Rehab Calculator: Free Repair Cost Estimator For Flips (2026)
Oct 15, 2026
Written by
Alex Martinez, Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills. Has wholesaled and flipped houses for over 14 years, been part of 1,000+ real estate transactions, and personally acquired 55+ residential investment properties. Has trained 6,000+ investors nationwide.
Reviewed by
Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills. Reviewed and verified the cost ranges, calculator math and estimating guidance in this guide before publication.
Publication history: Originally published January 14, 2026. Updated October 2026 with a free interactive rehab calculator built from Real Estate Skills' internal 2026 cost ranges, side-by-side trade-cost and managed-budget figures, verified line-item costs, a scaled contingency guide, a real student budget breakdown and a rebuilt FAQ. Cost ranges and calculator math reviewed by Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO of Real Estate Skills.
A rehab calculator estimates the cost to fix up a house before you make an offer. Ours prices it from real line items: roughly $7–25 a square foot for light work, $20–60 for a medium rehab and $35–105 for a full gut, before contractor markup and contingency.
Most new flippers I talk to have the same fear, and it isn't the purchase price. It's the rehab. You can pull comps and debate the ARV all day, but the repair number is the one you're guessing at, and if you guess low, the deal is upside down before the first wall comes out.
Here's the part most rehab calculators skip. There's no single price for a renovation. There's what the work costs when you call the electrician and the flooring crew yourself, and there's what it costs when a general contractor runs the job and you carry a cushion for surprises. Those two numbers can sit 30% or 40% apart, which is why one website tells you a rehab runs $25 a foot and the next one says $60. This calculator shows you both, built from Real Estate Skills' own 2026 line-item cost ranges, so you can see exactly where the gap comes from.
Run your property through it below. Then take the number into our free deal calculator spreadsheet to see what the deal actually makes.
Rehab Calculator: Estimate Your Repair Costs
Enter the square footage, year built, bathrooms and level of work, and the calculator builds a repair budget from line-item costs. It shows two numbers: the trade cost if you hire each trade yourself, and the managed budget with a 15% contractor fee and contingency added.
๐งฎ Free Rehab Calculator
Built from Real Estate Skills' internal 2026 line-item cost ranges
Pull it from the county assessor's record if you can. Listing sites aren't always accurate.
Older homes often hide original wiring, plumbing and systems near the end of their life. Confirm their age in the inspection.
Level of work
Defaults to 10. Change it to your count.
Finish level
For homes selling at the top of your market, where buyers expect better cabinets, flooring, doors and windows. San Diego builder Henish Pulickal budgets about 20% more per foot when the resale is $1.5–2 million or more.
Already in good shape (check to remove)
Typical lifespans: about 20 years for a 3-tab shingle roof and 30 for architectural shingles, 15–25 years for a furnace, and 6–15 years for a tank water heater. An inspector can date a furnace or water heater from its serial number.
Extras
Not included: Foundation, drainage and retaining-wall repairs aren't in this estimate. Have a structural engineer or concrete contractor quote them. They can run from a couple thousand dollars to $20,000 and well beyond.
Your Rehab Estimate
Trade cost
What the work costs if you hire each trade yourself.
What a general contractor typically adds to run the job. Turn it off if you'll manage the trades yourself.
Money for what you can't see until the walls are open. Set to 10%, 15% or 25% by level of work.
Managed budget
Budget from this number. When you're unsure, use the top of the range.
Next step: Put your managed budget into the Repair Costs line of our free deal calculator to see your profit and ROI, or carry it into the ARV and maximum offer calculator.
Real Estate Skills internal planning ranges as of 2026, for investor-grade work. Costs vary by market, scope and finish level. Use this to screen deals and make offers, then confirm it with an inspection and contractor bids before you close. It is not a contractor's quote.
How To Use The Rehab Calculator
Get the true square footage, pick the level of work from what you can see, remove anything already replaced, add the extras a per-foot number misses, then budget from the managed figure. That takes about a minute, and it's enough to make an offer, not to close.
The order matters more than the math. Each step fixes a mistake I see beginners make with every rehab calculator, ours included.
Step 1: Get The Real Square Footage
Use the county assessor's record for livable square footage, not the listing. Every per-foot cost in the calculator multiplies off this number, so a listing that's 200 square feet high quietly inflates your whole budget.
