House Flipping Spreadsheet: The Free Investor's Deal Calculator & Rehab Estimator

Written by

Alex Martinez — Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills. Has wholesaled and flipped houses across the country for over a decade, personally acquiring 33+ residential investment properties.

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Reviewed by

Ryan Zomorodi — Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills. Reviewed and verified the deal-analysis math, rehab cost figures, and MAO calculations in this guide before publication.

✓ Updated June 2026 ✓ Fact-Checked 📄 Free Excel Template Inside Watch on YouTube

Publication history: Originally published October 16, 2025. Updated June 2026 with a free interactive rehab cost estimator, a full worked deal example with verified numbers, current 2026 cost ranges, first-hand analysis and rehab guidance from Alex Martinez and builder Henish of Cal HomeCo, and an expanded FAQ. Deal-analysis math and rehab figures verified by Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO of Real Estate Skills.

Most people lose money on a flip before they ever swing a hammer. They overpay at the buy because the math was a guess — the after-repair value was optimistic, the rehab number was light, and the holding costs got ignored until the interest started eating the deal alive. The numbers were always going to catch up; the spreadsheet is just where you catch them first.

That's the whole job of a house flipping spreadsheet. It forces every cost into the open — what you'll pay, what the rehab really runs, what it costs to hold the property while you renovate, and what you'll lose to commissions and closing on the sale — and backs into the one number that matters: the most you can offer and still make money. Get that number right and the deal protects itself. Get it wrong and no amount of hustle on the rehab saves you.

Below, you can run the numbers two ways without paying for anything or handing over your email. There's an interactive rehab estimator to ballpark your repair costs line by line, and a full worked example that takes a real deal from ARV all the way down to the offer price. If you want the complete workbook to keep, you can grab the free Excel template further down. Let's get into it.

How To Analyze A Flip: 3 BIG Numbers You NEED To Make Money!

Alex Martinez walks the full analysis — ARV, repair costs, and MAO — the same one broken down below.

 

What Is a House Flipping Spreadsheet?

Think of it as the deal's control panel. Before you buy, it answers the only question that matters at the offer stage: what's the most I can pay for this house and still make money? After you buy, it switches jobs and becomes the thing that keeps a good deal from quietly turning into a bad one while the walls are open and the money is going out.

Underneath, a working flip spreadsheet is just a few connected sections, each doing one job:

A deal analysis section is where you enter the after-repair value and your repair estimate, and it calculates your maximum allowable offer, your projected profit, and your return. This is the part you use before you ever make an offer — it's the go/no-go.

A rehab estimator breaks the renovation into line items — demo, framing, roof, kitchen, bath, mechanicals, and so on — so your repair number is built from real costs instead of a gut feel. This is where most beginners get burned, because they guess low.

A holding-cost section captures everything it costs to own the property while you renovate and sell it: loan interest, property taxes, insurance, and utilities. These are the costs people forget, and they grow every single day the project runs long.

A budget tracker sits alongside the estimate with three columns — what you budgeted, what you've actually spent, and what you're now projecting — so you can see an overrun forming weeks before it swallows your profit, while you still have time to do something about it.

And a selling-cost section subtracts what it takes to get paid: agent commissions, closing costs, and any concessions to the buyer. These come off the top of your ARV, and leaving them out is how a "$40,000 profit" becomes a $20,000 one at the closing table.

You don't need all of that to start. A single tab that calculates ARV minus rehab, holding, and selling costs will tell you whether a deal works. The rest is what turns a one-deal calculator into a system you can run a business on.

Core Deal Analysis — ARV, MAO & Profit

Everything in a flip analysis reverse-engineers from one number: what the house will sell for after it's fixed up. That's the after-repair value, and it's the ceiling. Every cost — the purchase, the rehab, the loan, the months of holding it, the commissions on the sale — gets subtracted from that ceiling, and whatever's left is your profit. The spreadsheet's job is to make sure there's enough left before you commit.

ARV (After-Repair Value)

The ARV is what your renovated house will sell for, and you find it by pulling comparable sales — recently sold, renovated homes near your subject property with a similar bed/bath count and square footage. Alex's criteria, refined over more than a decade of flips: same bed/bath count, within about 20% of your square footage, sold in the last six months (the more recent the better), in the same zip code, ideally within a half-mile. Find three to five that fit and you can set the ARV with confidence.

