A BRRRR calculator in Excel is a spreadsheet tool that models all five stages of the Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat strategy — purchase price, rehab budget, rental income, cash-out refinance proceeds, and leftover invested capital — so you know before you close whether a deal actually works.
If you’re eyeing a distressed property and want to know how much cash you’ll get back after the refi, this page walks you through exactly how the calculator works, what inputs it needs, and the one number most beginners miss.
What Is the BRRRR Method (and Why the Math Is Harder Than It Looks)
Buy an undervalued property. Fix it up. Rent it out. Refinance based on the new appraised value. Pull out your original capital. Buy the next one.
That’s the pitch. Simple enough.
The problem is that “pull out your original capital” only works if the numbers line up at every single stage. You need to buy below market. Rehab costs have to stay under budget. The appraisal has to hit your ARV target. The lender has to refinance at 75–80% LTV. All four things, in sequence.
Miss any one of them and you’re either stuck with cash tied up in a property for years, or — worse — you’re negative on a deal you thought was a winner.
That’s the exact gap a BRRRR calculator fills. Not to make the math feel easier, but to show you where the deal breaks before you’ve written a check.
The 5 Inputs Your BRRRR Calculator Needs
Every solid Excel template for BRRRR analysis comes down to five core data points. Get these right and the rest calculates automatically.
1. Purchase Price What you’re paying for the property, before any closing costs. Aim to stay under 70% of ARV minus rehab costs. That formula — (ARV × 0.70) - Rehab Costs — tells you your maximum allowable offer.
2. Rehab Costs Your full renovation budget. Not your optimistic estimate. Your number plus a 15–20% contingency, because rehab projects always find surprises. A leaky crawl space costs the same whether you budgeted for it or not.
3. After Repair Value (ARV) What comparable properties in the same neighborhood are selling for, post-renovation. This is the number lenders use to determine your refinance loan amount. Pull comps from recent sales, not listings — active listings are asking prices, not closing prices.
4. Rental Income and Operating Expenses Monthly gross rent minus vacancy allowance, property management (usually 8–10%), insurance, taxes, maintenance reserves, and any HOA. What’s left is your Net Operating Income. Subtract the refinanced mortgage payment and you have cash flow.
5. Refinance Details The lender’s LTV limit (typically 70–80% of ARV for investment properties), interest rate, and loan term. These determine how much cash you pull out at refi and what your ongoing mortgage payment will be.
How to Read the Results: 3 Numbers That Actually Matter
Once you’ve filled in the inputs, most BRRRR Excel templates spit out a page of metrics. Here’s which three to look at first.
Cash Left in Deal This is total invested capital (purchase + rehab + closing costs + carrying costs) minus cash returned at refinance. Zero means you recycled all your money. Negative means the deal returned more than you put in — rare, but it happens in strong markets.
The goal most experienced investors use: keep cash left in deal under 20% of ARV. That’s the rule that makes the strategy repeatable without constantly raising fresh capital.
Monthly Cash Flow Gross rent minus all operating expenses minus the new mortgage payment. Anything under $100/door per month is thin. Under zero and you’re subsidizing someone else’s housing — which is a charity, not an investment.
Cash-on-Cash Return Annual cash flow divided by total cash left in the deal. If you have $20,000 remaining after refi and cash flow is $3,600/year, that’s an 18% CoC return. Compare this to what you’d earn leaving that $20k elsewhere.
Excel vs. Google Sheets vs. Online BRRRR Calculators
You’ve got three options when it comes to the actual tool. Each has a different tradeoff.
Excel (.xlsx) Works offline. Fully editable. You can build in your own formulas, add scenario tabs for best/base/worst case, and customize the layout to match how you think about deals. The downside: if you’re not comfortable with Excel, debugging broken formulas when something doesn’t add up gets tedious fast.
Google Sheets Same functionality as Excel for most BRRRR calculations, but lives in your browser and shares instantly. Good for teams where a partner, lender, or contractor needs to see the numbers. The version on this page is available in both formats.
Online BRRRR Calculators Fast and zero setup. You fill in the fields and get results immediately. The limitation is that you can’t save scenarios, build projections across multiple properties, or customize inputs. Good for a quick sanity check on a deal, not for building a repeatable analysis process.
For serious deal analysis — especially if you’re evaluating multiple properties per month — the Excel or Google Sheets version wins. You can see the formulas, adjust assumptions in real time, and build a history of deals you’ve analyzed.
The One Mistake That Kills Most BRRRR Deals
It’s not the rehab overrun (though that’s a close second). It’s the ARV estimate.
