Archive for August, 2008

Beginner’s Guide to Flipping Houses

If you are a beginner who wants to be part of the thriving business of flipping houses then you need to know certain things such as the ones listed below in order to make the most of the situation. It is all about planning the correct procedures.

Ensure that you have plenty of credit or cash available to complete a project – rehab financing is an option used by many investors for flipping houses. This covers the costs for purchase or remodeling.

Making a spreadsheet of many houses in a locality is the best way to determine which house will make money. Therefore, you should be prepared to do research and understand your chosen real estate market. You will not get any success unless you actually do this.

Find out how much it will cost to do the repairs and upgrades on a house. You need to know how to make estimates on the cost of materials and labor. A visit to the local home improvement store can come in quite handy in order to know the prices of materials.

Flipping houses means that you must be adept at comparing the purchase price, labor, materials, expected sales price etc. You must not forget to include closing costs, holding cost and unexpected costs funds to this total. Only after this can you determine which houses offer the best profit and accordingly you should make your offers.

Take into account the best financing for your situation. Try to figure out that whether you will use your own money, rehab financing or an investment property loan. In fact you must talk to a loan officer in order to explore the options that will make for the best deal for flipping houses.

You must know who to hire for making the repairs. Another factor to keep in mind is that you have to make changes according to the desires of your future buyers. Learn which patterns, colors and features bring top dollars without spending any extra money. You should have a plan of action that has already been formulated before your buyer sees anything. This will ensure that you can immediately start to make repairs. A house that sees no activity after closing costs more money daily for the utilities and mortgages. When you initially get into the business of flipping houses, you should look for houses that need only cosmetic work such as painting, cleaning up, new flooring, etc. When you view these houses you should use some imagination to visualize how the finished house will look.

Flipping houses is more than just a way to make money. You can also help improve neighborhoods or turn a shabby house into a buyer’s dream. Flipping houses can be made to a fun activity.

James Klobasa, once broke with no job and $20,000 in debt made a choice that changed his life forever. That choice was investing in Real Estate. With the founder of, The Little Building Co. you too, can learn at Real-Real Estate Investing

A Beginner’s Guide to Flipping Houses

If you’re dreaming of making money in real estate, it’s time to stop dreaming and get to work, because making money in real estate isn’t just a vague pipedream. It can be done, even by a young and inexperienced person, when you learn how to ‘flip’ houses.

A friend of mine, we’ll call her Tai, made a fortune in real estate, beginning at the age of twenty, with no help from anyone else. Here’s how she did it:

Tai began by buying a HUD repo, which allowed her to get into the house for no money down. Then she fixed it up and sold it herself. At closing, she had made enough profit to buy a second fixer-upper, but this time, she paid all cash. Tai went right to work fixing her second house, and when she sold that one, she collected profit of $44,000, which allowed her to pay cash for her third house!

By now, Tai was comfortable with her formula, and within a short time, she had flipped her third house, realizing enough profit to pay cash for yet another house, as well as being able to buy the custom pickup of her dreams. And all of this had happened in the span of just nine months!

Tai’s formula was simple. She located houses that needed only cosmetic work, avoiding those that required structural repairs. She did all the painting herself, inside and out, and updated the home’s lighting, plumbing fixtures, and carpeting. Once renovations had been completed, all three houses sold quickly, and at a significant profit.

Flipping houses is the most tried-and-true way to make a fortune in real estate, so don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you that it can’t be done or that you need to have a great deal of start-up money. That’s not true. You can buy houses with no money down through various loan programs, and sellers will often help you with the closing costs.

I know what I’m talking about. My husband and I bought our 27th house earlier this year, for no money down, and we expect to make a profit of at least $100,000 for just one month of hard work!

But we take the process a step further, making our houses outshine the competition by also using Design Psychology, although our buyers never know that. All they know is that they feel good when they’re in our homes, which makes them want to buy them, even if they’re more expensive than the house next door.

There’s no other business that can make you as much money, with as little start-up cost, in as short a time, as investing in real estate. In fact, more millionaires made their fortunes in real estate than in any other business. And you can do it, too. You just have to stop dreaming and get started.

Copyright © 2004 Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.
Get started today making money flipping houses and real estate investing–without worries about the ‘pending real estate crash.’ Free real estate investing business plan from Jeanette Fisher and free ebook, The Truth about Making Money Flipping Houses: http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com