A quick example of how clean it gets when the comps line up: on a 3-bed, 2-bath, 1,100 sq ft house, you find three renovated comps that sold at $540,000, $545,000, and $550,000. Average them, and your ARV is $545,000. That's your ceiling — everything else gets subtracted from it.

For the full step-by-step on pulling comps and setting an ARV, see our guide on real estate comps.

Repair Costs

Your repair number is the second of the three, and it's where beginners lose deals before they start — almost always by estimating too low. Once you know your market, the fastest way to ballpark a cosmetic rehab is a dollar-per-square-foot rule. Alex's number for an all-cosmetic fixer — paint, flooring, cabinetry, landscaping, no moving walls, no foundation work — is around $35 a square foot in his area. On the 1,100 sq ft house, that's 1,100 × $35 = $38,500, which he rounds up to $40,000. Five seconds, and you have a working repair number.

That rule is for cosmetic work. The moment a deal needs structural work — a cracked slab, a roof, foundation repair — you estimate the cosmetic rehab and then add those big-ticket items on top, à la carte. A $20,000 slab fix on top of a $40,000 cosmetic rehab makes it a $60,000 number. And if it's your first flip, take the cosmetic deal: the more walls you open, the more can go wrong. (We go much deeper on this below, with a builder who runs 22 projects at a time and his own way of estimating.)

MAO (Maximum Allowable Offer) — The Full Worked Example

Now the third number. The MAO is the most you can pay and still hit your profit, and you get it by stacking up every cost and subtracting it from the ARV. Here's the whole deal, start to finish, using real numbers and Alex's actual cost rules.

We have the ARV at $545,000 and the rehab at $40,000. The plan is a hard money loan covering 90% of the cost (purchase + rehab) at 10% annual interest plus 1 point, held conservatively for six months, with the rest of the cash coming from a private money lender. Here's how the costs stack:

Work it the other way — start at the $545,000 ARV, subtract every cost and your aimed profit of $40,000 — and the math says your true maximum allowable offer is roughly $420,000. That's the ceiling on what you can pay. Alex rounds down and offers $400,000, which builds in a cushion: at that price the deal nets about $46,000, comfortably above the $40,000 target. That cushion is the whole point — if the rehab runs over or the house takes an extra month to sell, you've got room before the deal turns into a loss.

2026 Rehab Cost Estimator & Benchmarks

A flip analysis is only as good as its repair number, and the way you protect that number is by building it from real line items instead of a single gut-feel guess. The estimator below covers the nine categories that show up on almost every flip. Enter your square footage, check the work your project actually needs, and it builds a low-to-high range — then layer on a contingency and a general-contractor fee to see a realistic all-in number. These are Real Estate Skills' own internal cost ranges, current as of 2026; treat them as planning estimates, because real costs swing hard by market, scope, and finish level.

The same ranges, for reference (Real Estate Skills internal estimates, as of 2026; per-square-foot items noted):

Full per-line detail is built into the interactive estimator above. Figures are Real Estate Skills internal planning estimates as of 2026 and vary by market, scope, and finish level — confirm current local pricing before you rely on them.

Cosmetic vs. Full-Gut: Two Ways Pros Estimate

Estimating Rehab Costs For House Flipping (STEP-BY-STEP)!

Ryan Zomorodi with San Diego builder Henish of Cal HomeCo, who runs 22 active projects, on how to estimate a rehab the way a working contractor does.

 

Line items are how you build a precise number. But experienced flippers also carry a fast dollar-per-square-foot rule for the offer stage, and it's worth seeing two different approaches, because they teach you how much the method depends on rehab level and market.

For a cosmetic flip — paint, flooring, cabinets, fixtures, no moving walls — Alex uses roughly $35 a square foot in his market. That's the quick-analysis number that lets you make an offer in seconds.

Henish, who builds in San Diego, works the opposite direction on any house: he starts by assuming everything's broken and budgets about $100 a square foot, then deducts as he confirms what's already been done — new roof, knock off ~$5,000; newer furnace, ~$8,000–$10,000; new windows, ~$10,000. As he puts it, he'd rather start high and subtract than guess low and have to add it back in. His number is higher than Alex's partly because it assumes more scope and partly because San Diego is an expensive, high-finish market — in much of the country, cosmetic work runs well below that. The lesson isn't the specific figure; it's the discipline. Pick a per-square-foot baseline that fits your rehab level and your market, then adjust to what the property actually needs.

