Flipping: Have you done it or do you know anyone who has?

[ejs]

A friend is trying to get us to go into this with her. I'm very unsure about it. Do you have any experience with it? How'd it work for you?

Thanks!

[jennylou]

Check out the All Things Money Forum and ATH Forum. There are two threads right now:

Real Estate Investment and Flipping Houses.

http://www.constantchatter.com/showthread.php?t=1219&highlight=Flipping+HOuses

http://www.constantchatter.com/showthread.php?t=1697&highlight=Flipping+HOuses

[southerner]

I haven't done it myslef, but my parents do this all the time. There's a show on TLC that might interest you. It's called Property Ladder. Every week it has a different story about someone who buys a house, fixes it up, then tries to sell it. This weekend the couple that was on wasn't able to resell it, so they ended up renting it out. But, last week they had some LA folks who walked away with $40K. There's so many factors to take into consideration. Where do you live? What's the market like there? How much work needs to be done to the house? How much time/money do y'all have available to do the work? Sorry I'm asking so many questions, but these are all things that are important to consider befoe taking such a big risk!

[dollface]

We have been doing it for 3 years. We have done it with 3 properties and are now on our 4th sale. It's hard work but it has paid of very well for us. This last property we will profit $170k, the lowest profit we have made has been $80k.

[southerner]

I guess that's the LA housing market for you, dollface :eek:

That's more income than I've made working two jobs the past three years!!

[Kanga]

I have also thought about doing this. These people (if they profit) make more in a few months, then dh and I do combined in a year or sometimes 2 or 3. I do think this is something that has to be thought over very carefully. On one of the shows for property ladder, 2 buddies had an investor, and all he did was provide his money and business knowledge, and the 2 buddies did all of the work, i.e. getting permits, getting supplies, dealing with contractors, and then obviously doing all the physical labor themselves. Io obviously don't know the details of their contract, but this seems like the way to go if you don't have a lot of money to invest. And even if you do have the money, this way it wouldn't be your money that's at risk since it would be your first time doing something. The downside is the profit now has to be split one more way.

[Melne11]

I know a couple who does this, and not very well. They constantly have money problems because he invests so much time and money in getting these properties fixed up ready to sell, and she has a poor paying job. They now have three properties that they've had for years that they cannot get rid of because the market is so bad in thier town right now. It's a bad situation for them.

If you are going to do this, be careful, and know what you are doing. It's risky if you don't.

[Jaycee]

I love that show property ladder, and have told DH that if I ever got layed off from my job, than I'm starting a new business of flipping properties. What I'd like to know is on the show, where are these people getting the furniture to furnish these homes for the open house?

[Hello Kitty]

The guy we bought our house from was a flipper. Basically, he bought our house (which was in severe disrepair), did work on it for several months, and then sold it to us for twice what he paid for it. I'm sure he made quite a profit, but he did do A LOT of work in it. As a buyer, it was great - we love our 'new' old house.

Our house was actually shown WITHOUT furniture, and it was the best 'showing' houses we'd looked at. So not having the $$$ for furniture doesn't have to be a bad thing, IMO.

I would think if you started to do this professionally and were to start staging houses, you could probably accumulate the stuff and use it over and over again in each house - if that makes sense?

[Tanya]

I love that show property ladder, and have told DH that if I ever got layed off from my job, than I'm starting a new business of flipping properties. What I'd like to know is on the show, where are these people getting the furniture to furnish these homes for the open house?
Yeah, no kidding! It's really nice, and it never comes out of their budget. My thought was that the show provided it for them. Otherwise, what incentive do they have to be on the show? I saw the one this weekend in Spring, TX, which is only an hour from us. Figures the TX one didn't sell :rolleyes:. But they were being too greedy. No matter how nice the house it, if it's overpriced, people here will get pissed off and not even make a lower offer. But the DH was an engineer project manager, he had to at least be making $75k, and that's a low figure. Why were they having such money problems? Ah well, none of my business. I just don't understand why people who are tight on money anyway take on a new mortgage. And they were only hoping to make $12k.

Another question I have, is the profit a net or gross profit on the show? Does that include closing costs, etc on the buying and selling end?

[keska]

There are companies that rent furniture and even have decorators to help put a home together in order to show it to sell. I read an article about it.

[julietchicago]

DH and I have looked into doing this in the past, but it is on hold for now. It can be VERY profitable, but you must do your research. It is very important to find the RIGHT house in the RIGHT location, otherwise you can lose money very easily.

[lawyerlee]

I just thought I'd let you know that there is a thread about the show Property Ladder on the Television and Movies forum if you're interested in joining that discussion. :)

http://www.constantchatter.com/showthread.php?t=1398

[lawyerlee]

I'm closing this thread to direct the traffic to the exisiting threads on this topic. :)