Most new BRRRR investors build their deal model around the ARV they want rather than the ARV the market will support. They find a property, do the math backward from a number that makes the deal work, and call it an ARV.
Appraisers don’t work that way. They pull closed comps — typically within a half-mile radius, sold in the last 90 days, similar square footage and condition. If your comparable sales don’t support $280k, the appraisal doesn’t come in at $280k, regardless of what your spreadsheet says.
The fix is simple but uncomfortable: run your comps before you calculate your maximum offer, not after. Find 3–5 recent sold properties that match what yours will look like post-rehab. Average those prices. That’s your ARV ceiling.
Then plug that conservative ARV into the calculator and see if the deal still works. If it doesn’t work at a realistic ARV, it doesn’t work.
A Quick Example: Running a Real Deal Through the Calculator
Say you’re looking at a 3-bed, 1-bath in a stable Midwest market.
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | $85,000 |
| Rehab budget | $30,000 |
| Closing costs (purchase) | $3,500 |
| Carrying costs (6 months) | $4,200 |
| Total invested | $122,700 |
| ARV (after rehab) | $185,000 |
| Refinance at 75% LTV | $138,750 |
| Cash returned at refi | $138,750 |
| Cash left in deal | –$16,050 |
In this scenario, the refinance returns more than the total invested — a net positive cash-out deal. You own the rental, collect rent, and freed up capital for the next property.
Monthly cash flow on this deal: $1,450 rent minus $620 mortgage (at 7.25% on $138,750 / 30yr) minus $290 expenses = roughly $540/month.
That’s a functioning BRRRR. Not every market produces numbers like this — higher-cost metros often leave more cash in the deal — but this is the structure you’re solving for.
What to Look for in a Good BRRRR Excel Template
Not all free spreadsheets are built the same. Before downloading one, check that it includes:
- Separate input sections for each phase: buy, rehab, rent, refi
- Automatic ARV-to-max-offer calculation
- Operating expense breakdown (not just a single “expenses” field — you need vacancy, management, maintenance, insurance, and taxes as separate line items)
- Cash-out refi section with LTV slider
- Cash left in deal as a prominent output
- A cash-on-cash return calculation
The ToolCalcPro BRRRR calculator on this page includes all of these. You can download the Excel version, open it in Google Sheets, or use the embedded calculator directly in your browser without downloading anything.
How Often Should You Re-Run the Numbers?
Once before you make an offer. Again after the inspection (rehab costs often shift). Once more after getting actual contractor bids. And once right before you refinance, using the most recent comps from the last 60 days.
Deal analysis isn’t a one-time event. Markets shift. Rehab costs creep. Interest rates change. A deal that worked at 6.5% refinance rates looks different at 7.5%.
The investors who consistently execute BRRRR deals without getting stuck don’t have better intuition — they just run the numbers more often, at every stage, before they commit the next dollar.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a BRRRR calculator in Excel?
A BRRRR Excel calculator is a spreadsheet that models the Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat investment strategy. You enter purchase price, rehab budget, ARV, rental income, and refinance details. The spreadsheet calculates cash flow, cash-out proceeds, cash left in the deal, and return metrics like cash-on-cash return.
What is the 70% rule in BRRRR?
The 70% rule says your total investment (purchase + rehab + closing costs) shouldn’t exceed 70% of the ARV. So on a property with a $200,000 ARV and $40,000 in needed repairs: maximum offer = ($200,000 × 0.70) − $40,000 = $100,000.
Can I use the BRRRR method with a conventional loan?
Most investors start with hard money or private lending for the purchase and rehab, then refinance into a conventional or DSCR loan once the property is stabilized. Conventional loans for investment properties typically require 20–25% down and won’t fund the rehab phase.
How long should I wait before refinancing a BRRRR property?
Most lenders require a seasoning period of 6–12 months before doing a cash-out refinance. Some portfolio lenders and DSCR lenders allow refinancing sooner. Check your lender’s specific guidelines before assuming a shorter timeline.
What’s a realistic cash-on-cash return for BRRRR investing?
Most experienced BRRRR investors target 8–12% cash-on-cash return on the capital left in the deal. Deals in high-cash-flow markets (Midwest, Southeast secondary cities) can hit 15–20%. Markets with higher appreciation potential typically produce lower CoC in exchange for equity upside.
Use the Calculator
The BRRRR calculator at the top of this page runs all the above calculations in real time. Enter your deal numbers and it immediately shows cash left in the deal, monthly cash flow, and whether the deal hits your return targets.
Download the Excel version to save your analysis, model best-case and worst-case scenarios side by side, and build a deal-tracking history across multiple properties.