Rehab Budget Calculator
Total a renovation from line items you price yourself — materials and labor per line, a contingency percent you control, and an optional cost per square foot. This tool supplies no price data: renovation costs vary too much by region and month for canned averages to be honest.
Line items
Example: kitchen, bath, flooring, and paint totaling $24,000 + 10% contingency → $26,400. Empty rows are ignored; a blank cost on a used row counts as $0.
This calculator will not price your rehab — on purpose
Every figure in the totals above comes from you. Renovation costs swing enormously by region — the same scope can differ by a factor of two or three between metros — and they move month to month with material markets and local labor demand. A calculator that pre-filled “average” costs would be quietly wrong for almost every user, and a rehab budget built on someone else’s averages fails exactly when it matters: at the closing table. What this tool contributes is the discipline — clean line items, a materials/labor split, an explicit contingency, and totals computed by the same tested engine that generated the worked example ($24,000 subtotal, $2,400 contingency, $26,400 total, $22/sq ft on 1,200 sq ft).
Structuring a walkthrough estimate
Estimate by system, not by room-by-room impressions. Seasoned rehabbers walk a property in roughly this order, pricing each as a line item: roof (age, sag, missing shingles), HVAC (age and whether it starts), kitchen and bathrooms (the two highest-cost interior lines, and the two that most move resale), flooring, and paint. Add lines for anything the walkthrough turns up — electrical panel, plumbing, windows, foundation. For each line, note materials and labor separately: get real local quotes for the big systems, and price the cosmetic lines from what suppliers in your area actually charge. Eight priced lines from a careful walkthrough beat a single “about forty grand” guess every time.
Why the contingency is not optional thinking
Rehab budgets fail through what walls conceal: rot behind the tub surround, aluminum wiring, a cracked heat exchanger. A contingency line prices that uncertainty up front instead of discovering it as an overrun. The working convention is 10–20% of the repair subtotal — the same band HUD requires as a contingency reserve on its Standard 203(k) rehab mortgages (minimum 10% on structures 30 years or older, 15% when utilities are not operable, 20% maximum). Newer, opened-up, or professionally inspected properties justify the low end; older occupied properties with unknowns justify the high end. The percent is yours to set — the default here is simply the bottom of the conventional band.
Feeding the budget into a deal analysis
The grand total is an input, not a verdict. For a rental, carry it into the Rental Property Calculator as the rehab cost — it raises your cash invested and therefore lowers the cash-on-cash return the deal must still clear. For a flip, it is the rehab budget in the Fix & Flip Calculator’s maximum-offer rule. And if the renovation is for a home you would live in, the Rent vs. Buy Calculator shows whether buying-plus-renovating beats renting over your actual time horizon.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn’t this calculator suggest prices?
Because any number it suggested would be wrong somewhere. The same kitchen remodel can cost two or three times as much in one metro as in another; material prices move with commodity markets and tariffs; and the same “bathroom remodel” can mean a reglazed tub or a gut to the studs. Canned national averages create false confidence exactly where a rehab budget needs honesty. This tool does the arithmetic — totals, contingency, cost per square foot — and leaves every price to your local quotes and walkthrough notes.
How much contingency should I carry?
A 10–20% reserve on the repair subtotal is the widely used convention — HUD’s Standard 203(k) rehab-mortgage program, for instance, requires a contingency reserve of 10% to 20% of the financeable repair costs on older structures, with a 15% minimum when utilities are off. Lean toward the high end for older properties, occupied-wall unknowns, or first projects; the field is yours to set, and the default here is simply the bottom of that conventional band.
Why track materials and labor separately?
Because they behave differently. Materials are quotable in advance and partly controllable — you can pick the cheaper tile. Labor varies with local trades, timing, and how much you do yourself; it is also where change orders live. Splitting the two shows you which lever each line actually has, and it matches how contractors quote, which makes their bids easier to compare against your walkthrough estimate.
What is the cost-per-square-foot number for?
Sanity-checking your own numbers, not benchmarking against a national table. Divide the grand total by the finished area and compare it across your own candidate projects, or against what local investors and contractors tell you similar-scope work runs in your market. If your figure lands far outside those local reference points, something in the scope or the pricing deserves a second look.
Not financial advice: a general educational estimate built entirely from figures you supply. Verify scopes and prices with local contractors and qualified professionals. Values are processed locally in your browser and never transmitted. See the methodology page.