Calculators › BRRRR Calculator
Deal analysisModel a Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat deal and see the number that actually matters: how much of your cash you recover at the refinance, and how much stays trapped in the property. Enter your figures below and the results update as you type.
Your deal
Enter a purchase price, ARV, rent, and term to see results.
Estimates only. ARV and rent are assumptions, and lender LTV and rate should come from an actual quote. Not financial advice.
The whole point of BRRRR is not one deal, it is recycling the same cash into the next one. After you force up the value with renovation, a cash-out refinance is sized against the after-repair value, not what you paid. Refinance loan = ARV × LTV. The cash you pull out is that new loan minus any acquisition loan you pay off and minus refinance costs. Whatever you cannot pull back is your cash left in the deal.
When cash left in the deal reaches zero or goes negative, you have recovered everything you invested while still owning a cash-flowing rental, which makes the cash-on-cash return effectively infinite. That is the outcome the strategy is built around.
Buy at $195,000, put $50,000 into rehab and $5,000 into closing and holding, for an all-in of $250,000. The property appraises at a $300,000 ARV. Refinance at 75% LTV gives a new loan of $225,000; after roughly $6,750 in refinance costs you pull out about $218,250. With no acquisition loan to repay, your cash left in the deal is about $31,750, a recycle of roughly 87%. Tighten the purchase price or rehab and that trapped cash drops toward zero.
A common guardrail is the 70% rule: pay no more than ARV × 0.70 minus rehab, which is the maximum-allowable-offer figure shown in the results. Buying at or below that price is what usually lets a 75% LTV refinance return most of your capital. One timing note: since April 2023, Fannie Mae has required 12 months of ownership seasoning before a cash-out refinance on an investment property, so the "repeat" step is slower than it used to be.
Most conventional cash-out refinances on investment property cap at 70 to 75% of the appraised value, per Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines. Some portfolio and DSCR lenders go to 80%. Use the number your lender actually quoted, not the best case.
If the refinance returns all of the cash you invested, you have zero of your own money left in the property. Cash-on-cash divides annual cash flow by cash invested, and dividing by zero is mathematically infinite, so the return is described that way as long as the property still cash flows.
No. It is a screening guideline, not a law. A deal that leaves some cash in can still be a fine long-term rental. It just ties up more capital and slows how quickly you can repeat.
Cost overruns come straight out of the capital you recover at refinance, because your all-in cost rises while the ARV does not. A 10 to 15% contingency in the rehab budget protects the recycle.
Ready Utilities was founded by Cedrick Reese, a retired veteran and web developer who enjoys building free, user-friendly online tools that simplify everyday tasks. My journey began in the early 2000s with affiliate marketing and niche site development, which grew into a passion for creating practical digital utilities and calculators. After retiring, I earned a Computer Systems Technician certificate from UEI College, completed Electro-Mechanical Technologies at Tulsa Welding School, and finished the Carpentry program at Florida State College at Jacksonville. Today, I combine my technical background and craftsmanship by building furniture using traditional woodworking methods, gardening, and developing helpful online tools for users worldwide.