BRRRR Calculator – Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat

A BRRRR calculator for the buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat strategy. Enter your purchase price, optional acquisition loan, rehab budget, closing and holding costs, after-repair value (ARV), refinance terms and costs, plus an itemized rental income and operating-expense model. The deal analyzer instantly shows total cash out of pocket, the new refinance loan, cash left in the deal, NOI, DSCR, cash flow, and cash-on-cash return — all in your browser.

🔒 Pure browser calculation — nothing is uploaded.

Buy & rehab

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Non-loan carrying costs over the rehab period.
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Acquisition financing (leave loan at $0 for all-cash)

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Refinance

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Rent & operating expenses

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Your BRRRR deal

Total cash out of pocket—
New refinance loan (ARV × LTV)—
Cash pulled out (loan − refi costs)—
Cash left in deal—
Net operating income (NOI, monthly)—
Net operating income (NOI, annual)—
Monthly mortgage payment (P&I)—
DSCR (NOI ÷ debt service)—
Monthly cash flow—
Annual cash flow—
Cash-on-cash return—

The goal of BRRRR is to drive "cash left in deal" toward zero so you recover your capital and recycle it. A negative figure means you pulled out more than you put in — cash-on-cash then reads as Infinite — all capital recovered. Aim for a DSCR of about 1.2 or higher so the refinance qualifies.

How to use the BRRRR calculator

The buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat strategy turns one pool of money into a growing portfolio of rentals. You buy a property below market, renovate it to lift the appraised value, place a tenant, then do a cash-out refinance against the higher after-repair value. The refinance returns most or all of the cash you sank in, and you repeat the cycle. This deal analyzer models that exact sequence — including acquisition financing and refinance costs — so you can tell, before you make an offer, how much capital you'll get back and what the property will earn afterward.

Start with everything that goes in: purchase price, rehab budget, purchase closing costs, and holding costs. If you buy with a short-term or hard-money loan, enter that loan amount, its rate, points, and your hold period — the calculator accrues the interest over those months and subtracts the loan principal, since the lender fronts it, to find your true cash out of pocket. Leave the loan at $0 to model an all-cash purchase. The tool then sizes the new loan as ARV × refinance LTV — typically 70–75% — subtracts your refinance costs to get the cash you actually pull out, and reveals the cash left in the deal. The closer that lands to zero (or below it), the more cleanly the deal recycles your money.

On the income side, the tool builds net operating income from an itemized rental model: gross rent plus other income, less a vacancy allowance, less management, maintenance, capex, taxes, insurance, and HOA. NOI deliberately excludes the mortgage. It then amortizes the new loan, reports DSCR (NOI ÷ debt service) so you know whether a refinance lender will qualify the deal, and nets NOI against the mortgage for monthly and annual cash flow. Cash-on-cash return is that annual cash flow divided by the cash still trapped in the deal. When the refinance returns everything, there's no trapped capital to divide by, so the return is reported as infinite — the textbook BRRRR outcome of an income-producing rental you own with none of your own money left inside it.

Run the same property other ways before you commit: check the simple return on your trapped capital with the cash-on-cash return calculator, compare the unleveraged operating return with the cap rate calculator, sanity-check your maximum purchase price with the 70% rule calculator, and browse every tool in the real estate investment calculators hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

BRRRR stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. You buy an undervalued property (often with cash or a short-term loan), renovate it to raise its value, rent it to a tenant, then do a cash-out refinance against the new after-repair value to pull most or all of your capital back out. With that recovered cash you repeat the cycle on the next property — recycling one pool of money across many rentals instead of saving a fresh down payment each time.

Enter every dollar going in — purchase price, any acquisition loan, rehab cost, purchase closing costs, holding costs, plus the interest and points on your acquisition financing — and the calculator works out your total cash out of pocket during the hold. It then sizes the refinance loan as ARV × your refinance LTV, subtracts your refinance costs to find the cash you pull out, and shows what's left in the deal. Finally it builds net operating income from an itemized rental model, amortizes the new mortgage, and reports NOI, DSCR, monthly cash flow, and cash-on-cash return.

