Fix and Flip Calculator: Profit, Cash Needed and Max Offer (2025 HMDA Loan Data)

The calculator

The example deal (a $215,000 purchase, $45,000 rehab, $330,000 ARV, six months) is ours and is labelled “example” on every field; it is not market data. The note rate is the only default that comes from a record. Points, closing costs, holding costs and selling costs start blank on purpose: if you leave them blank the calculator says so and warns that profit is overstated. If you only need the loan-sizing and cost side, our hard money loan calculator goes deeper on it; this page is about whether the flip itself works and what you can pay.

What the loan-cost default rests on: 47,900 loans in federal data

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requires larger lenders to report each mortgage they originate. HMDA has no field for “hard money” or “fix and flip”, so we use the same proxy as our hard money loan rates page: originated conventional first-lien closed-end loans on 1-4 unit investment properties, made primarily for a business or commercial purpose, with no debt-to-income ratio. For this page we narrowed it to what a flip calculator models: a term of 24 months or less and a home-purchase loan purpose. The Regulation C interpretation names the case: “Lender A originates a loan with a nine-month term to enable an investor to purchase a home, renovate it, and re-sell it before the term expires.”

We re-checked the rates page before reusing its figure. Re-applying the proxy to the raw nationwide file (449,675 originated conventional business-purpose loans for 2025) returns 68,319 loans with a term of 36 months or less and a 9.99% median rate, exactly as published. The script is in the data folder as hmda_ffl_cut.py with its output.

Short-term investor loans in HMDA, 2025: from the rates-page group to this calculator's group

The default is 10.24% rather than 9.99% because a flip is a purchase loan with a short term, and for that group the median is a quarter point higher. For a loan from a non-bank lender, the market most flippers use, the median was 10.45%; we left the default at the all-lender median so it matches the dataset, and you should overwrite it with your quote. These are note rates before points and fees.

Note rate distribution, 24 months or less, home purchase (2025)

The band shares are sums of the bands in the data file (our arithmetic). The 2025 market was cheaper and tighter than 2024, but a fifth of the loans still ran 11% or more.

Loan terms: what the 6/12/18/24-month mix tells you about your hold time

The term of the loan is not your hold time, but it is the window the lender gives you. Nearly four loans in five are 12 months.

Term of short-term investor purchase loans, 2025 (term 24 months or less)

Use it as a ceiling for the “months until sale” input: if your plan needs 9 months and your quote is for 12, a three-month slip puts you at the term's edge. The loan-structure fields add little surprise: 95.5% of these loans are interest-only and 94.5% have a balloon payment, so the principal is due at the sale or refinance. Nothing in the data tells you the hold time or the points.

How the outputs are calculated

Worked example: where the 70% rule, the max offer and break-even ARV part ways

The inputs below are examples we chose, except the rate. Points (2), closing costs ($3,500), holding costs ($1,500 a month) and selling costs (7%) are placeholders for the sake of the arithmetic, not typical values.

Example deal, interest on the full loan (our arithmetic)

Interest on the drawn balance instead would be $11,251.20, which lifts profit by $960 (our arithmetic).

Three answers to “what can I pay?” for the same deal

The rule says walk away, the break-even says you have room, and a $30,000 target says negotiate. None is wrong: they answer different questions. The rule builds in a fixed margin for everything you did not enter; the max-offer line uses your actual loan and costs, which is why it moves when you change the rate or the hold time.

Break-even ARV, two ways

The two differ by $410 here because the cap binds only below $318,000 ($238,500 / 0.75). On a deal with less room under the cap the gap is larger, and a lender's own ARV opinion can come in below yours, so test an ARV a few points lower than the one you hope for.

Stress test: the same deal when it goes wrong

Example deal under four problems (our arithmetic)

A lower ARV hurts twice: you sell for less and, because the loan is capped as a share of ARV, the lender funds less, so you put in more cash. The rehab overrun looks mild only because the example loan has room under the 75% ARV cap ($247,500 against $238,500), so the loan grows by the full extra $9,000 and your cash rises just $641. If a lender will not fund overruns, or the loan already sits at the cap, the whole $9,000 comes out of your pocket (our arithmetic).

What nobody publishes: points and selling costs

Points and fees. HMDA reports discount points and origination charges only for loans subject to the TILA-RESPA closing disclosure. Regulation C, 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(19), defines the field as “the points paid to the creditor to reduce the interest rate, expressed in dollars”. In our 47,900 loans, none has a number there: 47,191 report NA and 709 report Exempt. The prepayment-penalty term is NA on all of them. So the calculator cannot default points from federal data, and we will not copy a lender's marketing number into a field that looks like a measurement. Get points, the origination fee, draw fees, extension fees and any prepayment charge in writing.

Selling costs. We looked for a primary national source for what a seller pays at sale (commission, transfer taxes, title and escrow) and found only trade, bank and iBuyer articles, none of them a dataset or official publication, and the answer differs by county because transfer taxes are set locally. So there is no default. Use your agent's listing agreement and your county's transfer-tax rate. If you leave the field blank, the calculator treats it as zero and tells you so.

What you can do with this

• Fill in the blank costs from a real term sheet and your agent's number before reading anything off the results.
• Check profit under the stress rows, not only the headline. If a 10% lower ARV or three more months makes the deal a loss, the margin is too thin for the financing.
• Use the “max offer for your target profit” figure in negotiation, and the 70% rule as a quick filter only.
• Compare quotes by changing only the rate, points and caps: the profit difference between two lenders shows up in the first result tile.
• If the plan is to rent and refinance rather than sell, use the BRRRR method page instead; for lender comparisons see our best fix and flip lenders page.

Nothing above depends on a lender. When you have a deal that passes your own stress rows, these lenders make fix-and-flip loans; ask each for points, draw fees and extension terms in writing and enter them in the calculator.

FAQ

Sources: HMDA loan-level data (FFIEC Data Browser, nationwide originated conventional loans for 2024 and 2025, filtered as described and counted by the script hmda_ffl_cut.py in the data folder); FFIEC HMDA Filing Instructions Guide for 2025 (lender-type classification); Regulation C, 12 CFR 1003.3, 1003.4 and Supplement I (official interpretations). The 70% rule, the worked example and every profit, ROI, break-even and max-offer figure are our arithmetic on example inputs. Compiled October 8, 2026. This is analysis of public records, not investment, legal, lending or tax advice.