What Is After Repair Value (ARV) and Why It Matters

ARV is the cornerstone metric of every fix-and-flip deal. Here's how to calculate it accurately and avoid the most common pitfalls.

After Repair Value (ARV) is the estimated market value of a property after all renovations and repairs have been completed. For fix-and-flip investors, ARV is the single most important number in every deal analysis — it determines your potential profit margin, your maximum offer price, and whether a deal is worth pursuing at all.

Unlike a standard market appraisal, ARV requires you to project what a property *will* be worth once it's been brought up to market standard. This means analyzing comparable sales (comps) of recently renovated properties in the same neighborhood, factoring in the scope of your planned renovations, and accounting for current market trends.

The most common mistake investors make is relying on consumer-grade estimates like Zillow's Zestimate for ARV calculations. These algorithms are designed for homeowners, not investors — they don't account for renovation potential and often lag behind real-time market conditions by weeks or months.

A proper ARV analysis should include at least three to five comparable sales from the last 90 days, adjusted for differences in square footage, lot size, bedroom/bathroom count, and renovation quality. The comps should be within a half-mile radius in urban areas and one mile in suburban markets.

At Vortonic, our ARV engine automates this entire process by analyzing localized comps, renovation cost databases, and real-time market velocity to produce institutional-grade valuations in seconds rather than hours.