Stan Gendlin, a partner at Real Estate Skills, pulls square footage from county tax records instead of Zillow or Redfin, because the listing sites aren't always right (watch this part →). Count livable space only. A garage doesn't count, and if the listing's number is much bigger than the county's, ask whether an addition was ever permitted. That's a question for your inspector, not your calculator.
Step 2: Pick The Level Of Work From What You Can See
Choose light if the house only needs a refresh, medium if the kitchen, baths or windows need replacing, and full gut if the walls are coming open. When a house sits between two levels, pick the higher one.
You can do this from listing photos or a video walkthrough before you ever set foot inside. Look at the kitchen and bathrooms first, because they decide most of the jump from light to medium. Then look for anything that means opening walls: water stains, sagging floors, an old electrical panel. That's what pushes a house into a gut.
One rule Stan and I give every new investor: make your first flip a light or medium job. The more walls you open, the more you find behind them, and a beginner's estimate is least reliable on a gut.
Step 3: Remove What's Already Been Replaced
Check off the roof, furnace or AC, and windows if they were replaced in the last 10–15 years. Each one can take thousands off the estimate, but only remove an item once you've confirmed its age.
San Diego builder Henish Pulickal of Cal HomeCo starts every estimate assuming the house needs everything, then subtracts each system he confirms is newer (watch this part →). That's the safer direction to work from. Most houses have an old roof, so assuming yours is fine and adding it back later is how budgets slip.
Use typical lifespans as a guide: about 20 years for a 3-tab shingle roof and 30 for architectural shingles, 15–25 years for a furnace, and 6–15 years for a tank water heater, based on InterNACHI's life expectancy chart and the Department of Energy water heater guide. Your inspector can read a furnace or water heater's serial number and tell you the year it was made.
Step 4: Add The Extras A Per-Foot Number Misses
Add landscaping, pool equipment and a higher finish level separately, because they don't scale with square footage. Then price any foundation, drainage or retaining-wall issue with a specialist, since no calculator can estimate those reliably.
Henish keeps landscaping outside his per-foot number for exactly this reason: light cleanup might run $3,000–5,000, but a big neglected yard can run $30,000–50,000 (watch this part →). A 1,200 square foot house can sit on a quarter acre of weeds.
The same goes for finish level. In a market where buyers expect better cabinets, flooring and windows, he budgets about 20% more per foot (watch this part →). Match the finish to what renovated homes nearby actually sold with, not to your own taste.
Foundation work is the one line I'd never guess at. A crack can be a $2,000 fix or a $20,000 one. Get a structural engineer or concrete contractor out before you commit.
If the house has textured or popcorn ceilings, or other old finishes you plan to scrape, have them tested before work starts. The EPA's asbestos guidance for remodelers notes that asbestos can't be identified by looking and is most common in homes built before the 1970s.
Step 5: Budget From The Managed Number, Then Verify It
Make your offer using the managed budget, not the trade cost. Then, during your inspection period, get a home inspection and contractor bids to turn the estimate into a real number. If the bids come in higher, renegotiate before the inspection period ends.
The whole point of a quick number is speed. Stan and I can screen a cosmetic deal's repairs in 10–15 seconds this way, while people who price every faucet before making an offer wonder why they never get anything under contract.
But a quick number is for making offers, not for closing. Once you're under contract, use the inspection period in your purchase and sale agreement (we usually negotiate 7–14 days) to bring in an inspector and get bids. A contractor's written quote also gives you leverage: it's much harder for a seller to argue with than your own estimate. Then add the contingency, which I cover further down.
How Much Does A Rehab Cost Per Square Foot?
On a 1,500 square foot house with two bathrooms, our line items put a light rehab at about $8–30 a square foot, a medium rehab at $26–82 and a full gut at $52–149, once a contractor's fee and contingency are added. Hiring each trade yourself runs roughly 25–45% less.
