A flip file carries two values, and they are not interchangeable. After-repair value is what the finished house should sell for once the scope is done. As-is value is what the property is worth today, in the condition it is in now. Private-money and hard-money style underwriters read both. A pretty ARV does not erase a thin as-is read. A solid as-is number does not prove the finished house will bring what the spreadsheet says. This page is how that desk looks at the two numbers: which comps support each, why a retail Zestimate is not ARV, how a weak as-is read can cut leverage even when the after-repair picture looks fine, and how this desk reads the deal book — entity, scope, and exit. It is not a rewrite of Fix & Flip loans through an LLC. It is not the schedule of how rehab money releases, which lives on how rehab draws actually work on a flip. It is not the stall where a bank denies cash-out because the house is still unfinished, which lives on cash-out denied because the property is mid-rehab. And it is not the stall where an appraisal already came in and the bank still said no for a different reason, which lives on the appraisal came in, the bank still said no.
Funded Funding is a national private-money brokerage. We are not a bank. We are not an NMLS-licensed consumer mortgage lender. The loan is business-purpose, closed in an LLC or another business entity, underwritten on the asset and the deal. The desk floor is $100k. No owner-occupied. Start on the Funded Funding homepage if you need the product list first, or read what the desk is.
ARV and as-is are two numbers
ARV means after-repair value. It is an opinion of what the property should be worth after the agreed work is finished and the house matches the comps you used. It is a finished-house number. It assumes the scope gets done, the finishes match what those comps had, and a buyer in that market will pay for that result.
As-is value is the house today. Open walls, dated systems, a roof that has not been touched, a layout a retail buyer will not walk through, or a clean but unrenovated rental — whatever the condition actually is. The as-is number does not give you credit for work that is still a bid. It is the collateral that exists on the day someone writes a note.
The purchase price has to make sense against as-is support, or you are paying a finished price for an unfinished house. The exit price has to make sense against ARV comps, or you are underwriting a sale the neighborhood has not paid. Private money looks at the spread between those two reads, and at whether the rehab budget is what honestly connects them.
Why both matter on a flip or bridge file
A flip or bridge file is short-term capital against a property that is usually not the finished product yet. The lender is asking what they could rely on if the plan stalls, and what the property can support if the plan works. They are not buying the spreadsheet.
As-is matters because the note is secured by the property in its current condition. If the rehab stops, the contractor walks, or the sale slips, the collateral is the house as it sits. A thin as-is read means that fallback is weak. The file can look fine on a finished-sale story and still be a hard lend. ARV matters because the exit is usually a sale of the finished house, or a later refinance once the work is done. If the ARV is a wish, the exit is a wish. A strong as-is read does not rescue an ARV no renovated comp has sold for. The desk reads the pair. It does not pick the friendlier one.
What comps support each number
A comp is a closed sale, not a hope. The sale has to be a real transfer of a property a buyer already paid for. An active listing is an asking price. A pending sale is not a closed one. A price you would list at is not a comp.
ARV comps are closed sales of renovated or otherwise finished houses that match the property the scope will produce. Similar size. Similar beds and baths. Same neighborhood, or a block a buyer would actually treat as the same place. The condition in those sales has to be the condition your scope creates. A gut rehab does not get to borrow comps from a light cosmetic refresh, and a cosmetic refresh does not get to borrow comps from a full rebuild of the kitchen, baths, and systems. If your scope does not produce that finished house, those sales are someone else's ARV.
As-is comps are closed sales of houses in similar current condition. If you are buying distress, incomplete work, or a house a retail buyer will not finance, your support is other sales in that condition — not the renovated sales down the street. Finished comps do not prove as-is value. Distressed comps do not prove ARV. Using one set for both jobs is how a file shows a number nobody can underwrite.
Distance, time, and sameness are judgment, not a slogan. A sale from a different school zone, a different street type, or a much larger house is not support just because it closed. This page does not publish a mile radius, a month cutoff, or a required comp count. Those rules vary by lender and by market. What does not vary is the category: finished sales for the finished number, similar-condition sales for the house you have today.
A retail Zestimate is not ARV
A Zestimate, or any retail automated estimate, is a public model. It blends listing history, tax records, and nearby sales into one consumer-facing guess. It is not an appraisal. It is not a comp set. It is not an after-repair value.
