Ralph R. Roberts - Flipping Houses For Dummies

Focus in the midst of chaos: Distractions can quickly derail a flip, so you’d better be able to focus in the midst of chaos, especially if you have a full-time job, a spouse, children, or other interests. Without focus, you won’t have the attention to detail required for success.

Follow instructions: You don’t need to know everything about flipping houses to get started, but you do need to know how to follow instructions, including those I provide in this book.HOW BAD CAN A HOUSE-FLIP BE?We (Ralph Roberts and company) discovered a fantastic foreclosure property — a $2 million beauty we could get for a cool $900,000! Although the owners, whom we refer to as Mr. and Mrs. Rose, were divorcing, they seemed willing to work with us at first. They even persuaded us to let them stay in the house while we were rehabbing it. Letting people stay in the house is always a bad idea. We agreed to this request to seal the deal, but when you’re flipping a house, you want to close on it only when it’s vacant and broom-clean (free of debris, dirt, and rubbish) — and, in the case of foreclosures, the redemption period has expired. (See Chapter 7for more about redemption.) Mr. Rose lived in one half of the house; the missus, in the other half.As soon as the contractors showed up, the couple’s version of The War of the Roses commenced. Mrs. Rose declared certain areas of the house to be no-work zones, and these zones changed daily. She tried to seduce the contractors, and when real estate agents arrived to show the house, she called the police. During the rehab, the Roses’ son was caught doing drugs in the house.Mrs. Rose moved out, only to be replaced by Mr. Rose’s girlfriend. When the contractors returned to work, they found the girlfriend at the top of the stairs, dressed only in her nightie, drunk and in a jealous rage. She proceeded to fall down the stairs, shedding her wig along the way. By the time the Roses cleared out, the place was trashed.We finally managed to take possession of the house, complete the rehab, and place the property back on the market. We were willing to sell for $1.8 million, and when we received our first offer for $2.2 million, we were ecstatic — though we weren’t out of the rose bushes yet.During negotiations, we found out that the instrument the buyer was using to pay for the property qualified as an illegal use of Treasury bonds. We informed the FBI, which set up a sting operation to nab the bad guys. The fraudsters showed up three hours early, discovered the sting, and split town.We eventually sold the house for $2 million and netted a $250,000 profit — not bad for a year’s effort, but not the quick and easy money we had expected.

Crunch numbers: Basic math skills are essential when you’re comparing financing options and crunching numbers to gauge how much profit you can wring out of a house. If you’re not good with math, you at least need to know how to use that calculator app on your smartphone.

Organize, schedule, and oversee: When you’re renovating a property, you need to be able to coordinate contractors and material so that the work gets done as efficiently as possible. Remember: Time is money.

Deal with different personality types: Being able to work with people and resolve any differences is the key to many aspects of flipping, including persuading people to loan you money, negotiating lower prices for property, and managing contractors and work crews.

Persist in the face of adversity: Unless you’re really good at flipping houses and really lucky, you’re going to experience failure and disappointment. Those who succeed persist in the face of such adversity. They don’t give up.

In addition to these fundamental traits, genuine enthusiasm and joy can significantly drive your success — being a curious, friendly face is encouraging to both sellers and buyers and can help you secure a fair deal. When you’re dealing with sellers, especially, it can make them more open, enabling you to find out more about a property before you make an offer.

No two flippers have the same strategy. Some choose to live in the house they flip, and others find that strategy to be too stressful. Some flip the house they live in every two or three years to take advantage of a lucrative federal tax exclusion (see Chapter 23), and others flip a house once every month or two for quick profits. Many investors focus on a niche market, such as foreclosure properties, HUD properties, or For Sale By Owner (FSBO) homes.

The strategy you ultimately settle on is yours to invent. What’s important is that you have a strategy and the system and resources ready to execute it. Before your first flip, you should have these essentials in place:

Cash or financing to not only purchase the house but also cover holding costs and the cost of repairs and renovations (see Chapter 4for more about financing your flips)

A plan for repairing and renovating the property (such as buying low, applying makeup, and selling high, or living in your flip while you renovate it)

A realistic estimate of the costs of repairs and renovations and the monthly expenses for holding the property

A schedule for completing the project

Reliable contractors who can begin working on the property immediately

A date on which you plan to put the house back on the market

Plan your flip at least as carefully as you would plan a two-week vacation. Other chapters in this part can help you lay the foundation for a successful flip.

When you’re gambling with more than $100,000 of your own or someone else’s money, learning by trial-and-error can be catastrophic. A safer way to develop the skills and foresight needed to reduce costly mistakes is to learn from others. Develop your own house flipping team and rely on the following professionals to guide and educate you:

Real estate agent

Financier/lender

Accountant

Title company

Appraiser

Home inspector

Real estate lawyer

Contractor

In Chapter 3, I describe the role that each of these valuable individuals plays on your team, and I provide some criteria for selecting the best of the bunch. I also devote an entire chapter ( Chapter 13) to building and managing a rehab team.

Hiring professionals may increase your costs but can save you a considerable amount of money in terms of time, doing the job properly, and avoiding costly mistakes. Just be sure to calculate the cost of those professionals into your investment when determining how much to pay for the property.

The most critical stage of flipping a house is finding and buying the right house to flip. Buy a lousy house in a lousy neighborhood for more than it’s worth, and you’ve already lost the game. Finding a house with substantial profit potential is quite a challenge, but as a flipper, that’s the fun part. Flipping is an adventure, a treasure hunt, and a poker game all rolled into one.

Finding and buying a property is a four-step process:

1 Scope out a fertile neighborhood — often an area with homes that are at least 20 years old.See Chapter 5for details.