Here's what the calculator returns on a typical house, so you can see the ranges before you enter your own.
| Level | Trade cost per sq ft | Trade cost total | Managed per sq ft | Managed total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | $7–24 | $10,000–35,300 | $8–30 | $12,600–44,700 |
| Medium | $20–62 | $29,400–93,400 | $26–82 | $38,800–123,500 |
| Full gut | $36–104 | $54,100–155,900 | $52–149 | $77,800–224,100 |
Assumes two bathrooms, 10 windows on medium and gut jobs, standard finishes, a 15% contractor fee and 10%, 15% or 25% contingency by level. Landscaping, pool work and foundation repairs are not included. Real Estate Skills internal ranges, as of 2026. Your market will differ.
- Why the ranges are so wide: the low end assumes builder-grade materials and the cheapest trade that shows up on time. The high end assumes better finishes and a busier market. Your own number lives somewhere in that band, and where depends on your market and your crew far more than on the house.
- Why bigger houses cost less per foot: a house still has one kitchen whether it's 1,500 or 2,000 square feet, so those fixed costs spread thinner on a bigger house. Run a medium rehab on a 2,000 square foot house with the same two baths and the managed budget comes to about $21–66 a foot, versus $26–82 on the smaller house. That's why a single per-foot rule tends to overprice big houses and underprice small ones.
How Our Ranges Compare To Real Projects
Real numbers from our team land inside these ranges. Stan Gendlin's own project averages match the trade cost. San Diego cosmetic jobs, at about $30–40 a foot, sit at the managed end because it's a high-cost market. Builder Henish Pulickal's $100 a foot reflects San Diego and higher finishes.
- Stan's averages: from what his team actually spent across his fix-and-flip projects, about $10 a square foot for a house in good shape needing flooring and paint, $30 for one that's sound but dated, and $60 when everything needs doing (watch this part →). He didn't name the market or year, so treat them as one investor's historical averages. They sit right inside the trade-cost column.
- San Diego cosmetic work: when Stan and I run cosmetic rehabs in San Diego, they come in around $30–40 a square foot, and the rate climbs at higher price points. That's the top of the light range, which is what you'd expect in one of the country's most expensive markets.
- A builder's starting point: Henish starts every San Diego estimate at about $100 a square foot for a full cosmetic remodel that includes the kitchen and baths, and about $150 for a true gut. Both sit at or above the top of the managed column, because his team builds to a higher finish than most flippers.
The pattern across all three: the calculator's ranges hold, and your market and finish level decide where in them you land. That's why the next step is always a local check.
How To Fix and Flip Houses For Profit (FREE CALCULATOR)!
Watch how we screen repair costs in seconds with a cost-per-square-foot rule, then size the profit a rehab needs to justify the risk. (Jump to the repair-cost part →)
Read Also: Estimating Rehab Costs
What Do Common Rehab Line Items Cost?
For an investor-grade rehab in 2026, a kitchen runs about $8,700–25,000, a full bathroom refresh $1,950–6,300 plus tile, an asphalt roof $6,000–14,000 and one HVAC system $5,000–12,000. Homeowners hiring a remodeler often pay two to four times more for a kitchen or bath.
These are the line items behind the calculator, from Real Estate Skills' internal ranges. Click any of them in the calculator to replace it with a real quote.
| Line item | What's included | Investor cost |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | Cabinets, countertops, appliance package, sink and faucet, lighting and backsplash | $8,700–25,000 |
| Full bathroom | Vanity and sink, tub or shower, toilet, lighting and fan | $1,950–6,300 per bath, plus tile at $8–15 per sq ft |
| Roof | Asphalt shingle replacement | $6,000–14,000 |
| HVAC | One system, furnace or central AC | $5,000–12,000 per system |
| Water heater | Tank replacement | $800–2,500 |
| Electrical | Rewire, panel and outlets | $4,000–10,000 |
| Plumbing | Whole-house re-pipe | $3,000–8,000 |
| Windows | Replacement, installed | $400–1,200 each |
| Flooring | Installed | $2–10 per sq ft |
| Interior paint | Walls and ceilings | $1.50–4 per sq ft of floor area |
| Exterior paint | Whole house | $3,000–8,000 |
| Pool equipment | Pump, filter and repairs | $1,500–4,500 (replastering quoted separately) |
| Permits and inspections | Varies by city | $500–3,000 |
Real Estate Skills internal planning ranges as of 2026. Costs vary by market, scope and finish level.
