New Construction Deal Analyzer: Build-to-Sell & Build-to-Rent Calculator
Written and reviewed by the Tidal Loans Underwriting Team · 50+ years combined investor-lending experience
Model a ground-up deal end to end before you option the lot or lock a builder. This developer pro forma sizes your construction loan, estimates your non-Dutch interest carry, tells you the cash you’ll actually need to bring, and scores your build-to-sell profit against your build-to-rent DSCR. It’s a fast screen, not a commitment — when a deal pencils here, that’s your cue to send it to us for a real quote. We’ve financed ground-up construction as a direct lender since 2016.
AAPL Member · Direct Lender Since 2016 · NMLS #1979189
Analyze ground-up construction from lot acquisition through exit. Compare build-to-sell profit, build-to-rent DSCR, non-Dutch interest carry, break-even sale price, break-even rent, cash needed, and loan limits.
The analyzer will compare sell profit, rental DSCR, cash flow, and cash needed.
Project Setup
Land / Lot
Entitlement, Replat, Survey + Engineering
Horizontal Infrastructure
Vertical Build Budget
Construction Financing
Build-to-Sell Assumptions
Build-to-Rent Assumptions
How to Use the New Construction Deal Analyzer
- Enter your project setup. Start with the number of homes, square footage, and your build strategy (build-to-sell or build-to-rent).
- Add land and lot costs. Enter the land purchase price, or the value of a lot you already own — owned-lot equity can count toward your cash.
- Enter your budget line items. Add entitlement, survey, and engineering (soft costs), horizontal infrastructure, your vertical build budget, and a contingency.
- Set your financing terms. Set LTC, the ARV cap, rate, points, closing costs, timeline, and the interest method (non-Dutch straight-line by default).
- Enter your exit assumptions. For build-to-sell, enter your sale price and selling costs. For build-to-rent, enter rent, operating expenses, and your refinance terms.
- Read your results. Review your max loan, cash needed, interest carry, profit and margin, and lender/actual DSCR — and see which exit scores better.
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Frequently Asked Questions
About the tool
It’s a developer pro forma, not a mortgage payment calculator. It sizes your construction loan, estimates your non-Dutch interest carry, tells you how much cash you’ll actually need to bring, and compares your build-to-sell profit against your build-to-rent DSCR — so you know whether a deal pencils before you option the lot or lock a builder.
Treat the output as a fast screen, not a commitment. Your real numbers move with the appraisal, your plans and budget, your builder’s track record, your credit, and the market. The tool exists to kill bad deals early and flag good ones worth underwriting — when a deal looks workable here, that’s your cue to send it to us for a real quote.
How the loan is sized
LTC is loan-to-cost — the loan as a percentage of your eligible project cost. On most deals with a well-priced lot, LTC is the constraint that actually caps your loan, not value.
ARV is the after-completion value: the appraised value or realistic sale price of the finished property. It’s the second ceiling on your loan, and it’s what protects you (and us) from over-leveraging a thin exit.
Because a construction lender is underwriting two risks at once — that the build costs what you say (cost) and that the finished product is worth what you project (value). We size to whichever cap is lower so the deal is protected on both ends. First-time builders are most often surprised here: a great-looking budget still gets capped if the ARV doesn’t support it.
We finance up to 90% of your eligible project cost (loan-to-cost), with the loan further capped at 75% of the completed value (ARV) — whichever is lower. Whatever falls outside that — your down payment, plus any costs that aren’t financeable — is the cash and land equity you bring.
Yes — land sits inside the loan basis. If you already own the lot free and clear, that equity can count toward what you’d otherwise bring in cash, which is one of the biggest levers on a ground-up deal. For how we structure buying the land and the build together, see our ground-up construction loans guide.
The budget line items
Entitlement costs are what you spend getting legal or municipal approval to develop — zoning changes, variances, platting, city review, and the professional fees around them. They’re real money spent before you ever pour a foundation, and depending on how the loan is structured they may not be financeable, which pushes them straight into your cash needed.
Replat costs cover changing or subdividing a lot’s legal plat — usually when you’re turning one parcel into several buildable lots or moving lot lines. Like other soft costs, they can land in your out-of-pocket column rather than the loan.
A boundary survey establishes your legal property lines, easements, encroachments, and lot dimensions. Skipping or under-budgeting it is how builders end up with a setback or easement problem mid-project.
