Tips for Flipping Houses

Todd: Hello. Welcome to Todd Miller TV. Joined here today with Oana. So the topic for today is the top three tips for property flippers.

Oana: Yes.

Todd: OK. So in your past before you were a fulltime real estate person, you were flipping houses and buying them in interesting ways and then flipping and making money.

Oana: Yes.

Todd: You made money on everyone. You never lost money at all, right?

Oana: Not to my recollection, no.

Todd: OK, good.

Oana: Knock on wood.

Todd: Knock on wood. OK. So we have an interesting market here in Las Vegas.

Oana: Yes.

Todd: We have very little inventory. We have prices starting to rise.

Oana: Right.

Todd: And we have a lot of investors. OK. But there’s still opportunity.

Oana: Absolutely.

Todd: OK. So what are the three things, strategies or whatever to acquire an investment property here in Las Vegas that you would want to flip?

Oana: The strategy in Las Vegas is basically old school. I don’t care where you’re doing it. This works everywhere but it works really well in Las Vegas right now.

Todd: OK.

Oana: So what works really well is number one, look for properties that just need minor cosmetic repairs. This is old school. We all know that. Look you put paint, carpet. You put some appliances in, maybe redo the kitchen, bathrooms and you’re in there. How do you buy these things?

Well first of all, look for short sales and get lots of them under contract because remember, when you’re purchasing a short sale, that may or may not happen. So you want a whole bunch of them under contract. They won’t all close and even if most of them do close, they won’t close at the same time. So you won’t be out of cash all at once. So don’t worry about it. Just get them under contract and start working on them.

The second thing is look for areas that either don’t have anything on the market or everything that’s on the market is under contract. So I look at this everyday and I’m looking for example to say everything that’s on the market is under contract and they’re all listed between say 100 and 140.

Todd: OK.

Oana: OK? So when you’re looking at that, look if somebody wants to buy a house and everything in that neighborhood is under contract and most of them are short sales, they may or may not close. If you’ve got a nice property then yeah, you can sell it for more than the average bear [0:02:13] [Phonetic] just because in Las Vegas right now we have an inventory shortage and buyers are willing and able.

That’s the really important part. Not only are they willing but they are able to meet the difference and able to meet the difference at the tune of 10 percent. No. But they’re able to meet the difference generally to the tune of $5000 to $10,000, which is a lot of money and that’s a lot of your profit right there.

So those are important things to keep in mind. Lastly, look for properties that maybe have sat on the market, maybe have been vandalized. Those are my favorites.

Todd: OK.

Oana: Because it’s not that the property is necessarily an area that’s prone to vandalism. It’s that the properties are vacant and vacant properties do attract people who help themselves to parts of the property. So picking up those properties is great because generally owner occupants are scared off by things like that because they’re concerned about crime in the area and that sort of thing. You can look up the crime in the area on the police website and see what’s going on. Most of the time, it’s not a big issue. It’s simply that the property is vacant and it attracts unsavory characters.

Todd: What do you say to the people who go, well, if the property has been sitting around for a long time, a lot of other people have looked at it and they didn’t want to try to flip it or whatever?

Oana: That’s a good point but you have to do a little bit of digging to find out why the property has been on the market. So let me give you an example.

Todd: OK.

Oana: I have a property right now that it looks like it has been on the market for close to 120 days but in reality, it was only on the market for about 15 days. The rest of the time, we had an accepted offer and the buyer was trying to do a 203k which takes a long time.

Todd: Right.

Oana: So in the end the buyer wasn’t able to do it, had nothing to do with the property and the property came back on the market. But it looks like it has been on the market for about 120 days when in reality it only had people looking at it for a couple of weeks.

So there’s a little more to it. There’s a little bit of an art and a science to it. So make sure that you’re paying attention. Lots of opportunities in Las Vegas. Like I said, the number one thing is make sure that you’re looking at areas that you are the only available property and your property is nice.

Todd: OK. So we have the three tips. To break them down are cosmetic repairs only.

Oana: Yes.

Todd: Something in the area where there’s very little actual homes for sale. It’s the only house.

Oana: Right.

Todd: OK. And then third is stuff that has been on the market a long time.

Oana: Right.

Todd: Good. Awesome. Well, thank you very much.

Oana: You’re welcome.

Todd: So those are Oana’s tips for flipping houses. That’s my update for today and hope to see you on another video. Thanks.

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