House Flipping is Easy, Not so Much

I love listening to experienced house flippers talk about their war stories. When I first started flipping houses, many years ago, there were no "how to" courses. So, for me it was self-taught which is the way many got started. We all learn more from the failures or missteps of others, than we can from their successes. 

Here are a couple of the important lessons, I learned along my path:

1)   I’m not into location, location &  location, but rather price, price & price. If it is purchased wrong, it is almost impossible to fix this problem. A profit can be made in any location, as long as the property is purchased at the right price.

2)   Never cheat and cover stuff up. When I watch some of these flip this house type programs on TV, I am always amazed how much stuff they cover up and never really fix.

3)   Learn from others that have done this before and surround yourself with the best possible trades people and ones that are trustworthy.

4)   Have a marketing plan in place. So you have done a great job buying and renovating, now what? If you don’t sell the property quickly, you lose money every day the property doesn’t sell.

5)   Make sure you don’t over price the property.

School of Hard Knocks in Real Estate Investing: 3 Tales of Newbie Lessons Learned