The 70% rule is the fastest honest screen in this business: take 70% of a home's after-repair value, subtract repairs, and what is left is the most you should offer. The 30% you hold back is where holding costs, selling costs, and profit live. Our version adds the layer we actually use — a fee cushion — in Advanced below.
Step through it in the tool above: change the ARV by $10,000 and watch the max offer move by $7,000 — the factor is doing exactly what it promises. Zero out the fee cushion and you get the textbook rule. Both numbers are shown, always, because the gap between them is where beginners get hurt.
Step 1. Enter the After-Repair Value — what the house will sell for fully renovated, proven by sold renovated comps nearby, never by asking prices.
Step 2. Enter the Estimated Repairs — the honest number, walked room by room, with the expensive systems (roof, HVAC, foundation) priced first.
Step 3. Set the Rule Factor — 70% is the standard screen. Lower it for very cheap houses where fixed costs eat a bigger share; raise it only when you can name the reason.
Step 4. Open Advanced and add buy-side closing costs, holding costs, and your assignment fee or fee cushion — the costs the textbook rule leaves inside the 30%.
Step 5. Read the Maximum Offer. That is your walk-away line: negotiate below it, never above it.
Two formulas, both printed on the result:
Pure rule: Max Offer = (ARV × Factor) − Repairs. At the standard factor: (ARV × 0.70) − Repairs.
Wise Revival working version: Max Offer = (ARV × Factor) − Repairs − Closing Costs − Holding Costs − Fee Cushion.
Where does the missing 30% go? Roughly 10 points cover holding and selling costs — loan payments, insurance, agent commissions, closing. About 20 points are profit and cushion for everything the walkthrough didn't catch. Skip the cushion and the first surprise repair comes straight out of your profit. This is the same math printed on our First-Deal Math Sheet, run the same way on our own deals.
The ARV makes or breaks this rule. Learn which sales count and which to throw out.
The full path from finding a seller to assigning the contract.
One deal taken apart line by line — ARV, repairs, holding, selling, profit.
After-Repair Value — what the home will be worth once fully renovated, based on recent comparable sales of similar finished homes nearby. It is the single most important number in the formula, and the one beginners most often inflate.
Because that is how we run our own deals: the cushion is the wholesale fee built into every Wise Revival offer, exactly as printed in the First-Deal Math Pack. Set it to zero in Advanced to see the pure textbook rule — the calculator shows both numbers.
It is designed for flips and wholesale deals. For buy-and-hold rentals, use cash-flow math instead — our Rental Cash Flow Calculator is built for that.
Then on these numbers it is not your deal, and walking away is the skill. A polite no with your number on the table often becomes a yes when the seller's situation changes.
Yes. Estimate honestly, then add 10–15%. Repairs are the cost most likely to grow mid-project, and no formula protects you from a made-up repair number.