6 Important Tips for Flipping Houses

Home-flipping hit a 15-year high in 2021, with over 320,000 houses flipped. The potential payoff of flipping houses is becoming increasingly obvious to many who are choosing to go ahead with the idea and make more money in real estate.

Yet some do it better than others, and not all flipped homes are created equal.

If you want to be successful and make lots of money trying this out, you need to know how to flip a house well. Here’s what you need to do.

1. Know the Neighborhoods

One of the most important home-flipping tips you need to know is to take the time to research the neighborhoods around you.

While you could do a fantastic job flipping a home, it’s going to sell for less if it’s in an undesirable neighborhood. You can be more successful by looking around at where people want to live and even taking a walk through a potential neighborhood to see the amenities and get a feel for what it would be like living there.

If you’re flipping homes aimed at families, don’t forget to look at the local parks and make sure the homes are in a decent school zone. This will go a long way to making you a profit.

2. Hire a Good Real Estate Agent

When it comes to buying a house to flip, you should start researching real estate agents right away so you know who you might go with when the time comes to sell it. Doing it yourself might mean you don’t owe commission, sure, but it also means you may not get the best price for the house.

Selling real estate agents are incentivized to ensure they get you maximum profit.

When hiring a real estate agent, make sure you consider:

• Their license (which they must have)
• Their experience in the field
• Their communication style and how friendly they are
• How available they make themselves
• Their success rate (which you can always ask about)
• Their references and reviews

If you do all of these things then chances are, you’ll find the best real estate agent for the job and this will go a long way in the process.

3. Don’t Overspend

Remember that the aim is for you to make a profit. Don’t overspend — especially if you’re just getting started.

If you’re not used to flipping houses, you should try to find a cheap one first so you aren’t putting a lot of pressure on yourself to have a huge success on your first try.

In short, look at houses that aren’t willing to cost you a lot — such as foreclosed houses! Discover more here.

4. Get a Professional Inspection

Although anyone looking to buy the house will likely get a home inspection done, it’s also a good idea to do it yourself before listing homes for sale. That way, you’ll be informed about any major problems with the house before people come to look at it and can decide what to do.

For example, there may be problems with the foundation that you don’t see because you’re not an expert. A home inspector might spot these and, if a sale is already in progress, it could cause it to fall through — meaning a lot of wasted time.

It’s also a good idea to have a plumber run a camera through the sewer line, which home inspectors don’t often automatically do. This lets you know if there are any impending problems with the house’s plumbing system (such as tree roots growing through the main line).

5. Don’t Overlook Curb Appeal

Although you might spend a lot of money renovating the inside of the house itself, you should also make sure you leave room in your budget for landscaping and the exterior.

When potential buyers come to view a house, the first thing they see is the outside. It doesn’t matter how lavish the inside is — if a house looks especially run down from the outside, then you might find that the buyer doesn’t even give the rest of it a chance.

Landscape the yard and give the doors and windows a fresh coat of paint, and you might find you have a much higher success rate with buyers. You could even go all out and add accessories, if it’s within your budget, such as lights along the path leading up to the house.

6. Have a Plan B

Don’t quit your job and rush immediately into flipping houses. Even if you think you could make a livable income right away, you never know what might happen — the market could crash so the house doesn’t sell, a natural disaster could hit in certain states or a whole other lot of external circumstances that might put a big delay on things.

Make sure you have another source of income as well as a plan for what to do with the house if you do encounter any of these delays. While investing in real estate can be very lucrative, you need to start slow to ensure you don’t land yourself in a bad situation.

Flipping Houses Is Lucrative When Done Right

Although flipping a house can be a great source of income, you have to make sure you’re doing it right. Find a great real estate agent and home inspector, get to know the neighborhoods, don’t overspend, and make sure you account for every possibility when working on the house.

If you do all of this, you have a great foundation to become successful.

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