Why Investor Prices Run Below What Homeowners Pay
Investors use builder-grade materials, keep what still works and hire trades directly, while national cost guides price full homeowner remodels done by a contractor. The kitchen and bath gaps are the widest, so never plug a homeowner cost guide into a flip budget.
| Item | Our investor range | National data | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | $8,700–25,000 | $28,458 average, midrange minor kitchen remodel | 2025 Cost vs Value Report |
| Bathroom | $1,950–6,300 plus tile | $26,138 average, midrange bath remodel | 2025 Cost vs Value Report |
| Roof | $6,000–14,000 | $8,000–16,000, about $12,000 on average | Fixr, 2026 |
| HVAC | $5,000–12,000 per system | About $8,500 for a gas furnace and $8,460 for central AC, each | This Old House 2026 survey |
| Water heater | $800–2,500 | $1,000–2,700, about $1,900 on average | Fixr, 2026 |
| Flooring (LVP) | $2–10 per sq ft | $5–12 per sq ft for most projects | Fixr |
| Interior paint | $1.50–4 per sq ft | $5.75–10.70 per sq ft of floor area | Fixr |
The roof and water heater line up closely, because those jobs look about the same no matter who's paying. Kitchens and baths don't, and the reason is scope. A remodeler's midrange bath replaces everything to a homeowner's taste. On a flip, you replace what the buyer will notice and keep what still works. On my first flip, we kept the existing kitchen cabinets and tile and refinished them, and that one decision kept the whole rehab in cosmetic territory.
Two lines beginners misread:
- Roofs are priced by roof area, not house size: a pitched roof has more surface than the floor under it. Fixr's sizing table pairs a 1,000 square foot house with about 1,200 square feet of roof. When a roofer quotes per square foot, that's per foot of roof.
- HVAC is per system: if the furnace and the AC are both at the end of their life, that's two lines, not one. The calculator lets you add the second system.
Robert, one of our students, learned why this matters on his first flip. His first contractor couldn't produce a scope broken down by item and price, which his hard money lender required to fund the rehab, so he moved on.
Turn Your Estimate Into Bids You Can Compare
The calculator gets you a budget. Contractors need a list. Download our free Scope of Work Template, an Excel file, to itemize every repair the house needs, collect contractor bids against the same list and keep your rehab budget in check once work starts. When every bid prices the same items, the low bid can't hide what it left out.
How Much Contingency Should You Add To A Rehab Budget?
Add 10% for a light cosmetic rehab, 15% for a medium rehab and 25% for a full gut. The more walls you open, the more you find, so the cushion grows with the scope. Older homes and anything structural belong at the top of the range.
These contingency levels are planning guidelines, not guarantees. Your contractor, inspector or lender may recommend more for a specific house.
The calculator sets this for you based on the level of work, and you can change it. Here's the logic behind each step:
- 10% for light work: the house is mostly visible going in. Paint, flooring and fixtures rarely hide a five-figure surprise.
- 15% for medium work: you're replacing kitchens, baths and some systems, so you're touching plumbing and wiring you couldn't fully see.
- 25% for a full gut: you're opening the walls, which is exactly where rot, termite damage and outdated wiring hide.
Those numbers come from Stan, who recommends at least 10% on a small renovation and up to 25% when you're tearing a house down to the studs (watch this part →). No inspection catches everything. Materials get stolen off job sites, a contractor drops something expensive, and nobody sees behind the drywall until the drywall comes down.
Size matters too, not just scope. Stan and I tell our students the same thing: a problem on a 3,000 square foot house costs more to fix than the same problem on a 1,500 square foot one. If your painter walks off a big job halfway through, bringing in someone new to finish it costs more. Bigger houses deserve the higher end of each range.
๐ From The Field: What A Skipped Inspection Cost Robert
Robert, a Real Estate Skills student flipping in Northern California, budgeted $65,000–70,000 for his first rehab. He was juggling lender paperwork and contractor calls on a tight close, and he skipped the home inspection, which would have cost a few hundred dollars. When his contractor opened the house up, they found termites and a crawl space with no way to get into it. Those two problems cost about $20,000 that wasn't in his budget, roughly 30% on top of his estimate.
Here's the part worth sitting with. Even the calculator's 25% gut contingency on his budget would have been $16,250–17,500, a few thousand short of what those two surprises cost. He still made money on the deal, but about $20,000 less than he could have. The contingency is your second line of defense. The inspection is the first.
