Rehab Calculator Tool Roundup

[Matthew Berry]

I'm kicking off a conversation about rehab calculators tonight.

In my opinion, a rehab calculator should do more than simple add up the major categories for you (i.e. roof estimate + kitchen estimate + etc.). The real value of a rehab calculator/estimator tool is in its ability to roughly estimate how much the roof should cost to replace and how much that kitchen remodel will cost.

Aside from personal experience, what tools do you use for estimating rehab costs?

A few tools I'm familiar with:

• J Scott's The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs, which has a fantastic 8 page matrix of per unit costs and labor estimates.
• HouseFlippingSpreadsheet.com offers what seems to be a robust rehab estimator along with other tools, all bundled up in an Excel spreadsheet for $100-300.

Any other good tools out there?

The big concern that I have is regarding the prices in my area. Aside from walking the aisles of Home Depot or calling hundreds of contractors for quotes, what are my options to finding a "good enough" estimate of costs?

J Scott's guide is based on his location and negotiated rates with his preferred contractors. It's definitely great, but I doubt Minnesota is going to be a one-to-one match with J's territory.

[J Scott]

Originally posted by @Matthew Berry:

A few tools I'm familiar with:

• J Scott's The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs, which has a fantastic 8 page matrix of per unit costs and labor estimates.
• HouseFlippingSpreadsheet.com offers what seems to be a robust rehab estimator along with other tools, all bundled up in an Excel spreadsheet for $100-300.

Those are the two resources I recommend (though I'm probably biased on the book) -- the book for learning the methodology and the software for putting together budgets for specific projects...

While I do provide ranges of prices for each renovation task that should accommodate many geographic areas and many different types of contractors, in my opinion, the value in the book is not so much the numbers I provide as much as the methodology I provide.  The goal of the book is to teach people HOW to estimate a rehab, not necessarily do the work for them. 

Estimating is hard and takes work, and no book is going to be able to replace the hard work and research...