Formulas for Valuing Time in Real Estate. Part 1

There’s a line investors repeat so often it fades into background noise: time is money. In this episode of Selling Greenville, that idea gets pulled into the foreground and examined with care. Not from the usual lens of mortgage interest, insurance, and taxes—the standard “holding costs”—but from something more personal and often ignored: your time. The conversation puts a spotlight on how hours, stress, and life trade-offs should stand shoulder to shoulder with ARVs and rehab budgets when assessing a deal.

This is Part 1 of a two-part discussion. Here, the groundwork is laid—what time really costs in a real estate project and how to evaluate it honestly. Part 2 (mentioned as coming next) delivers a simple formula to run the math. Together, they create a more complete picture of whether a deal is truly worth it.

Formulas for Valuing Time in Real Estate

The long-tail idea at the heart of this episode—formulas for valuing time in real estate—starts with a reframe. Investors typically treat time as a footnote to money: important, yes, but secondary. This conversation flips that, arguing that time deserves its own explicit column in the decision-making spreadsheet. Because in practice, many of the “best” deals on paper end up extracting a cost that never shows up on a HUD: the hours, the headspace, the missed family moments, and the opportunities you couldn’t chase while you were elbow-deep in one project.

“Time is currency”—and how you spend it matters

Think of time as a currency you spend in three ways:

• On the things you love. Spend time here, and it hardly feels like spending at all. The return is energy, enjoyment, and momentum.

• On the things you’re just okay with. This is “job” territory—neutral, necessary, and fine in measured doses.

• On the things you dislike (or dread). This is where time gets expensive. The same hour costs more because it drains your mood, sleep, and bandwidth.

Every real estate decision moves through that continuum. The point isn’t to avoid work; it’s to price it—honestly.

The four factors that define time’s real cost

To pull time into focus, the episode outlines four practical factors anyone can score for a project (or for specific phases of a project, like acquisition, renovation, and resale):

1. Enjoyment Factor: Do you genuinely like this work? If you love the process, the “time currency” spent is effectively low. If you can’t stand it, the spend is high—even when the clock says otherwise.

2. Stress Factor: Does the project nag at you at night? Does it spin up worry, hard conversations, or endless “check-in” messages? Stress multiplies the cost of every hour.

3. Negative Lifestyle Factor: What does the project take you away from? If it pulls you out of moments you wanted (think: big games, family dinners, or a rare day off), the cost climbs.

4. Missed Opportunities Factor: Strictly about time, not cash: what do you not pursue because this project absorbs your attention? Even if you have capital, you can’t chase leads you don’t have hours for.

A simple scoring model you can actually use

The host describes a straightforward spreadsheet approach:

• Put the four factors down the left: Enjoyment, Stress, Negative Lifestyle, and Missed Opportunities.

• Across the top, set three anchors to guide the score you’ll assign:

  • Love / Low

  • It’s Work / Medium

  • Hate / High

• Assign values on a 0–20 scale for each factor (lower is better, higher is worse). As a guide:

  • 0 ≈ Love/Low (no meaningful “time currency” spent)

  • 10 ≈ It’s Work/Medium (the cost of a typical job-like experience)

  • 20 ≈ Hate/High (heavy cost—stressful, draining, intrusive)

Add the four numbers. Forty (40) lands you in “second-job” territory—exactly the vibe of a normal, steady workload. Under 40 means the project fits your life better than a second job. Over 40 means you’re spending a lot of time on currency, even if the spreadsheet profit looks great.

Two important caveats from the episode:

• A score over 40 isn’t automatically “bad.” It simply signals that you’re paying a premium in time; the money had better justify it.

• The model is yours to customize. If stress hits you harder than missed opportunities, weigh it more. If you love Demo Day and hate permit paperwork, score the phases separately.

