Home / Calculators / Rehab cost calculator
Rehab cost calculator.
A budget built from area and scope. The starting point for a conversation with a contractor, not a substitute for one.
Your deal, in focus
See how the numbers move.
Adjust the assumptions to explore your deal. Your estimate updates as you go.
This is a starting scope estimate using fixed sample unit costs. It is not a contractor bid, and does not cover every repair category or local labor market.
Use nonnegative figures. Financing shares and rental expense allowances cannot exceed 100%. Loan limits depend on the value or cost basis shown beside each field.
Assumptions behind this estimate
Unit costs are illustrative starting estimates rather than local bids or my terms or a contractor's quote: paint at $3.25 and flooring at $6.50 a foot, a kitchen at $19,500, a bathroom at $9,500. Permits, dumpsters and temporary utilities are added at 8% of the hard costs. Paint and flooring are scoped by area rather than assumed across the whole property, so a refresh that keeps the floors is priced by setting that area to zero. Finished square feet stays the denominator for the rate below whatever you scope. Leave a line at zero and it drops out. Check the itemized scope and local bids as well as cost per square foot, and the budget it produces is what belongs in the rehab field of the other tools.
Rehab budget
Your numbers at a glance
Each bar compares an amount. Bars are not portions of a total.
Estimate only, based on the figures you entered. Not a quote, an approval, an appraisal or a commitment to lend, and subject to underwriting.
$84,021, or $60.02 per finished square foot for the items entered. These are illustrative unit costs, not local bids. A cost per foot cannot determine whether the scope is complete. Check demolition, structure, exterior work, labor, permits, and contractor overhead against an itemized bid.
Scope, sample unit costs, and contingency drive this budget. This is a cost estimate, not a loan-sizing tool. Confirm it against contractor bids.
Save these numbers, then adjust your inputs above.
Get terms on this deal
Estimate only, based on the figures you entered. Not a quote, an approval, an appraisal or a commitment to lend, and subject to underwriting.
This sends the numbers above straight to me for a person to underwrite. You get an initial written response in 24 to 48 hours, and a straight answer either way. Terms, if offered, are subject to underwriting and approval.
How to read it
What the number means.
A rehab budget is the document a lender reads most carefully, because it is the one that decides whether the project finishes. A number with a word in front of it, full gut or cosmetic, is not a budget. It is a hope with a label.
What this produces is a defensible starting figure from area and scope, which is the right shape for testing a deal before you have contractor bids in hand. It is not a bid and it cannot see your property.
The line that sinks most first projects is not a price that was too low on any single item. It is the absence of a contingency, because something behind a wall is always different from what the walkthrough suggested.
Questions
Understanding your results.
How much contingency should I carry?
Enough that one surprise does not end the project. Older housing stock and anything involving systems rather than finishes deserves more, because that is where the unpleasant discoveries live.
Does a lender accept an estimate like this?
As a starting point for a conversation, yes. Before funding, what gets read is a real scope of work with a contractor's numbers broken out by line, because that is the document that can be drawn against.
Why does cost per square foot vary so much?
Because the same square foot costs a different amount depending on whether you are painting it or moving plumbing through it. Scope drives the number far harder than area does.
Should the budget include permits?
Yes, along with dumpsters, temporary utilities and anything else that is not a finish. Budgets that only count visible work are the ones that run out before the visible work is done.
Method
Where these numbers come from.
What a rehab actually costs per square foot
Rehab is the number investors get wrong most. Here is what each level of work costs per foot, and why the rate is easier to check than the total.
Contractor bids: what a lender checks before funding a rehab
Bids get reviewed before close, not after. What that review is actually looking for, and why the cheapest bid is usually the one that fails it.
What a lender needs before releasing a rehab draw
A draw request is a documentation exercise, not a negotiation. Here is the checklist, and why incomplete requests are the most common cause of slow draws.
Other tools
The rest of them.
Maximum offer calculator, Rental cash-flow calculator, Cash-out refinance calculator, Hard money loan calculator, Fix and flip calculator, ARV calculator, BRRRR calculator, DSCR calculator, Construction loan calculator, Rental portfolio calculator, Transactional funding calculator.
This is an estimating tool. It runs arithmetic on the figures you enter using the assumptions stated above, and changing an assumption changes the answer. The result is not a quote, an approval, an appraisal, a valuation, or a prediction of what a property will sell for, and it does not commit anyone to lend. Costs, taxes and market conditions vary by location and change over time. Check the numbers that matter against your own contractor, agent and professional advisers before you commit to a deal.
When the numbers work
Get it underwritten.
A calculator cannot see your property. Estimate only, based on the figures you entered. Not a quote, an approval, an appraisal or a commitment to lend, and subject to underwriting. Send the deal and a person reads it: you get an initial written response in 24 to 48 hours, and a straight answer either way. Terms, if offered, are subject to underwriting and approval. No credit pull to get an answer.