It's your total cash out of pocket minus the money you pull out at the refinance: cash left = total cash in − cash pulled out, where cash pulled out is the new loan minus refinance closing costs. This is the real number a BRRRR investor watches. If the refinance returns more than everything you put in, the figure goes negative — you've recovered all your capital plus extra, and the calculator reports an infinite cash-on-cash return because you have zero of your own money trapped in the property.

If you buy with a short-term loan or hard money instead of all cash, only the gap between costs and that loan actually leaves your pocket. Enter the purchase loan amount, its interest rate, points, and how many months you hold before refinancing. The calculator adds the accrued acquisition interest = loan × rate × months ÷ 12 and points = loan × points% to your costs, then subtracts the loan principal — because the lender fronts that — to get your true cash out of pocket. Set the loan to $0 to model an all-cash purchase.

ARV is the after-repair value — what the property will appraise for once renovations are finished, based on recent sales of comparable updated homes nearby. The refinance lender lends a percentage of that ARV, so a higher ARV means a bigger loan and more cash back in your pocket. Overestimate it and the appraisal comes in low, your refinance shrinks, and more of your cash stays stuck in the deal. Confirm ARV with solid comps or an appraiser before committing.

Most lenders cap a cash-out refinance on an investment property at 70–75% of ARV, so 75% is the default here. A few portfolio or commercial lenders go to 80%; conservative lenders or higher-rate environments may hold you to 70%. The LTV is the single biggest lever on how much capital you recover — drop it five points and watch the cash left in the deal climb. Set it to whatever your lender has actually quoted, not the best case.

The refinance isn't free — expect lender fees, an appraisal, title, and often a point or two, which together typically run 2–5% of the new loan. Those costs come out of the cash you pull at closing: cash pulled out = new loan − refinance costs. Investors who model only the gross loan overstate how much capital they actually recover. Enter your real estimated refinance costs so the cash-left-in-deal figure reflects what truly lands in your account.

DSCR is the debt-service coverage ratio: DSCR = annual NOI ÷ annual mortgage (P&I). It tells a lender whether the property's net operating income covers the loan payment. A DSCR of 1.0 means NOI exactly equals debt service; most DSCR-loan lenders want 1.20–1.25 or higher so there's a cushion. Below 1.0 the rental loses money before any vacancy. This calculator computes DSCR from your itemized rental model so you can see whether a refinance will actually qualify.

Holding costs are everything you pay to own the property while it's being renovated and not yet rented: property taxes, insurance, utilities, and HOA dues for the rehab period. If you're using acquisition financing, enter that loan's interest separately (rate, points, and months) so the calculator accrues it over the hold — keep the holding-costs field for the non-loan carrying costs. On a multi-month flip-to-rent these add up, and they count as cash in because you fund them before the refinance.

It uses a standard itemized model instead of a single lump sum, so it stays consistent with our other rental tools. Gross income is monthly rent plus other income; subtract a vacancy allowance to get effective gross income. Operating expenses are management, maintenance, and capex (each a percentage of rent), plus property tax, insurance, and HOA. NOI = effective gross income − operating expenses, and it deliberately excludes the mortgage, income tax, and depreciation — those aren't operating costs.

Not necessarily. A negative or zero "cash left in deal" is the BRRRR goal — it means the refinance returned all your capital. The calculator treats that as an infinite return, which is excellent. What you don't want is positive cash left in the deal combined with a low single-digit cash-on-cash return, negative monthly cash flow, or a DSCR below about 1.2 — those signal you overpaid, under-rehabbed value, or the refinance loan was too small.

No. This BRRRR calculator is pure client-side JavaScript — your purchase price, rehab budget, ARV, rent, and every other figure stay in your browser and are never uploaded, logged, or stored. It keeps working offline once the page has loaded.