| First Timer Tips On Flipping Real Estate For Beginners |
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| Written by Lisa Udy |
| Sunday, 29 August 2010 14:29 |
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Flipping real estate is one of the few reliable investments left now that stocks have become so schizophrenic, 401ks are becoming less and less of an option, and even social security is drying up. Yes, the housing market has its ups and downs, but a home is always worth something, land is always worth something, and you an use the slow seasons to invest while you use the hot seasons to sell. Now here are the basics of flipping homes for profit.
Flipping real estate is one of the few reliable investments left now that stocks have become so schizophrenic, 401ks are becoming less and less of an option, and even social security is drying up. Yes, the housing market has its ups and downs, but a home is always worth something, land is always worth something, and you an use the slow seasons to invest while you use the hot seasons to sell. Now here are the basics of flipping homes for profit. Buy Low This one should be obvious, but so many people neglect it. If you're buying a million dollar property in a gated community, you're probably not going to make much of a profit. You might be able to fix it up a bit and turn, say, five percent on the purchase price, but you better keep the repair costs down. Basically, the lower you start, the less you spend up front, the bigger your profit will be. It's easy to turn a dirt cheap house into a modestly priced home worth two, three times what you spent on it, but doing this with a home that's already on the top of the market? Forget it. Buy cheap. Sell High Another step that should be obvious, but which many people completely ignore! You can't buy a crummy house and sell a crummy house and expect to make money. Look, if all you want is a fast buck, try the lottery. Flipping homes is all about taking something of very little value and turning it into something of very high value. You know what they say, location is everything, right? Well think of it this way: Location is IMPROVED by the value of the homes within that location. If you buy a crummy house in a mid-level neighborhood and turn it into a real winner, you're improving the local area value and thus your final sale price. Control Your Repair Budget Probably the biggest pitfall for new home investors: They spend so much hiring crews, architects, designers and so on, that by the time they make the sale, there's little left over to put into the next investment, if they can afford to pay their contractors and stay out of trouble in the first place, that is. Whenever you can, do the work yourself. Look, most of these homes require a few month's of work and the kind of repair budget you could earn at a minimum wage job in the same amount of time, so why spend ten, twenty times that much hiring a professional crew? Live in the house as you fix it up and it's all profit, really, since you're only collecting the final price for repairing your own home! DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice. Please help Carolyn Capalbo take her name back by visiting the Carolyn Capalbo press release. |