time, totals add up cent amounts, and the 70% offer rounds down. Results above $100 billion won't display, and that $100 billion ceiling belongs to the calculator, not to any lending rule. Verify the cost, resale and payoff quotes on your own. Taxes and your lender's payoff statement fall outside this tool.