A topographical survey maps elevation, slope, drainage, and physical site features so your engineers and builder understand the ground before design. On sloped or poorly draining sites it’s the difference between an accurate budget and a nasty surprise.
Civil engineering covers site design — drainage, grading, stormwater, utilities, detention, and infrastructure planning. On raw or unimproved land it’s often one of the largest soft-cost lines, and it’s easy to underestimate.
Soil or geotech testing evaluates whether the ground can support your planned structure and whether you need special foundation work. A failed soil report can add significant foundation cost, so it’s worth knowing before you finalize your budget.
Horizontal infrastructure is everything outside the vertical building — roads, curbs, sidewalks, stormwater and drainage, utility extensions, clearing, and grading. It matters for cash planning because these costs may sit outside the financeable loan basis: they stay in your total project cost but the loan won’t cover them, so they raise the cash you bring. The tool’s basis toggle lets you model it both ways.
Vertical construction is the actual cost to build the structure, usually estimated by cost per square foot or a full line-item budget. It’s the largest financeable piece of most ground-up deals.
Contingency is your reserve for cost overruns, change orders, material increases, bad-soil surprises, and the budget lines you forgot. On ground-up, thin or missing contingency is one of the most common reasons a deal that looked profitable ends up underwater.
Interest and carry
Non-Dutch means you’re charged interest only on the funds actually drawn, not on the full loan from day one. It meaningfully lowers your carry during the build compared to Dutch interest, where you’d pay on the entire commitment whether it’s drawn or not.
It assumes a straight-line monthly draw across your build timeline — roughly one equal slice of the loan drawn each month — and charges interest on the growing outstanding balance month by month. Real draws follow your budget and inspections, so treat this as a close estimate of carry, not an exact schedule.
Once the build is finished, the loan is fully drawn. If the property then sits on the market for a few months before it sells, you’re paying interest on the full note the whole time — not on a partial draw. That’s why adding sale-hold months can quietly erase a thin margin.
The rental exit
Lender DSCR is the simplified coverage ratio a lender uses to qualify the takeout — gross rent divided by PITIA (principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and any association dues). It’s the number that decides whether your DSCR refinance clears.
Actual NOI DSCR divides true net operating income — rent after vacancy, management, maintenance, capex, taxes, and insurance — by your annual debt service. It’s the more honest picture of whether the property really covers itself, and it’s usually lower than lender DSCR. When lender DSCR passes but NOI DSCR is under 1.0, the deal qualifies on paper but bleeds cash in practice.
Cash-on-cash is your annual pre-tax cash flow divided by the cash you actually have left in the deal after the refinance. On a build-to-rent, if your DSCR takeout returns most of your capital, a modest cash flow can still be a strong cash-on-cash return.
Break-even rent is the monthly rent needed for the finished property to cover its operating costs and debt service — the point where cash flow is zero. If market rent in your area is below this number, the rental exit doesn’t work at your assumptions, and selling is likely the better move.
The sale exit
Break-even sale price is what you’d need to sell for to cover your all-in project cost and selling costs at zero profit. Your real margin is the gap between your projected sale price and this number — and that gap is your cushion against an appraisal miss, a change order, or 60 extra days on market.
Working with Tidal Loans
No. Every Tidal Loans program, including ground-up construction, is for investment and business-purpose property only. We don’t finance owner-occupied or primary residences in any program — this tool is built for spec builds, build-to-rent, and investor development.
You exit one of two ways: sell the finished property, or refinance the short-term construction loan into long-term financing — typically a DSCR loan that qualifies on the property’s rent, not your tax returns. That refinance is your “takeout,” and it’s how build-to-rent investors recycle capital into the next project.
A fix-and-flip loan funds buying and renovating an existing structure; a ground-up construction loan funds building from raw or teardown land, with a draw schedule tied to build milestones. Construction carries more soft costs, longer timelines, and value that depends on completion rather than a quick cosmetic lift.
Because we’re a direct lender underwriting in-house, we can close fast once we have a complete file — no third-party underwriting queue. Construction files move as quickly as your plans, budget, and appraisal come together.
Explore Construction Financing
See how our ground-up construction loans work, or explore our state construction programs in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Running a rental exit? Use our DSCR calculator to size the takeout.
Deal pencils here? Get a real quote.
Tell us the plans, the budget, and the lot. We price our own construction loans and charge interest only on drawn funds — so your effective cost stays low.