Robert's figures are his own outcome. Results vary by deal, market and experience, and are not typical or guaranteed.
He Made $40,000 Flipping His First House [Deal Breakdown]
Robert's first flip shows what one skipped inspection does to a rehab budget: watch the part where termites and a crawl space added about $20,000. (Jump to that part →)
One more thing about contingency. It only works if it's money you actually have. If you're using a hard money loan with construction draws, the lender usually releases rehab money in stages as each phase of work is completed and checked. A contingency that exists only on paper doesn't help when a crew needs paying before the next draw comes through.
Why Your Profit Needs A Cushion Too
Contingency protects the budget. Profit protects the deal. When you're starting out, aim to net at least $1 of profit for every $1 of renovation, so a $40,000 rehab should leave at least $40,000 after every cost. That margin absorbs what the contingency can't.
That's a rule of thumb Stan and I give every new flipper, and it's about net profit, after your lenders are paid, not gross (watch this part →). Things don't have to go wrong for that number to shrink. A buyer who needs $5,000–6,000 in closing-cost help eats into it. A project that runs two extra months can cost another $3,000–10,000 in interest. And on bigger rehabs the cushion should be bigger, because there's more that can go wrong.
Stan learned this one the hard way. One of his deals penciled out at about $20,000 in profit, which he hoped would grow to $40,000. Then the house needed an HVAC system nobody had budgeted for, and it sold for $15,000 less than he'd expected. Six months of work for a break-even deal. He's said he should have just wholesaled it for $5,000–10,000 and moved on.
A Real Rehab Run Through The Calculator: My First Flip
My first flip was a 1,358 square foot house in Poway, in San Diego County. My contractor and I budgeted $40,000 and it came in at about $42,000 in 2015. Scaled to today's costs, the same work would run roughly $70,500, which lands at the top of the calculator's range.
Numbers in a table only go so far, so here's a real job broken down the way the calculator sees it.
It was a three-bed, two-bath house that was outdated but sound. It needed a full cosmetic renovation and nothing structural. Before I committed, a general contractor I'd been referred to by another flipper walked the house with me line by line and priced the scope. That walkthrough produced the $40,000 estimate. The work took about four weeks.
What the $42,000 covered:
- Outside: a widened driveway, new grass, plants and mulch, a full exterior repaint and new light fixtures.
- Living areas and bedrooms: hardwood flooring in the living room, new carpet in the bedrooms, popcorn ceilings scraped smooth throughout, new baseboards, ceiling fans, mirrored closet doors and fresh paint everywhere.
- Kitchen: we kept the existing cabinets and tile and refinished them. That one call kept the rehab cosmetic.
- Bathrooms: in the guest bath, we moved the sink to open up space and added a new vanity with a granite top. The master bath got a new double vanity, new tile and new fixtures.
- Pool: drained, partly replastered, tile and equipment repaired, and the old diving board removed.
- Backyard: weeds cleared, mulch and gravel down, and the fence repaired and repainted.
You can see the before and after in this part of the video.
How it runs through the calculator. I'd enter it as a light job, check the pool equipment and light landscaping boxes, then switch to the line-item estimate and check the four bathroom items for two baths. Light work defaults to a 10% contingency, but with two bathrooms in the scope I'd raise it to 15%, the medium-rehab rate. With a 15% contractor fee, the calculator returns a managed budget of about $23,600–73,300.
What that job costs today. Construction costs have climbed a lot since 2015. Verisk's Repair and Remodel Index, which tracks more than 10,000 line items across hundreds of U.S. markets, shows repair and remodeling costs up almost 68% from early 2016 to early 2026. Apply that to my $42,000 and the same scope comes to roughly $70,500 today, or about $52 a square foot. Treat that as rough national scaling, not a quote. My flip was in mid-2015, a little before the index's starting point, so if anything it understates the increase.
What to take from it. That $70,500 sits right at the top of the calculator's range, and that's the honest result. San Diego is one of the most expensive markets in the country, and the run above leaves out the widened driveway, the popcorn ceilings and the fence work. A real job in a high-cost market, with a few items a quick estimate doesn't cover, belongs at the top of the range. That's why the advice under the results panel says to use the top end when you're unsure.