The model does not know your scope. It does not know that you will move a wall, replace the systems, or change the bed count. It often describes the house as it sits, or as a generic listing, not as the renovated property in your exit. When the house is distressed, the model can also be wrong about as-is, because public data lags condition. Either way, pasting the number into a deal book does not make it ARV.
Use it as a clue that a market exists. Then do the work the clue cannot do. Pull closed sales. Sort them by condition. Match them to the scope. If the only support for the finished price is an automated estimate, the ARV is not supported. If the only support for today's price is that same estimate, the as-is read is not supported either. Private money will ask for the sales. A screenshot of a portal is not the sales.
How a thin as-is read cuts leverage
Leverage on a flip or bridge file is what the collateral and the exit can carry. This page does not quote a leverage figure, a loan-to-value ratio, or a rate. Those numbers are the ones on a real note, or they are not numbers. The mechanic is still plain.
If as-is support is thin, the house today does not back the purchase price, the rehab budget, or both. The finished story can still be real. The lender is not lending the finished story on day one. They are lending against a property that still has to be built into that story. When the as-is read is weak, the gap between what the file needs and what the house supports today gets larger. That gap is not free. It shows up as less proceeds, more cash from the borrower, or a file that does not fund.
A thin read has ordinary causes. Few closed sales in that condition. Comps that are really renovated houses with the condition ignored. A purchase price set off ARV instead of off what distressed houses actually trade for. A property that is hard to sell as it sits. An automated estimate used in place of sales. Any one of those can leave the as-is number looking fine in the package and unsupported on a real read. After-repair comps answer what the house can sell for when the work is done. They do not answer what it is worth with the work still open. If you need the rehab line to move while the work is open, that schedule is how rehab draws actually work on a flip. Draws pay for work in place. They do not convert a thin as-is read into a finished value.
If a bank already refused cash-out because they will only value the unfinished house, you are on a different page. That stall is cash-out denied because the property is mid-rehab. If an appraisal came back and the bank still said no for a ratio, a property count, vesting, seasoning, or another overlay, that stall is the appraisal came in, the bank still said no. This page is the pair of values on a private-money flip or bridge file, before you pretend one number is the whole underwrite.
How this desk reads the deal book
The deal book is the package, not the pitch. Entity, scope, and exit are the three pages that decide whether the two values are even usable.
Entity. Borrowers close in an LLC or another business entity. The loan is business-purpose. If you will live in the house, this site is the wrong desk. The property, the purchase, and the borrower on the application have to be the same story. An entity that cannot take title is not a file yet.
Scope. Scope is the work that is supposed to turn the as-is house into the ARV house. A line-item budget, who is doing the work, and what the finished property actually is. If the scope is a cosmetic list and the ARV comps are full renovations, the values are not connected. If the budget cannot finish the house you described, the ARV is a picture of a different project. Changing the footprint, the unit count, or the bed count changes which comps are allowed to count.
Exit. Sell the finished house, or stabilize and hold. Those are not the same loan. A sale exit lives or dies on ARV comps a buyer will pay. A hold exit eventually needs a property that can be rented or refinanced as finished. That is a later file. It is not a reason to treat today's as-is number as the takeout. Name the exit.
Purchase price sits next to as-is support. Rehab budget sits next to the scope. The sum has to be explainable against the exit without borrowing a value the comps do not support. If the hole is the space between what a first lien will do and what the project costs, say that plainly. The product page for stacking that space is GAP funding. Do not hide the hole inside an ARV.
Flip, bridge, and a bank value are not the same read
Fix & Flip is the product when the point of the loan is purchase plus rehab of a standing house, closed in an LLC or another business entity. The product page is the loan. This page is how ARV and as-is get used inside it. Rehab money still moves in draws after close. That order of payment is not a value opinion.
Bridge is short-term capital to a sale, a refinance, or another takeout. Some bridge files have little rehab, so as-is is most of the story. If the work is what creates the value, do not label the file a bridge and hope an ARV appears without a scope. Construction is ground-up: land plus a build. As-is on a vacant lot is not as-is on a house. Call the file what the structure is.
