Shave Thousands of Dollars off Flipping Houses with this System/Tricks
Many folks out there have a strong desire to flip houses, after all those tv shows make it look so very easy. The reality is that flipping houses can be quite difficult and is quite risky, however if you find the right investment property you can make a very nice profit.
The key to flipping houses is to find a good property, buy it at the right price and spend your rehab money intelligently. Anyone can get lucky on one flip but in order to flip houses for a profit consistently you will need to implement a system/tricks of the trade.
In my opinion the most challenging part of flipping a property is finding the right house and buying it at the right price.
The system I use to determine what I can spend on a flip was taught to me by “Real Estate Sales LLC”, the system takes into account square footage of a home, beds/baths and comps in an area to calculate my low and high bids on a house.
When calculating low and high bids on a property, you should estimate approximately $20 a square foot in repair costs as well as at least a 25% profit on the average comp price (i.e. -100k comp – 25K profit).
When you find that property to flip, make sure to do your due diligence, the last thing you want is to buy a house with huge problems, like foundation issues or a house with hazardous substances on the property.
Flipping houses can definitely be profitable but it is not an easy gig and will bring many challenges, however if you are able to buy the right property at the right price you can have great success.
There are many different ways to find properties to flip. Many properties can be found on the MLS, a trick to finding deals on the MLS is to find a realtor and ask them to search for keywords in descriptions, such as motivated seller, fixer upper, TLC, foreclosure, AS-IS etc. In addition to the MLS, I would recommend looking for off market deals, I specifically look for vacant homes with high equity, one way to find these is to put up bandit signs or drive through desirable neighborhoods looking for vacant properties. Another way to find properties is through websites such as auction.com, hubzu.com, hudhomestore.com and by visiting your county courthouse to find out which properties are in pre-foreclosure and foreclosure status.
After you buy a home to flip, you need to make sure you have an affordable and trustworthy contractor. You should ask folks for recommendations, I would also recommend placing an ad on Craigs list for a handyman, you will be amazed how many folks reach out to you, once you decide on someone, give them a small job to start with so you can determine the quality and speed of their work, if they do great then give them a bigger job and so forth.
In order to make money flipping homes you need to keep costs down and buy well below market value, however do not try to cut any corners as it will ultimately hurt you.
If there is one thing I want you to take away from my article it would be to make sure you have systems in place when flipping homes. For instance, I use the same paint colors, cabinets and counter tops for most all my flips, in order to make money you need to have a process to follow from finding the house to selling the house.
Make sure you have good folks around you and always do your best to keep a positive mindset as others will feed off you. Finally, don’t rush the process, I walk away from 9 out of 10 deals and will never chase any deal – the numbers must work!!! Have confidence in yourself and put proven systems into place and you will be very successful flipping houses. Watch this free flip cheap houses webinar.
Systems work, people fail.