Understanding Your P90 Report

What P90 Means (and Doesn't Mean)

P90 is NOT the worst case. It is not "everything goes wrong." It is the 90th percentile adverse case — things go meaningfully wrong in predictable ways, but nothing catastrophic happens. Your contractor runs slow. Material prices come in higher than the estimate. The property sits on the market a few extra weeks. Normal friction, amplified.

The actual worst case — burst pipes during demo, your contractor disappears mid-job, the market drops 15% while you are holding — is far worse than P90. But that scenario is also extremely unlikely, and building your entire investment thesis around it is not useful for decision-making. You would never do a deal.

Think of it as a spectrum. On one end you have your target plan — everything goes according to schedule and budget. On the other end you have the catastrophic scenario that keeps you up at night. P90 sits deliberately between them, closer to reality than either extreme.

This is why P90 is the right stress test. It is adverse enough to reveal thin deals, but realistic enough to be actionable. When Kaison shows you a P90 scenario, it is answering a specific question: "If things go meaningfully sideways in the normal ways things go sideways, does this deal still work?"

Where the Buffers Come From

When you run an analysis in Kaison, the P90 scenario is not a guess. It is built from specific buffer multipliers applied to your rehab cost, timeline, and market absorption estimates. These buffers scale with your stated confidence level — because a rough pre-inspection guess deserves more padding than a deal where you have signed contractor bids.

Default Buffer Values

When you are new to Kaison, these are the buffers applied to your estimates. They come from industry-standard variance data across thousands of rehab projects.

Notice how the buffers compound. A longer timeline means more months of holding costs (mortgage, insurance, taxes, utilities). Higher rehab costs mean more capital deployed. Together, they can meaningfully shift your total cost basis — which is exactly the point. The P90 scenario reveals how sensitive your deal is to normal execution friction.

After 5 Completed Deals: Personalized Buffers

Here is where Kaison gets interesting. After you have completed 5 deals with retrospectives filed, the system has enough data to calibrate buffers to your personal execution history.

If you consistently run 25% over on kitchen rehabs, your P90 cost buffer adjusts upward for kitchen-heavy scopes. If you are reliably accurate on timelines — finishing within 5% of your estimates — the timeline buffer loosens, because your track record shows the default +30% is unnecessarily conservative for you.

How to Read the Target vs P90 Table

When you run a full analysis, Kaison shows you two columns side by side: your Target plan and the P90 stress scenario. The target is what happens if you execute on schedule and budget. The P90 is what happens if you hit normal friction.

If the deal works at target but fails at P90, you are betting that everything goes right. If it works at both, you have margin. The gap between them is your exposure.

Example: 742 Elm Street — 3BR/1BA Ranch, BRRRR Hold

Purchase price $135,000. ARV mid-point $215,000. Medium confidence scope. Rehab estimate $48,000. Projected rent $1,650/mo.

Focus on the Delta Column

The delta column is your exposure — the dollar amount at risk if things do not go according to plan. In this example, the total cost basis delta is $10,620. That means normal execution friction could cost you roughly $10K more than planned.

More importantly, look at what happens to your returns. The CoC return drops from 14.2% to 9.8%. That is still above most investors' minimum threshold (typically 8%), so this deal has margin. The equity position at P90 is $12,105 — thinner than target, but still comfortably positive. You are not underwater even if things go wrong.

When P90 Should Change Your Decision

Not every P90 result demands action. Sometimes the P90 scenario just confirms what you already know: the deal has margin and you should proceed. But there are three specific patterns where the P90 numbers should make you pause, renegotiate, or walk away entirely.

1. P90 Cash-on-Cash Falls Below Your Minimum Threshold

Most BRRRR investors have a minimum CoC return threshold — typically 8% for a stabilized rental. If your P90 CoC dips below that threshold, the deal is thinner than your target numbers suggest.

2. P90 Flips Equity from Positive to Negative

This is the one that should make you uncomfortable. If your target shows positive equity but the P90 scenario shows negative equity, you could be underwater after the refinance. That means you would owe more than the property is worth under realistic stress.

3. P90 DSCR Falls Below 1.0

DSCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio) measures whether the property's rental income covers its mortgage payment. A DSCR of 1.0 means you are exactly breaking even — every dollar of rent goes to the mortgage. Below 1.0, you are feeding the property out of your pocket every month.

Putting It Together

The P90 report is not there to scare you out of deals. It is there to ensure you are making informed bets. A good deal works at target and survives at P90. A great deal works well at both. A dangerous deal only works at target.