A bank appraisal is a different event. Banks often want the house as it sits, or they want a finished property before they will treat value as collateral. That is why a mid-rehab cash-out dies, and why an appraisal that came in can still leave the file outside their box. Private money can read an unfinished house. It still will not treat a retail estimate, or a finished comp, as if it were today's value. When the work is already done and a bank will not refinance because the file is too new, that calendar is why the bank will not refinance the flip yet. Seasoning is a wait after the work. ARV versus as-is is how the values are read while you are still deciding what the house is.
What this desk is — and is not
Funded Funding is a national private-money brokerage. We are not a bank. We are not an NMLS-licensed consumer mortgage lender. This is a national desk, not a Phoenix-only shop. We do not publish an office address. Terms vary by lender, property, and borrower entity. Not available in every state. We do not warehouse the loan. A blog note about two values is not your term sheet.
The desk floor is $100k. Files under that are not this desk. Borrowers close in an LLC or another business entity. We do not stretch a flip into an owner-occupied renovation loan we are not licensed to do. If you will live in the house, this site is the wrong desk.
This desk reads 1–4 unit investor files differently from 5+ unit and commercial files. Put the true unit count, the purchase, the as-is support, the rehab budget, the ARV comps, and the exit on the application. Business-purpose does not mean “no documents,” and it does not mean every file funds. We will not invent a rate, a credit cutoff, a leverage figure, or a holdback. Those numbers are the ones on a real note, or they are not numbers.
How to put the file here
- Confirm it is investor property. If you will occupy it, this site is not your lender.
- Entity ready to close. LLC or other business entity that can take title and the loan.
- Deal on paper. Address, purchase, as-is support, rehab budget, the scope, ARV comps that match that scope, and the exit: sell, or stabilize and hold.
- Name the actual problem. You need both values read on a flip or bridge file. You are not asking a bank to cash out an unfinished house, and you are not asking a portal estimate to stand in for closed sales.
- Apply. Same intake as the rest of Funded Funding: the application. Apply here if the file is a flip or bridge and the question is ARV versus as-is.
Still unsure whether the file is a Fix & Flip, a bridge with little work, a draw schedule on a note you already have, a mid-rehab cash-out a bank already refused, or an appraisal that came in and the bank still said no? That is what the intake is for, including the answer “the comps do not support the number” or “this is still a bank file.”
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ARV and as-is value?
ARV is the after-repair value: what the finished property should sell for, supported by comps of finished houses like the one the scope produces. As-is value is what the property is worth today, in the condition it is in now, supported by comps of similar condition. They are not the same number. A private-money desk reads both.
Why does a thin as-is read matter if ARV looks fine?
Because as-is is the collateral that exists on the day the note is written. A strong after-repair picture does not replace a house that is still unfinished, vacant, or hard to sell in its current condition. A thin as-is read can cut what the file will support even when the finished comps look fine.
Is a Zestimate the same as ARV?
No. A retail automated estimate is a public guess about a house, often as it sits or as a generic listing. It is not an after-repair value. ARV has to be supported by comps of finished, similar properties and by a scope that actually produces that finished house.
Which comps support ARV, and which support as-is?
ARV comps are closed sales of renovated or otherwise finished houses that match the property the scope will produce: similar size, beds, baths, and neighborhood. As-is comps are sales of houses in similar current condition, including distress or incomplete work when that is what you are buying. Finished comps do not prove as-is value. Distressed comps do not prove ARV.
Is this the same as a mid-rehab cash-out denial?
No. A mid-rehab cash-out denial is a bank refusing to lend against a house that is still unfinished. This page is how a private-money desk reads ARV and as-is on a flip or bridge file. If a bank already said no because the work is open, the mid-rehab note is the better map.
What is the minimum to fund?
The desk floor is $100k. Files under that are not this desk.
Ready to get funded?
If you have an LLC, a standing house, and both values you can explain with real comps, send the file. ARV is the finished sale. As-is is the house today. A portal estimate is neither. No fake funded counts. No stock testimonials. No owner-occupied stretch. No teaser rate that is not your file.
Ready to get funded?
Apply on the same intake we use live, or call or text (520) 552-7065.