MAO Calculator (70% Rule)
Calculate your Maximum Allowable Offer from ARV, repair costs, and your target wholesale fee. Free, no signup.
Formula: MAO = (ARV × rule %) − repairs − your wholesale fee. Adjust the rule percentage for your market and buyer pool.
What is MAO (Maximum Allowable Offer)?
MAO, or Maximum Allowable Offer, is the highest price you can offer a seller and still leave room for repairs, closing and holding costs, and profit. It is your offer ceiling: pay more than your MAO and the deal stops making sense for you or your end buyer.
The 70% rule explained
The 70% rule is the shortcut most wholesalers and flippers use to find MAO:
This calculator also subtracts your target wholesale fee, so the number you see is what you can actually put in front of the seller. Need the ARV first? Use the ARV calculator.
Worked example
Say the ARV is $255,000, repairs are $32,000, and you want a $10,000 assignment fee:
- ARV x 70% = $178,500
- minus $32,000 repairs = $146,500
- minus $10,000 fee = $136,500 MAO
So $136,500 is the most you should offer. Offer under it when you can; the spread is your safety margin.
When to adjust the percentage
70% is a default, not a rule of physics. Hot, high-ARV markets with hungry buyers often support 75 to 80%. Riskier, lower-ARV, or slow markets often need 60 to 65% to leave enough margin. Move the slider to match your market and your buyer pool.
Wholesale vs flip MAO
A flipper's MAO leaves room for their own profit. A wholesaler's MAO must leave room for the end buyer's profit plus the wholesaler's assignment fee, which is why wholesalers keep the fee explicit (as this calculator does). If your MAO leaves nothing for a flipper, no one will take the assignment.
Estimating repair costs
If you do not have a contractor number yet, band it: light cosmetic work runs roughly $10 to $20 per square foot, moderate $20 to $35, and a heavy or full gut $35 to $60 and up (this varies widely by market, verify locally). Dial in the real number before you close. For how the whole deal fits together, see ARV and MAO explained and how to calculate your wholesale fee.
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Questions, answered.
A MAO calculator works out your Maximum Allowable Offer: the most you can offer a seller and still leave room for repairs, your buyer's profit, and your fee. This one uses the 70% rule and subtracts repairs and your wholesale fee to give the number you can actually offer.
The 70% rule says your maximum offer should be no more than 70% of the ARV, minus repair costs: MAO = (ARV x 0.70) minus repairs. It leaves room for closing costs, holding costs, and profit for whoever buys the contract.
It is still the standard starting point, but it was always a guideline, not a law. In hot, high-ARV markets buyers often accept 75 to 80%; in slower or lower-ARV markets you may need 60 to 65% to leave enough margin. Adjust the slider to your market rather than treating 70% as fixed.
No. 70% is a common default. Competitive, high-ARV markets often push toward 75 to 80%; riskier or lower-ARV deals often need 60 to 65% to leave enough margin. Adjust the slider to match your market and buyer pool.
Yes, in this calculator. Enter your target assignment fee and it is subtracted after the repair-adjusted ARV, so the number you get is what you can actually offer the seller.
If you do not have a contractor bid yet, band it by square foot: light cosmetic work is roughly $10 to $20 per square foot, moderate around $20 to $35, and a heavy or full gut $35 to $60 and up (this varies a lot by market, verify locally). Replace the estimate with a real number before you close.
That is a signal the deal does not pencil at this ARV and repair estimate, not a bug. Either the repair estimate is too high, the ARV is too optimistic, or the seller's asking price needs to come down significantly.
Track this deal in a real pipeline.
Pipelio keeps ARV, repairs, and MAO on the lead itself, so you never re-run this math in a separate tab.
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