The other lesson is the one I still use: the estimate held because a contractor walked the house with me and priced it line by line, not because I'm good at guessing.
This is one deal, in one market, from 2015. Your costs and results will vary.
How Accurate Is A Rehab Calculator?
Accurate enough to decide whether to make an offer, not accurate enough to close on. A good rehab calculator usually gets a cosmetic job within its range. It misses most on full guts, foundation problems, older homes and expensive markets, so confirm every estimate with an inspection and contractor bids.
A calculator is only as good as two things: the cost data inside it and what you tell it about the house. Ours uses real line-item ranges, but it can't see the house. Here's where that matters most.
Where calculators miss:
- Full guts: once walls come open, the scope changes. A gut is the job where a careful estimate is most likely to move, and the reason the calculator carries a 25% contingency on it.
- Foundations, drainage and retaining walls: these swing from a couple thousand dollars to $20,000 and beyond depending on what a specialist finds. The calculator leaves them out on purpose, so price them with a quote.
- Older homes: original wiring, plumbing near the end of its life and the EPA lead-safe rules for pre-1978 homes all add cost the outside of the house won't show you.
- High-cost markets and higher finishes: in a market like San Diego, real jobs land at the top of the range, as my first flip showed.
- Borrowed numbers: Henish Pulickal says the most common estimating mistake he sees is someone hearing they can rehab for $65 a foot from another investor, then finishing at $130 (watch this part →). A per-foot number from another market, crew or finish level isn't your number.
Who shouldn't rely on a quick estimate: if it's your first flip and the house needs a gut, structural work or foundation repair, the calculator's number is a starting point at best. Bring in a contractor before you make a firm offer, or partner with an experienced investor on that first deal. Henish did his first 30 flips alongside a partner who had already done about 200, and he credits that with getting his scopes and budgets right.
How to make it more accurate:
- Replace the defaults with real quotes: in line-item mode, click any price and type in a contractor's bid. Start with the biggest lines: roof, HVAC, kitchen and baths.
- Ask local cash buyers what they budget: active flippers in your area know what their crews charge per foot for a cosmetic job.
- Track your own actuals: after each rehab, compare what you spent to what you estimated, ideally in a house flipping spreadsheet with budgeted and actual columns. Stan built his per-foot averages exactly this way, from what his team actually spent, and your own track record beats any national range.
Can A Rehab Calculator Estimate Costs By Zip Code?
Not reliably. Some tools apply a regional multiplier, but labor and material costs vary by neighborhood, crew and season in ways no free tool tracks. The dependable way to localize a rehab estimate is three local quotes on your biggest line items, plus what active cash buyers in that market budget.
Regional multipliers can point you in the right direction, but treat them as a rough adjustment, not a local price. Two houses in the same zip code can need very different crews, permits and finishes. A local general contractor's quote on the roof, HVAC and kitchen will tell you more in a day than any zip-code lookup.
What To Do With Your Rehab Number
Your rehab number feeds your offer. Subtract it from 70% of the after-repair value for a quick maximum offer, or put it into a full deal analysis with holding, financing and selling costs. Always use the managed budget. Using the lower trade cost inflates every offer you make.
Here's why that last point matters. Say a house will be worth $300,000 fixed up, and the calculator returns a trade cost of $45,000 and a managed budget of $60,000.
๐ก Same House, Two Maximum Offers
- Using the managed budget: ($300,000 × 70%) − $60,000 = $150,000 maximum offer.
- Using the trade cost: ($300,000 × 70%) − $45,000 = $165,000 maximum offer.
Same house, $15,000 apart. If the job really costs $60,000 once a contractor runs it and a surprise or two shows up, that $15,000 comes straight out of your profit. That's the whole reason the calculator shows you both numbers and tells you to budget from the bigger one.
Where to take the number next:
- For a fast maximum offer: the 70% rule in house flipping above is a screening shortcut, not the final word. Our guide to the MAO formula shows the detailed version that subtracts every cost one by one.
- If you still need the after-repair value: our ARV calculator builds it from comparable sales, then works backward to your maximum offer using the repair number you bring from here.
- If you're wholesaling: our wholesale calculator takes your repair number and your assignment fee and finds the contract price that still works for your cash buyer. Send buyers your scope along with the deal. A wholesaler who can show how the repair number was built gets taken seriously, because experienced buyers will rework it anyway.
