Analyze a deal before you sign it.
The Elio Care deal analyzer runs a Phoenix fix-and-flip or rental purchase through the full arithmetic — every cost, the monthly carry, the profit or the debt coverage — and flags the Arizona-specific traps as you type. It is free, needs no account, and your numbers never leave your browser.
It opens pre-filled with the worked examples from our field guide on how to analyze a deal, so you can follow the method first, then replace the numbers with your own.
Your numbers never leave this page — nothing is sent or stored.
The deal
From sold comps within ~90 days, not listings.
A line-item scope, priced — not a guess per square foot.
10–15% of the rehab. Top of the range pre-1978.
Purchase to close of the resale, not to listing.
The money
Local lenders published 11–13% in Sept 2026. Computed on the full note — the conservative answer to lender question № 1.
One to three is the published local range.
Share of the purchase the lender funds; rehab funds by draws.
Title, escrow, appraisal, doc fees — points counted separately.
Property tax + insurance + utilities. Pull the tax from the Assessor.
Commissions plus title, escrow and concessions — commonly 6–8% all-in.
Three to six is typical.
$150–300 each is the published range.
Workable, but thin.
Profit is $27,600 — 6.0% of resale, under the ~10% experienced flippers hold out for. It survives the stress tests below, barely. Negotiate the buy.
Show the math
Stress tests
The flags this deal raises
Draws are reimbursements, not advances
You front each phase — about $16,875 at your draw count — then submit invoices and lien waivers, pass a $150–300 inspection, and are paid three to five days later, while suppliers run net-30. Negotiate a mobilisation draw before you start, not after you are short.
A pre-1978 house carries a known surprise stack
Disturbing paint legally requires an EPA-certified renovation firm — and expect cloth wiring, cast-iron drains, undersized panels, missing roof sheathing, failed slab plumbing and asbestos in texture and flooring. This is why the contingency exists.
Four questions to ask before you sign the note
Is interest charged on the whole note or only on drawn funds? Is there a minimum interest period — three to six months of guaranteed interest kills a fast flip? What does an extension cost, and how many can I have? Are there exit or back-end points?
What it checks
The two tests, in plain terms.
For a flip, it builds the full cost stack — purchase, rehab with a stated contingency, points and interest on the note, monthly holding costs, buy-side closing, draw inspections and selling costs — and subtracts it from the resale value. Interest is computed on the whole note, the conservative reading, because that is the answer many lenders give when you finally ask. Then it stress-tests the result three ways: the resale appraising five percent lower, the sale taking three months longer, and the rehab running fifteen percent over. A deal that only works when nothing goes wrong is not a deal.
For a rental, it builds net operating income honestly — vacancy, management even if you self-manage, maintenance, taxes and insurance — and divides it by the annual debt service. That ratio, the debt-service coverage ratio, is the number a lender actually applies: most want 1.20 to 1.25. Below 1.0 the property loses money every month it is rented. For a buy-renovate-refinance plan, it also runs the exit: whether a refinance at a realistic appraised value repays the bridge loan, how much cash stays in the deal, and the interest reserve to budget while the building is not yet carrying itself.
Where the defaults come from
Every default traces to a published, dated source.
Generic calculators ship national averages. This one ships what Phoenix lenders and managers actually published in September 2026, from our own briefings — and every one of them is a field you can change.
| Default | The published basis | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Hard-money rate 12% + 2 points | Phoenix's local lenders published 11–13% plus one to three points; the directory average was 13% with 3.4 points | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Lender advance 85% of purchase | Published local advances run 75% to 95%; 85% of purchase-and-cost is the mid of the set | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Rehab contingency 12.5% | A fixed-price rehab budget needs a stated 10–15% contingency | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Draw inspections $225 each | Draw inspections cost $150–300 each; a typical rehab has three to six draws | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Vacancy 10% | Second-quarter 2026 metro vacancy is disputed between about 8.4% and 11.3% — we default to the middle and tell you to run both | Mid-market briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Management $125 a month | Phoenix flat-fee managers publish $99–129 per home per month | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Rental loan rate 7.25% | Rental loans start from about 5.75%, and a starting rate is for high scores at low leverage | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Down payment 25% | Investor rental loans want 20–25% down; owner-occupants have cheaper doors | Small-landlords briefing, Sept 2026 |
| Purchase price $368,000 | The median a small Phoenix landlord company paid in the year to August 2026 | Deed records, Sept 2026 |
Sources: our small-landlords briefing and mid-market briefing, each figure checked against the lender’s or manager’s own page on 8 and 9 September 2026. These terms move in weeks — treat the defaults as a starting posture, never as a quote.
The warnings built in
The Arizona-specific traps it flags as you type.
- A construction draw is a reimbursement, not an advance — you front each phase and are repaid after inspection, which is why the tool shows the float you carry.
- Many hard-money notes guarantee the lender three to six months of interest no matter how fast you sell; a fast-flip plan gets flagged to ask.
- A rehab contingency below 10–15% gets flagged, and pre-1978 houses get the full surprise-stack warning: certified lead-safe work, old wiring, cast-iron drains, asbestos in texture.
- A vacancy assumption below Phoenix's own disputed 8.4–11.3% range gets flagged, and so does underwriting the advertised rent in a market giving one to two months free.
- Debt coverage below the 1.20–1.25 lender floor gets flagged, with the interest reserve to budget when a building does not yet carry itself.
- Below 20% down on a two-to-four-unit gets the honest answer: that only works if you live there — FHA counts three-quarters of the other units' rent, and Home in Five does not cover 2–4 units at all.
Learn the method
The calculator runs the arithmetic. The field guide teaches it.
How to analyze a deal walks the same numbers by hand: why you make the money at the buy, what the carry really costs, the debt-coverage test lenders apply, two worked examples — one thin, one that fails — and how to check the public record before you trust a seller. Free, like all our research. Members fund the work and meet in person, where a real deal gets taken apart line by line.
This calculator is information, not investment, legal or tax advice, and nothing here is a quote, an offer or a commitment to lend. Its defaults reflect terms published in September 2026, which move in weeks. Re-run every number with a lender, a title officer and an Arizona accountant before you commit money.