BRRRR Calculator
Model a Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat deal from purchase through the cash-out refinance. Enter your numbers below to instantly see total cash in, the refinance loan amount and proceeds, the cash left in the deal, post-refinance monthly cash flow, and the resulting cash-on-cash return.
The BRRRR Strategy: Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat
BRRRR is a rental-investing strategy built around buying a property below its potential value, funding the purchase and renovation with cash (or short-term financing), stabilizing it as a rental, and then refinancing against its new, post-rehab appraised value — the after-repair value, or ARV. Because the refinance is sized off ARV rather than the original purchase price, a well-executed deal can return most or all of the investor's original cash, freeing it up to repeat the process on the next property. If you're deciding between this exit and simply selling the flip, the fix and flip profit calculator models that alternative from the same purchase price.
Total Cash In
Total cash in is everything spent before the refinance closes: the purchase price, the rehab budget, and holding costs (financing, taxes, insurance, and utilities during the renovation and lease-up period). This calculator treats the initial purchase and rehab as an all-cash outlay, the common BRRRR assumption, so this figure is the full amount at risk before any loan proceeds come back.
Refinance Loan Amount and Proceeds
The refinance loan amount is the after-repair value multiplied by the lender's loan-to-value (LTV) ceiling — not the purchase price and not the total cash invested. Because the property was bought with cash, there is no existing mortgage for the new loan to pay off, so the entire loan amount becomes refinance proceeds paid out to the investor. For a look at whether the same purchase price and rehab budget might instead be run as a screening check before you ever get to the refinance step, the 70% rule calculator covers that earlier stage of the same deal.
Refinance Proceeds = Refinance Loan Amount
Cash Left in the Deal
Cash left in the deal is total cash in minus refinance proceeds. A positive number is ordinary: some of your original cash remains tied up in the property after the refinance. A number at or near zero means you have pulled essentially all of your original cash back out while still owning a cash-flowing rental — the outcome BRRRR investors are aiming for. A negative number means the refinance returned more cash than you originally invested; this calculator deliberately does not clamp that figure at zero, because hiding it would hide the exact result the strategy is built to produce.
Post-Refinance Monthly Cash Flow
Once the refinance closes, monthly cash flow is collected rent minus the new loan's payment, property tax, insurance, HOA, maintenance, and property management — the same expense convention used across this site's other rental calculators, including the rental property ROI calculator: maintenance is charged on gross rent, and management is charged on the rent actually collected after vacancy.
Cash-on-Cash Return When Little or No Cash Is Left In
Cash-on-cash return is normally annual cash flow divided by cash invested. That math only makes sense when cash invested is a positive number. When cash left in the deal comes out at zero or below, this calculator does not compute a percentage at all — instead of printing an infinite, negative, or otherwise misleading figure, it reports the situation in plain language: you have gotten all of your original cash back (or more), and the property is now generating cash flow on capital you no longer have invested in it.
Worked Example
Consider buying a distressed property for $150,000, budgeting $40,000 for rehab and $6,000 in holding costs during the renovation, targeting a $260,000 after-repair value. After the rehab, the investor refinances at 75% LTV, 7% interest, over 30 years, and rents the unit for $2,200/month with a 5% vacancy allowance, $2,400/year in property tax, $1,200/year in insurance, no HOA, 8% of gross rent for maintenance, and 8% of effective rent for property management.
Inputs Used
- Purchase Price: $150,000
- Rehab Cost: $40,000
- Holding Costs: $6,000
- ARV (After Repair Value): $260,000
- Refinance LTV: 75%
- Refinance Interest Rate: 7%
- Refinance Term: 30 years
- Monthly Rent: $2,200
- Vacancy Rate: 5%
- Property Tax: $2,400/yr
- Insurance: $1,200/yr
- HOA: $0/mo
- Maintenance: 8% of gross rent
- Property Management: 8% of effective rent
Computed Result
- Total Cash In: $196,000
- Refinance Loan Amount: $195,000
- Refinance Proceeds: $195,000
- Cash Left in Deal: $1,000
- Post-Refi Monthly Cash Flow: $149
- Cash-on-Cash Return: 179.35%
How to Read This Result
This example refinances at 75% of a $260,000 ARV, producing $195,000 in proceeds against $196,000 in total cash in — leaving only $1,000 in the deal, close to getting every dollar back out. Because that residual is still positive, the cash-on-cash return can be computed normally and comes out to 179.35%, a large percentage precisely because the denominator (cash left in) is so small — a hallmark of a well-executed BRRRR deal, not a guarantee every deal will pencil out this cleanly. Raise the refinance LTV slightly above 75% to see cash left in the deal reach zero or turn negative, at which point the percentage return stops being a meaningful number.
BRRRR Calculator FAQs
Why is the refinance loan based on ARV instead of the purchase price?
BRRRR works by buying below the after-repair value and then refinancing against that higher, post-rehab appraisal — not the original purchase price. Sizing the new loan off ARV rather than purchase price is exactly what lets a successful deal return most or all of the investor's original cash at refinance.
What does "cash left in the deal" mean, and why can it be negative?
It is your total cash outlay (purchase price, rehab, and holding costs) minus what the refinance pays you out. A negative number means the refinance handed back more cash than you put in — you have recovered your entire investment and then some, which BRRRR investors sometimes describe loosely as an "infinite return," since you now have positive cash flow on money you no longer have invested in the deal. This calculator does not floor that figure at zero: a negative cash-left-in is the strategy working as intended, not an error.
Why doesn't the calculator show a cash-on-cash percentage when cash left in the deal is zero or negative?
Cash-on-cash return is cash flow divided by cash invested. When cash invested is zero or negative, that division no longer means anything as a percentage — there is no meaningful "return on" money you don't have left in the deal (or that came back to you with interest). Rather than print a distorted or meaningless number, this calculator explains the outcome in words instead.
Why is maintenance calculated on gross rent but management on effective rent?
This calculator follows the common convention that maintenance costs (repairs, upkeep) scale with the unit's full rental value regardless of vacancy, while a property manager's fee is typically a percentage of the rent actually collected, since that is what they are being paid out of.