ARV Calculator

How to use the ARV calculator, step by step

1. 1

   Enter your property's living area

   That's the heated and cooled square footage — you can find it on the county property appraiser's website or any listing site. Don't count the garage or an unfinished basement.

2. 2

   Estimate the renovation budget

   Everything it will take to get the house to sell-ready condition — kitchen, baths, flooring, paint, roof, systems — plus a 10–15% cushion for the surprises every renovation has. A contractor walkthrough is worth far more than guessing here.

3. 3

   Find your comparable sales

   On any listing site or your county property appraiser's search, look up sold homes near your property — ideally within half a mile and the last 90 days, and about the same size. Then open each listing's photos: you only want homes that were already fixed up when they sold, because that's what your house will be competing with. Three to six good ones is plenty.

4. 4

   Enter each comp's price and size

   Type in the sale price and square footage for each one (use "Add comp" for more rows). The calculator shows the price per square foot next to each comp as you go — if one is way out of line with the others, double-check it before trusting the average.

5. 5

   Read your ARV

   The big green number is your after-repair value: the average price per square foot of your comps, multiplied by your property's size. It updates instantly as you change anything.

6. 6

   Check your maximum offer and the cash you'll need

   The maximum-offer panel applies the 70% rule to tell you the most you should pay (adjust the percentage to match your market), and the cash panel estimates what you'd bring to closing — down payment plus closing costs — if you bought at that price.

What is ARV?

After-repair value is what a house will be worth once the renovation is finished. Every other number in a fix-and-flip project gets measured against it — what you pay for the house, what you spend fixing it, and what's left over as profit. That's why it's worth estimating carefully: get the ARV wrong by 10% and the profit is usually gone.

How to choose your comps

The calculator is only as good as the comps you feed it. The standard screen:

• Sold, not listed — asking prices are opinions; closed sales are evidence.
• Close and recent — within ~½ mile and ~90 days, same school zone and street character if possible.
• Similar size — within ±20% of your square footage, comparable beds/baths; price per square foot skews on very small or large homes.
• Renovated condition — this is the one people miss. Your comps need to look the way your house will look after the renovation. Sales of dated or run-down homes tell you what to pay today, not what the finished house will be worth.

Three to six comps that pass the screen beat a dozen loose ones. If two comps disagree wildly, find out why — a busy road, a school boundary, a bigger lot — before averaging away the difference.

An example, start to finish

Say you're looking at a 1,450-square-foot house that needs work. Three similar homes nearby — already fixed up — sold recently: one for $285,000, one for $310,000, and one for $265,000. The prices differ because the houses are different sizes, so put them on equal footing by dividing each price by the home's square footage. All three come out around $204 per square foot.

If fixed-up homes in this neighborhood sell for about $204 per square foot, yours should too once it's renovated: 1,450 sqft × $204 ≈ $295,500. That's the after-repair value — what the house should be worth when the work is done.

Now, what should you pay for it today? Suppose the renovation will cost $45,000. The 70% rule says: take 70% of the ARV (about $206,850), then subtract the renovation cost. That leaves $161,850 — the most you should offer. The 30% you held back isn't all profit: it has to cover closing costs when you buy, holding costs while you renovate, selling costs at the end, and the profit that makes the whole project worth doing.

Three mistakes that sink ARV estimates

• Using automated home-value estimates as comps — automated estimates can't tell a renovated house from a dated one, so they blend both into one number. Use actual sold prices of homes you've confirmed were in fixed-up condition.
• Letting one fancy sale skew the average — a single home with a pool and a designer kitchen can pull your whole estimate up. If one comp sold for far more than the others, find out why before you count it — and when in doubt, leave out the high sale, not the low one.
• Forgetting the appraiser comes last — whoever buys the finished house will likely need a mortgage, and their bank sends an appraiser who runs this same comparison. If your ARV is more optimistic than what those comps support, the sale price you're counting on won't survive that appraisal.

ARV FAQs