Why investors miss this (and pay for it later)

A few patterns the discussion calls out:

• Holding costs ≠ your costs. Most people are diligent about interest, taxes, and insurance but ignore the personal meter running in the background—calls, check-ins, contractor snafus, re-showings, and the small frictions that eat afternoons.

• “Profit blindness.” A clean ARV and a tidy margin can seduce you into underpricing your time. Later, you realize that a theoretically “smaller” deal would have paid you more per hour and left your life less interrupted.

• Opportunity fog. When a project consumes your focus, you simply don’t see other deals—even if your capital is ready. That invisibility is a cost.

Breaking a project into time-cost chapters

The episode suggests you can score the whole project—or get more granular by phase:

• Acquisition: hunting, showings, analysis, offers, and negotiations.

• Renovation: coordination, site visits, punch lists, vendor management.

• Resale: photos, showings, feedback cycles, and the long tail to closing.

You might love acquisition (low time currency), tolerate renovation (medium), and dislike resale (high). Scoring by phase helps you staff or structure accordingly—outsource the high-cost phases, for instance, or choose deal types that minimize them.

What a “40” feels like—and why it matters

The “40” anchor is more than a number. It’s a gut check:

• At 40, your project is functionally a second job. If that’s your plan, great—now you’ve named it.

• Under 40 signals a project aligned with how you want to spend your time.

• Over 40 warns you that even with a strong potential payout, the trade might dominate your calendar, sap your energy, and push other opportunities to the curb.

Again, the point isn’t to avoid hard work. It’s to account for it up front, the same way you account for a roof line item or a lender fee.

How does this show up in everyday decisions

While Part 2 brings a numeric formula to weigh profit, hours, and days held, Part 1 lays the practical groundwork for real choices investors face:

• Wholetail vs. full flip: A quick as-is disposition might look like a smaller win, but if your enjoyment is higher, stress lower, lifestyle impact minimal, and your pipeline stays open, the total “time currency” spent could be far less—making it the better move.

• Phase-aware planning: If your Stress and Negative Lifestyle factors spike during renovation, front-load planning and communication, or bring in help. You’re not just buying materials—you’re buying back evenings and weekends.

• Saying no with clarity: A deal can be profitable and still be the wrong use of you. A high score isn’t a moral judgment; it’s a practical signal.

Guardrails without the guilt

A standout theme in the conversation is permission to be honest about what you enjoy—and to use that honesty as a business input. If you genuinely love certain parts of the work, your “spend” is lower there. If some phases consistently balloon your Stress and Missed Opportunities scores, the project might still be a go, but not without a plan to reduce the time cost (different contractor, clearer scopes, or a different exit).

A personal note embedded in the approach

The episode shares a simple context: real-estate investing is not a full-time endeavor here; it lives on the side. That matters. When investing is one slice of a broader life, time valuation isn’t a luxury—it’s survival. Deals that look fine in isolation can nudge out everything else if they habitually land above that “second-job” line.

What Part 2 promises

Part 1 plants the mindset; Part 2 delivers a practical, easy-to-run formula that folds profit, personal hours, and days held into a single score. The aim is speed and clarity—a way to compare two viable paths on the same deal and pick the one that pays best after time is accounted for.

Until then, even the basic four-factor scoring will sharpen your instincts. Try it on your next lead, or retroactively score your last flip. You’ll likely see why some “wins” felt exhausting—and why some modest checks left you energized and ready for the next one.

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Bottom Line

A deal’s dollar margin is only half the story. The other half is the time currency you’ll spend: how much you enjoy the work, how much it stresses you, what it costs your lifestyle, and which opportunities it quietly pushes aside. By scoring those four factors on a simple 0–20 scale—and treating 40 as the “second-job” line—you’ll see your pipeline differently. Some projects will still be worth the heavy lift. Others will prove their value precisely because they don’t hijack your hours. Part 1 makes the mindset practical; Part 2 turns it into math you can run before you say yes.

Ien Araneta

Journal & Podcast Editor | Selling Greenville