A full gut — down to the studs, framing exposed — runs higher: Henish puts it around $150 a square foot, climbing toward $300–$350 near new-construction territory. And the honest warning from a builder who's lived it: he once estimated a $200,000 rehab that came in around $300,000 once they opened the walls and kept finding rotted framing. Which is exactly why you carry a contingency.

Take Your Rehab Numbers From Estimate to Itemized Scope of Work

The estimator above gets you a ballpark. Before you hand the job to contractors, you want every repair itemized — so the bids you get back are apples-to-apples and nobody pads the number with work you didn't ask for. Download our free Scope of Work template (a real Excel spreadsheet) to lay out the full scope of your flip line by line, organize it by trade the way lenders want it for construction draws, and keep your rehab budget under control from demo to final walkthrough. It's the same kind of scope sheet experienced flippers build on every deal.

Budget Tracking — Budgeted vs. Actual vs. Projected

You make your money when you buy, but you keep it by tracking. The analysis tells you a deal works on paper; the budget tracker is what makes sure it still works at the closing table. The mechanism is simple — three columns. Budgeted is what you planned to spend on each line. Actual is what you've really paid. Projected is your honest estimate of where each line lands when it's done. Put them next to each other and the truth shows up fast: if your drywall bid came in high or the house is sitting longer than planned, you watch the money leak in real time instead of discovering it at the end.

The point of seeing it early is that early is when you can still act. A line trending over by week three is a problem you can solve — trim the staging budget, renegotiate a bid, change a finish. The same overrun discovered at the final walkthrough is just a smaller check. Update the tracker weekly, not whenever you remember; delayed data entry is how creeping overruns stay hidden until they're too big to fix.

A few of the most common ways the budget gets away from you:

• Forgetting the soft costs. Agent commissions, escrow fees, permits, and utility deposits don't feel like "rehab," but they add up to real money. Put them in the spreadsheet.
• Underestimating holding costs. Property taxes, insurance, and loan interest usually run longer and higher than you planned. They grow every day the project runs.
• Over-improving for the neighborhood. Don't out-build your comps. Match the finish level your ARV comps actually support — anything fancier is money you won't get back.
• Updating late. Review receipts on a set day each week. The overruns you catch on Friday are the ones you can still fix on Monday.
• Skipping the contingency. Reserve 10–15% for the surprises behind the walls. As the rehab section showed, one foundation or retaining-wall surprise can be the size of your whole profit.

Project Scheduling & Holding Costs

Time is money on a flip in the most literal way. Remember the worked example: that deal carried roughly $19,800 in hard money interest over six months — about $110 a day in loan interest alone — plus taxes, insurance, and utilities running the whole time. Every week the project slips, that meter keeps running against your profit. The schedule isn't paperwork; it's how you protect the margin the analysis promised.

The way pros protect it is by sequencing the work so there are never "dead days" where nobody's on site. You line the trades up so the plumber is ready the moment demo clears, the inspector is booked a week before you need him, and the next crew starts the day the last one finishes. Here's a typical sequence for a standard cosmetic-to-moderate flip:

• Pre-acquisition: confirm your ARV, lock your draw schedule with the lender, set a firm start date.
• Weeks 1–2 — Demo & permits: clear the site, get the dumpster, submit permits the same week (the wait is real, so start it early).
• Weeks 3–4 — Structural: framing, foundation, major roof work before mechanicals.
• Weeks 5–6 — Rough-ins: plumbing, electrical, HVAC; book inspectors a week ahead.
• Weeks 7–8 — Inspections & insulation: pass rough inspections, close up the walls.
• Weeks 9–12 — Drywall, paint, flooring: hang, texture, paint, install hard flooring.
• Weeks 13–16 — Kitchen & bath: cabinets, countertops, fixtures, tile.
• Weeks 17–20 — Trim & lighting: baseboards, doors, fixtures, the punch list.
• Weeks 21–22 — Exterior & landscaping: curb appeal, exterior paint, fencing.
• Weeks 23–24 — Stage & list: deep clean, stage, shoot photos, go live on the MLS.

