Free investor tool

BRRRR Calculator

Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. Enter your purchase, rehab, after-repair value, rent, and refinance terms to see the number that makes BRRRR work — how much cash you leave in the deal after the cash-out refinance — plus your cash-on-cash return, monthly cash flow, and cap rate.

Pre-filled with an example Phoenix BRRRR — edit any field. Estimates are for screening; verify with your own comps, an appraiser, and a contractor bid.

How the BRRRR calculator works

The BRRRR strategy — Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat — recycles one pile of cash into many rentals. The whole model hinges on the cash-out refinance: after you rehab, the bank lends against the new appraised value (the ARV), and you pull most of your money back out to do it again. This calculator turns your inputs into the figures that decide a BRRRR deal:

• Cash left in the deal = (purchase + rehab) − refinance loan. The lower this is, the more capital you recycle. When the loan covers your all-in cost, you've pulled all your cash back out — the BRRRR ideal.
• Refinance loan = ARV × your LTV (commonly 70–75%).
• Monthly cash flow = rent − operating expenses − the new mortgage payment.
• Cash-on-cash return = annual cash flow ÷ cash left in the deal. When little or no cash is left, the return is effectively infinite — the headline appeal of BRRRR.
• Cap rate = annual net operating income ÷ ARV. It ignores financing, so it's the clean apples-to-apples yield of the property itself.

What is a good cash-on-cash return for BRRRR?

Because BRRRR aims to leave little cash in the deal, the cash-on-cash number can swing wildly — and that's the point. Many investors target 8%+ cash-on-cash on a buy-and-hold rental; in a clean BRRRR where you recover most of your capital, the return is far higher, and once you pull all your cash out it becomes infinite. The calculator flags this: green when you recover most of your cash and the property cash-flows positively; amber when cash flow is thin or a lot of capital stays trapped; red when the rental loses money each month at these numbers.

What is a cap rate?

The capitalization rate is the property's annual net operating income (NOI) divided by its value — here, the ARV. NOI is rent minus operating expenses, before any mortgage. Cap rate lets you compare two rentals on equal footing regardless of how each is financed. This calculator estimates operating expenses as a percentage of rent (the "expense ratio"); for screening, 30–40% is a common range, but verify taxes, insurance, and management for your specific property.

From a calculator to actual deals

A calculator tells you whether a BRRRR works. It doesn't find the property priced low enough to leave no cash in the deal — that's the real bottleneck. DevelopmentIntelligence scores every parcel in your market for teardown, value-add, rental, and commercial upside from public county data, then hands you the mispriced, often off-market ones — with the ARV, rehab, and rent already filled in. Analyze a real Phoenix parcel →

BRRRR calculator FAQ

What does BRRRR stand for?

BRRRR stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat — a real-estate investing strategy where you buy a distressed property, renovate it, rent it out, refinance against the higher after-repair value to recover your capital, then repeat the cycle on the next property.

How do you calculate cash left in a BRRRR deal?

Cash left in the deal equals your all-in cost (purchase price plus rehab) minus the cash-out refinance loan (ARV × your loan-to-value). If the refinance loan equals or exceeds your all-in cost, you've recovered all of your cash — the goal of a clean BRRRR.

What is a good LTV for a BRRRR refinance?

Most lenders offer 70–75% loan-to-value on a cash-out refinance of an investment property. A higher LTV returns more of your cash but raises the loan balance and the monthly payment, which lowers cash flow.

What's the difference between cash-on-cash return and cap rate?

Cash-on-cash return measures your annual cash flow against the cash you actually left in the deal, so it reflects financing. Cap rate measures net operating income against the property value and ignores financing, so it describes the property's unlevered yield.

How accurate is a BRRRR calculator?

The math is exact — accuracy depends entirely on your inputs. The ARV (which sets your refinance) and the market rent are where BRRRR deals are won or lost, which is why DevelopmentIntelligence grounds both in real comps and market-rent data rather than guesses.

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