- For the full picture: our free deal calculator spreadsheet, below.
See What The Deal Actually Makes
Your rehab budget is one line in a bigger equation. Download our free Deal Calculator, an Excel spreadsheet, and enter it on the Repair Costs line along with the purchase price, hold time, taxes, insurance, utilities, financing and selling costs. It returns your net profit and ROI, with cash and financed versions and annualized returns. It's what we use on every deal and what we give our students.
Your Rehab Number Is Ready. Now Put It On A Real Deal.
An accurate repair estimate only pays off when there's a deal in front of it. Our FREE Training shows how we find discounted properties on the MLS without spending a dollar on marketing, run the numbers, and decide whether to wholesale, flip or hold, the same process thousands of our students use. Watch it today, then go price your first real rehab.
Watch The FREE Training →Rehab Calculator FAQs
Final Thoughts On Using A Rehab Calculator
Use the calculator to move fast and the inspection to stay safe. Screen every deal with a quick estimate, budget from the managed number, and never close on a figure a contractor hasn't confirmed. The investors who last estimate conservatively and let the numbers make the decision.
A rehab calculator won't make you money on its own. What it does is stop you from guessing, which is how most new investors lose money before the first hammer swings. The quick number gets offers out the door. The inspection and the bids tell you whether the deal is real. And when you're unsure, you take the top of the range, because a conservative budget's worst case is finishing under it.
Every number on this page, from my first flip to Robert's termites to Stan's HVAC system, points to the same habit: the estimate was only as good as the walkthrough behind it.
So here's your next step. Pick a house for sale in a neighborhood you'd invest in. Pull its square footage from the county record, look through the listing photos, and run it through the calculator at the top of this page. Then run two more. By the third one, you'll know what light, medium and gut look like in your market, and that's the skill this whole business rests on.
You've Got The Rehab Number. Now Go Find The Deal.
Estimating repairs is one piece of the job. The investors who actually close follow a proven process: find discounted properties on the MLS, run the numbers with confidence, and pick the right exit before they buy. Our FREE Training walks you through that entire system without spending a dollar on marketing. Watch it today, then go put your rehab estimates to work.
Watch The FREE Training →
About The Author
Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills
Alex Martinez is the Founder and CEO of Real Estate Skills. He has wholesaled and flipped houses for over 14 years, been part of 1,000+ real estate transactions and personally acquired 55+ residential investment properties, starting with a cosmetic flip in San Diego County that he estimated within $2,000 by walking it line by line with his contractor. He has trained 6,000+ investors nationwide to find deals, estimate rehab costs and run their numbers before they buy.
Real Estate Skills is not a law firm or a financial advisor, and the information in this article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, tax or financial advice. Rehab costs, labor and material prices and lead-safe work requirements vary by location and change over time, and the figures on this page are planning estimates, not contractor quotes or guarantees. Student and investor results described here are individual outcomes and are not typical or guaranteed. Real estate investing carries risk. Always get an inspection and licensed contractor bids, and consult a licensed attorney and your own financial advisors before you buy or renovate a property.
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๐FREEย Training
How To Consistently Wholesale, Flip Houses, & Invest In Rental Properties From The MLS
(Without Spending $1 On Marketing)
Alex Martinez, the founder of Real Estate Skills, is known for his strong, practical expertise in real estate, starting from a beginner with no family connections in the industry to acquiring over 55 real estate deals, including wholesale and flips, within his first year.
He has dedicated his career to providing cutting-edge education and resources for real estate professionals. He emphasizes the importance of self-taught knowledge through mentors, books, and hands-on experience.
His journey from earning a modest income to becoming a successful real estate entrepreneur and educator showcases his expertise and dedication to the field.
Ryan Zomorodi, co-founder and COO of Real Estate Skills, leverages his experience from a diverse background in real estate investment, construction management, and entrepreneurship to provide comprehensive education in the real estate sector.
His expertise is rooted in hands-on experience, extensive industry knowledge, and a commitment to empowering others through education.
Ryan's journey reflects a blend of practical experience and entrepreneurial success, contributing to his role in developing a platform that educates and supports aspiring real estate professionals.
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