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Deal analysis

BRRRR Calculator

By , Property Rental Calculator

Free calculator for a Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat (BRRRR) deal: how much cash you recover at refinance and how much stays trapped.

Your deal

The purchase and rehab
$
$

Hard-money or cash purchase leaves this at 0.

$

Add a 10 to 15% contingency.

$
$

Your biggest assumption. Base it on real comps.

The refinance and rent
%

Cash-out refis on investment property usually cap at 70 to 75%.

%
yrs
%

Lender fees, appraisal, title. Usually 2 to 5% of the new loan.

$
%

Vacancy, management, maintenance, capex, taxes, insurance.

Results

Estimates only. ARV and rent are assumptions, and lender LTV and rate should come from an actual quote. Not financial advice.

How the refinance recovers your capital

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.

A worked example

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.

The 70% rule and the seasoning catch

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.

Common questions

What LTV will a lender give on a cash-out refinance?

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.

What does an "infinite" return mean?

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.

Is the 70% rule required?

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.

What if my rehab goes over budget?

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.

How this is built and kept current

This calculator was built by Cedrick Reese, a web developer, using the same math investors and lenders use to evaluate a BRRRR deal: refinance loan amount as ARV times LTV, with cash left in the deal being whatever your all-in cost exceeds what that refinance actually returns. The 70% rule and the 12-month refinance seasoning window reflect Fannie Mae's current guidelines for cash-out refinances on investment property, and this tool gets rechecked whenever those lending standards move. The goal is math that matches what a lender would actually tell you at the refinance table, not a rough guess.

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