The thing that separates people who hit their timeline from people who don't isn't hustle — it's looking ahead. Amateurs manage by reaction, calling the next contractor only after the last one leaves, which builds a dead week into every handoff. Run the schedule a couple weeks ahead and those gaps disappear. A standing weekly review — fifteen minutes to update what's done, flag what's slipping, and line up next week's crews — is what keeps the whole thing on rails and the holding costs from quietly eating the deal.

The House Flipping Checklist (Step-by-Step)

Flipping isn't luck; it's a sequence you run the same way every time. Here's the whole thing start to finish, with the part of your spreadsheet that does the heavy lifting at each step — because a checklist that isn't tied to your numbers is just a to-do list.

1. Set your criteria. Decide your price range, target neighborhoods, and the minimum profit you'll accept before you look at a single house. This is your filter — it's what lets you say no fast. (Your buy box: the hard limits everything else gets measured against.)
2. Find deals and pull comps. Source properties from the MLS, wholesalers, or direct mail, then pull comparable sales to set the ARV. (Your comps and ARV section — the ceiling every other number works back from.)
3. Walk the property and estimate repairs. Document every issue room by room and build the repair number from line items, not a glance. (Your rehab estimator — the tool above does exactly this.)
4. Calculate your max offer. With ARV and repairs in hand, subtract holding, financing, and selling costs and your target profit to find your MAO. (Your deal analysis section — the offer price that protects your profit before you negotiate.)
5. Secure funding. Line up hard money, private money, or cash, and forecast your interest and holding costs so you don't run short mid-project. (Your financing and holding-cost section.)
6. Negotiate and sign. Use your numbers to negotiate from a position of certainty, not hope. Confirm the contract allows extensions and, if you're wholesaling, an assignment — that flexibility can save a deal if your lender's funding slips a couple days.
7. Build the rehab schedule. Lay out every task with start and end dates and milestones, so trades never wait on each other. (Your project schedule — the 24-week sequence above.)
8. Track the budget weekly. Compare projected to actual every week and flag overruns early, while you can still act on them. (Your budget tracker — budgeted vs. actual vs. projected.)
9. Manage the rehab. Update progress as the work moves, coordinate trades, book inspections ahead of time, and log every change order so nothing hides from the budget.
10. Stage and list. When the rehab's done, set the listing price against your ARV comps and stage it — staging is one of the highest-ROI moves on a flip, because most buyers can't picture an empty house furnished.
11. Close and analyze. After the sale, put the real numbers in — total cost, net profit, ROI — and compare them to your original estimate. That comparison is how you get better at the next one. (This is the step almost everyone skips, and it's the one that turns one flip into a repeatable business.)

House Flipping Spreadsheet FAQs

Final Thoughts on House Flipping Spreadsheets

A house flipping spreadsheet doesn't make you money. It does something more valuable: it tells you the truth about a deal before your money is on the line. The investors who last in this business aren't the ones with the best instincts or the hottest market — they're the ones who know their numbers cold, so when a deal gets tight, they already know exactly where they stand and what it's worth.

Everything on this page comes back to one idea: you make your money when you buy. Get the ARV honest, build the rehab number from real line items, account for the holding and selling costs everyone forgets, and the offer price protects itself. Skip that work, and you're not flipping — you're gambling with a hammer. The spreadsheet is just where you do the work where it's cheap to be wrong: on paper, before you own anything.

So start there. Run a real deal through the estimator above. Work the ARV-to-offer math on a property you're actually looking at. And when the numbers say a deal only works if you get lucky, believe them and walk — there's always another house, and the best deal you do this year might be the one you don't.

About The Author

Alex Martinez

Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills

Alex Martinez is the Founder and CEO of Real Estate Skills. With more than a decade of investing experience and 33+ residential properties acquired, he has personally wholesaled and flipped houses across the country. Through Real Estate Skills, Alex and his team have helped thousands of students learn how to analyze deals, estimate rehab costs accurately, and close profitable flips.

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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, holding costs, and market values vary widely by location, scope, and time, and the figures here are planning estimates, not guarantees. Real estate investing carries risk, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Always run your own numbers and consult licensed professionals before making any investment decision.