A feasibility study template for an Australian property flip

This is a feasibility study template for a property flip in Australia, built from the sums I actually run before I make an offer. Not a fillable PDF, a framework: the questions a feasibility has to answer, the strategies worth testing on the block, and the line-by-line inputs that decide whether the deal pays or quietly loses you money. Copy it into a spreadsheet, or let the app do it, but run something like it on every property before you bid.

A feasibility study is just the answer to one question, in numbers: if I buy this at that price, do the work and sell it, what do I walk away with, and is that enough for the risk. Everything below is how you get to a number you can trust. General information only, not financial advice, but it is the exact order I work in.

What a feasibility study has to answer

A good feasibility answers four things, and if any one is missing the whole thing is a guess.

The first is the end value. What does the finished property sell for, based on real comparable sales, not what you hope. The second is total cost, every dollar in, from the purchase price through the last coat of paint and the agent's commission. The third is the margin, the gap between those two, and whether it clears a buffer big enough to survive a slow sale or a reno blowout. The fourth is time, because a flip that makes $80,000 in six months and one that makes $80,000 in eighteen are not the same deal once you count the carry.

Most spreadsheets nail the first two and skip the last two. They tell you the profit on paper and go quiet on whether that profit is worth the months and the risk. The point of the template is to force all four out into the open before you commit.

The strategies worth testing on one address

Here is the mistake I made early: I would look at a house, decide it was a cosmetic flip, and run the numbers for a cosmetic flip. One strategy, one answer. But the same address is often several deals wearing one price tag, and the winner is not always the obvious one.

A tired three-bedder on a big corner block might be a paint-and-kitchen refresh, or a full renovation, or a subdivision, or a granny-flat play, or a knock-down and rebuild. Each of those has its own cost stack, its own end value and its own timeline, and until you have run them side by side you do not actually know which one you are buying. The multi-strategy feasibility is built around exactly this: it takes one property and runs the strategies the block could actually support, so you pick the play that pays instead of defaulting to the first one you thought of.

The realistic set for a solo flipper or small developer is a cosmetic flip, a full renovation, a subdivision where the lot and zoning allow it, a granny flat or dual occupancy, and a strata conversion at the higher-complexity end. Which of those are even legal on a given block comes down to the zone, the minimum lot size and frontage, and the overlays, which is why the feasibility and the full property analysis pull the council rules in rather than leaving you to guess. Run every strategy the property supports. The one that wins is often not the one you walked in expecting.

The line-by-line inputs (the template)

This is the spine of the template. Fill every line, and be pessimistic where you are unsure, because the costs are the part that bites.

Purchase costs

• Purchase price (your realistic offer, not the asking)
• Stamp duty for your state, due in cash at settlement, not rolled into the loan. Model it on the stamp duty calculator rather than guessing.
• Conveyancing and searches (roughly $1,200 to $3,500)
• Building and pest inspection (roughly $400 to $800)

Renovation costs

• Reno budget by scope, priced properly per square metre for the work, not a round number. The renovation cost calculator breaks the scope tiers down.
• A contingency on top, 10% as a floor and 15 to 20% on an older or unknown property. This line is not optional. It is the difference between a plan and a wish.

Holding costs

• Interest on the loan for a realistic hold, not your best-case one
• Council rates, water, insurance and utilities for the whole period
• These quietly compound the longer you hold, so model six to nine months, not the four you are hoping for. I have walked through a six-month carry line by line if you want the detail.

Selling costs

• Agent commission (commonly around 2 to 2.5% in metro areas)
• Marketing, styling and conveyancing on the way out

The end value and the tax

• Expected sale price, from comparable sales of finished properties, kept conservative
• Tax, because a genuine flip is taxed as ordinary income, not as a capital gain, so the profit line you care about is the after-tax one

Add the four cost blocks together, subtract them and the tax from the sale price, and you have your net profit. Divide that by the total cash and time in, and you have your return. That is the whole feasibility. The flip ROI calculator does this arithmetic for you and lets you flex the inputs, which is where the real value is: not the single answer, but watching what happens to the margin when the reno runs 15% over or the sale takes two months longer.

From spreadsheet to app

A spreadsheet template is a fine place to start, and for a long time it was all I used. Its limits show up in two places. It only ever runs the one strategy you built it for, so the subdivision-versus-renovation comparison lives in your head instead of on the page. And it has no idea what the council will let you build, so the zoning, the minimum lot size and the flood or bushfire overlays, the things that decide whether a strategy is even possible, sit outside the numbers entirely.

That is the gap the app closes. It runs every strategy the property supports on the one address, pulls the council rules and overlays in for NSW, VIC and QLD, and gives you the after-cost, after-tax number for each play side by side. FlipPro is free to search and browse, and a single property's full analysis is one credit, so you can put a real deal through the whole framework and see the same maths worked end to end on an actual property before you decide whether the tool earns its keep. The pricing is a credit model rather than a per-feature lockout, so the feasibility is not gated behind a tier.

Whichever way you run it, the discipline is the same. Fill every line, test every strategy the block allows, be honest about the costs and the time, and let the margin, not the excitement of a good-looking house, make the call. If you want the feasibility in the context of the whole deal, the complete guide to flipping a house in Australia puts it alongside finding, financing and selling, and the honest look at whether flipping is actually profitable right now is a good gut-check before you start.