ARV (after-repair value) calculator

What is ARV (after-repair value)?

ARV, or after-repair value, is your estimated sale price after the renovation is finished — the price the property should fetch once it's presented the way you plan to sell it. It's the single most important number in any flip. Get it wrong and everything downstream breaks: your maximum buy price, your renovation budget, your margin. Overstate the ARV by 5% on a $750,000 resale and you've invented nearly $40,000 of profit that was never there. That's why this ARV calculator leans conservative by design.

Why ARV is the number the whole flip hangs on

Every other flip figure is derived from the ARV. The 70% rule sets your maximum buy price as a percentage of ARV minus the reno cost. Your deal score, your margin, your finance headroom — all of them move with this one input. So the discipline of ARV isn't about being optimistic or pessimistic; it's about being defensible. If you couldn't stand in front of a valuer and justify the number with recent sales, it's too high.

How comparable sales work

Comparable sales (or "comps") are recent transactions on similar properties in the same area, ideally the same street. For a flip, you want comps that match the post-reno condition you're targeting, not the as-is state of the property you're buying. If you're doing a cosmetic refresh, look for sales of recently-renovated houses, not tired ones. If you're going structural, your comps need to reflect the finished footprint and layout, not the original. Australian sold-price data comes from providers such as CoreLogic, PropTrack and Domain, and the state land-titles offices record every settled sale — so genuine comparable evidence exists for almost any suburb if you go looking. See the comparable sales glossary entry for how to read them.

How to choose good comps

A comp is only useful if it's genuinely comparable. Work through a short checklist for each one:

• Recency. Sold in the last three to six months. In a fast-moving market, older sales understate value; in a softening one, they overstate it.
• Proximity. Same street or same pocket of the suburb. A main-road house and a quiet-cul-de-sac house are not the same market, even 300 metres apart.
• Like for like. Similar land size, bed/bath count, and build era. A renovated three-bed weatherboard isn't a comp for a brick four-bed with a pool.
• Condition. Match the finished standard you're targeting — not the standard of the house you're buying.
• Arm's length. Ignore related-party transfers, deceased-estate quick sales and other distress sales; they don't reflect what a ready buyer pays.

Why weight the average?

Picking the highest comp is wishful. Picking the lowest is pessimistic. This ARV calculator weights the median comp twice and the high and low once each, which produces a conservative central estimate instead of letting one outlier drag the number around. From there, a small adjustment of roughly ±5% for orientation, street appeal or internal layout is reasonable. More than that and you're guessing, not valuing.

ARV is not the same as a bank valuation

Your ARV is a target sale price. A bank valuation is a lender's risk-managed number, and it's often deliberately conservative — valuers instructed by a bank protect the lender's downside, not your resale ambition. Expect the two to differ, sometimes by tens of thousands. That gap matters most if you're refinancing to pull equity out (a common BRRR-style move), because the bank lends against its figure, not yours. Model both: the ARV you'll sell at, and the more cautious number a lender is likely to accept.

Common ARV mistakes that cost flippers money

The recurring errors are predictable. Using asking prices instead of sold prices — vendors and agents quote hope, not history. Comparing to renovated comps when your own finish will be cheaper, or vice versa. Ignoring the market trend between the comp's sale date and your own likely settlement. And the classic: nudging the ARV up by "just a bit" to make a deal you've already fallen for finally pencil. The number should decide the deal, not the other way round.

From ARV to a go/no-go decision

Once you've got a defensible ARV, feed it straight into the rest of the numbers. Set your walk-away buy price with the 70% rule calculator, then pressure-test the full deal — purchase costs, reno, holding and selling — on the flip ROI calculator. To see how ARV sits inside a complete, evidence-backed deal workup, look at a real listing run end to end in the sample analysis, or let FlipPro's full analysis pull the comparable sales and build the ARV for you.

This is general information, not financial, tax or valuation advice. ARV is an estimate — verify comparable sales and get a professional valuation before you commit to a purchase.