What is a scope of work in a rehab?

The itemized list of everything to be done, with quantities and prices, that a contractor bids against and a lender releases draws against. Written properly it is the document that prevents arguments: it says what is included, so what is not included is visible before the work starts rather than after.

How much does a rehab cost per square foot?

Very roughly: a cosmetic refresh $15 to $35, a moderate rehab $35 to $70, and a full gut $70 to $150 or more. Those bands are wide on purpose — they exist to catch an order-of-magnitude error, not to price a job. Regional variation is enormous, and materials pricing has moved fast enough that any figure quoted more than a year ago is suspect.

Why are the default unit costs here placeholders?

Because publishing plausible-looking rehab prices as though they were authoritative would do real damage. Labour and materials vary by multiples between markets, and a number that looks credible gets used. The structure and the arithmetic are the value of this tool; the numbers are scaffolding for you to overwrite with your own contractors' quotes.

How much contingency should a rehab budget carry?

Ten percent is a common floor, fifteen on an older property or anything where you cannot see behind the walls. The surprises that matter are structural, mechanical or code-driven rather than cosmetic — the ones you find after demolition. A budget with no contingency is a forecast that assumes nothing goes wrong on a job where something reliably does.

Should I add a general contractor's markup?

If a GC is running the job, yes — typically 10 to 20 percent for overhead and profit, and it is charged on the whole job including the contingency, which is how it is modelled here. If you are managing trades directly you save that markup and pay for it in your own time and in the risk of coordinating it yourself.

What does this feed into?

Everything. The rehab number drives the maximum allowable offer, the flip profit, and the BRRRR refinance. It is the input most often pulled out of the air, and the one where being wrong propagates furthest.

Scope of Work Calculator

Build the rehab number line by line, instead of the way it usually gets built — which is by guessing.

These unit costs are placeholders. They exist so the tool opens with something to look at. Rehab pricing varies by multiples between markets — overwrite every line with a real quote.

12 line items

$9,500

$6,200

$7,800

$8,500

$5,500

$3,200

$18,000

$9,425

$3,988

$4,200

$2,400

Assumptions

Contingency10%

GC overhead & profit15%

Finished square feet

Total rehab budget

$122,341

$96,713 of work plus contingency and markup

Per square foot

$84.37

Full gut

Budget by category and in total
Exterior & structure	$23,50024.30%
Systems	$17,20017.78%
Kitchen	$18,00018.61%
Bathrooms	$18,00018.61%
Interior finishes	$17,61318.21%
Other	$2,4002.48%
Line item subtotal	$96,713
Contingency	$9,671
GC overhead & profit	$15,958Charged on the contingency too, as a GC would
Total	$122,341

Estimates only. The unit costs this tool ships with are placeholders, not market rates — labour and materials vary by multiples between markets and move fast. Replace every one with a number from your own contractors before relying on the total.

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The most consequential guess in the whole model

Ask an investor how they arrived at their rehab number and the honest answer is often that they walked the property, thought about it, and said a number. Sometimes that number is right. It is also the input that drives the maximum offer, the flip profit and the BRRRR refinance — so when it is wrong, it is wrong everywhere at once.

A line-item scope fixes less than people hope and more than nothing. It will not make you a better estimator. What it does is make the estimate inspectable: you can see which trades you priced, which you did not, and where the money actually is. On the default scenario, exterior work is 24 percent of the budget and the kitchen is 19 — proportions worth knowing before you decide the kitchen is where the deal is won.

Two structural points about how the arithmetic works here. Contingency comes before markup, and the GC’s overhead and profit is charged on the contingency too. That is how a contract actually works, and leaving it out understates the total by a few thousand on a job this size.

And the cost per square foot is a check, not an estimate. The default scenario lands at about $84 a foot, which sits in the full-gut band — plausible for the scope listed. If your total lands under $15 a foot the likely explanation is that whole trades are missing, not that you found a bargain. If it lands over $150, look for a quantity entered in the wrong unit before you congratulate yourself on a luxury build.

The unavoidable caveat, and the reason it is on the tool rather than in a footnote: the unit costs this page ships with are placeholders. Rehab pricing varies by multiples between markets and moves fast enough that anything more than a year old misleads. Publishing plausible-looking numbers as though they were authoritative is how a calculator like this does damage — people use the number because it is there. Overwrite every line with a real quote.

Once you have a defensible total, it feeds the maximum allowable offer, the flip analysis and the BRRRR — all three of which are only as good as this one number.

Methodology

Line total = quantity × unit cost, computed in exact integer cents so fractional unit costs do not drift.
Contingency = subtotal × contingency percent.
GC markup = (subtotal + contingency) × markup percent, so the markup applies to the contingency as it would in a contract.
Cost per square foot = total ÷ finished square footage, checked against three wide bands.

Not modelled: permit fees that scale with valuation, draw schedules, change orders, sales tax on materials where applicable, or the cost of your own time managing trades. Categories are for grouping and do not change any arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions

What is a scope of work in a rehab?: The itemized list of everything to be done, with quantities and prices, that a contractor bids against and a lender releases draws against. Written properly it is the document that prevents arguments: it says what is included, so what is not included is visible before the work starts rather than after.
How much does a rehab cost per square foot?: Very roughly: a cosmetic refresh $15 to $35, a moderate rehab $35 to $70, and a full gut $70 to $150 or more. Those bands are wide on purpose — they exist to catch an order-of-magnitude error, not to price a job. Regional variation is enormous, and materials pricing has moved fast enough that any figure quoted more than a year ago is suspect.
Why are the default unit costs here placeholders?: Because publishing plausible-looking rehab prices as though they were authoritative would do real damage. Labour and materials vary by multiples between markets, and a number that looks credible gets used. The structure and the arithmetic are the value of this tool; the numbers are scaffolding for you to overwrite with your own contractors' quotes.
How much contingency should a rehab budget carry?: Ten percent is a common floor, fifteen on an older property or anything where you cannot see behind the walls. The surprises that matter are structural, mechanical or code-driven rather than cosmetic — the ones you find after demolition. A budget with no contingency is a forecast that assumes nothing goes wrong on a job where something reliably does.
Should I add a general contractor's markup?: If a GC is running the job, yes — typically 10 to 20 percent for overhead and profit, and it is charged on the whole job including the contingency, which is how it is modelled here. If you are managing trades directly you save that markup and pay for it in your own time and in the risk of coordinating it yourself.
What does this feed into?: Everything. The rehab number drives the maximum allowable offer, the flip profit, and the BRRRR refinance. It is the input most often pulled out of the air, and the one where being wrong propagates furthest.

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