Category Archives for Renovating Responsibly

7 Simple Fixes For Your Flip’s HVAC (And Two To Get An Expert For)

Buying a fixer-upper can be as stressful as it is exciting.

To save as much money as possible, you will want to evaluate what you can do yourself and what you will need to hire a contractor for.

Calling in a professional is pricey; the more you can do yourself the more money you can save. This article will walk you through seven simple HVAC fixes you can and should take on. We will also discuss two HVAC jobs that are worth bringing in a contractor to complete.

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The Room-By-Room Guide To House Flipping

If you want to Flip Your House, you need to know how to properly rehab and stage each room.

Flip Your House A Room-By-Room GuideRehabbing is the most time consuming, and often most stressful, part of house flipping. During this process, you will have to deal with a set of contractors, and constantly make sure that they are completing the job you requested on time and within your budget.

Then, if you choose to stage your home, you want to do it in a way that will optimize your chances of adding value to the property. If you spend frivolously on useless furniture and decorations, you might as well be flushing your money down the toilet.

If unexpected costs arise from rehabbing and staging, and you have to pay a great deal more, you could wind up selling the house at a loss.

To avoid going over budget, you should learn how to approach each room in the house. Below is guide to help you flip your house room-by-room.

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3 More Curb Appeal Tips To Attract Potential Buters

To improve the value of your house and attract more potential buyers, try enhancing your Curb Appeal.

Curb Appeal Ideas 3 More Tips For Attracting BuyersAs we mentioned before, curb appeal is one of the most important parts of the renovation process. The outside of the house is the first glimpse that the prospective buyers will get of your property when they find its listing.

The curb appeal will give the prospective buyer some sort of impression, for better or worse. If you ignore the exterior of the house and only focus on the inside, you might detract potential homeowners. In contrast, if you transform the outside of your home into something visually appealing and welcoming, you might attract more buyers.

In addition to the crowd it will bring to your open house, improving curb appeal will also increase the value of the property.

In our previous post, we discussed how to make an entrance, how to highlight the mailbox, and how to use greenery. Below, you will find three more tips: give your house a new face, revamp your driveway, and create an outdoor focal piece.

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House Rehabbing Tips | Don’t Forget This 5 Ideas

When flipping a property, don’t forget these important rehabbing tips.

Property Rehabbing Tips 5 Things Many Flippers ForgetSometimes, property rehabbing can be the most difficult part of the house flipping process. There are so many pieces to remember and so many variables that differ from house to house. Sometimes the rehab can start to take its toll, and you lose track of the whole purpose of rehabbing: making your house more attractive to potential buyers.

What you need to do is take a deep breath, step back, and look at the big picture. Spend a few minutes to read these cheap and easy pointers, so you can reduce your stress and optimize your profit. These rehabbing tips are often overlooked and can be incredibly valuable to know and use.

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House Flipping Checklist | Rehabbing Your Property

House Flipping Checklist | 4 Objectives For RehabTo make sure your project goes smoothly, you should stick to this House Flipping Checklist.

Perhaps the most intricate and time-consuming part of flipping a house is the rehabilitation process. Rehabbing a property is essentially what is going to turn you a profit, and should not bet taken lightly.

When working on your flip, you should always be sure to complete this house flipping checklist. If you miss any one of these essential steps, you could find yourself in a world of trouble. This house flipping checklist will provide you with a methodical approach so that you will never go in blind.

House Flipping Checklist: #1. Make A Budget

While some people might simply enjoy house flipping, generally the most important motivator in this field is profit. If you hope to make money, you must make sure you don’t spend more on a home than you can afford. A simple way to make sure you don’t overspend on Rehab is by making a budget.

Before Purchase

Don’t wait until after you’ve already purchased the property to make your budget. You should decide on your maximum rehab costs while you are negotiating with the seller. You need to know these expenditures so that you can subtract them from the ARV, or “after repair value”, of the home to determine whether the property is worth purchasing.

After Purchase

After you complete steps #2 and #3, you can break up the budget and decide how much you are willing to spend on each part of the home improvement. Certain renovations will have more of a fixed price like a septic repair or a plumbing fix. However, other improvements can vary in price. For example, your house might need new flooring. There are dozens of different types of floors with costs at all ranges of the spectrum. Your job is to decide how much you want to allocate toward the different areas of the property.

House Flipping Checklist: #2. Determine What Needs To Be Improved

In the world of house flipping, there are always more ways to renovate a particular property. Unfortunately, you need to respect your budget so that you can turn a profit on the house. Below are some of the more important pieces to consider.

Problem Areas

Many houses have a few areas that might be considered “problems”. These problems could be ailments like a leaky roof, or a plumbing problem. Basically these complications need to be fixed if you hope to sell your house. You should consider factoring them into your budget before considering anything else.

Kitchen

Perhaps the most important room to prospective buyers is the kitchen. Renovating the kitchen can make a house much more valuable, and therefore attractive to the buyers. Setting aside a decent chunk of your budget for your kitchen is never a bad idea. You could use the money on new cabinets or cabinet faces, a countertop, appliances, or flooring.

Bathrooms

Second to the kitchen, the bathrooms are the most crucial rooms in the house. There is typically more than one bathroom in a house, so if you spend too much money on a particular type of improvement for each one, it could get expensive. An easy, inexpensive improvement for your bathroom might be adding brighter lights. Bright lights are a great way to make a bathroom feel less dreary. Depending on your budget, new floors, wall tiles, trimming, and fixtures might be key areas to focus on.

Curb Appeal

Often times, something that is overlooked is improving the front of the house and front yard. Curb appeal is a great way to get your foot in the door. It is the first thing that prospective buyers see when they check out your property’s listing online or in a newspaper. Simple changes like buying a new mailbox or a new front door, painting the exterior of the house, and even mowing the lawn can really boost interest in your home.

House Flipping Checklist: #3. Get Estimates

Requesting estimates from contractors is usually the only way you can draw out a reliable budget. If you guess how much a certain renovation is going to cost, you might end up loosing money on a property.

A common mistake by new house flippers is that they only get an estimate from one contractor. To make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck, make sure you get estimates from about three different subcontractors for each area that needs to be improved.

House Flipping Checklist: #4. Organize A Schedule

After determining all of the necessary improvements and their costs, you should meet with the general contractor. The two of you should set up a schedule determining when each piece of the puzzle should be completed.

By doing this, you can know more precisely whether or not each renovation is being finished in time, and if you are on track to sell when you want to.

Accountability

Make sure you keep up on the contractors to get their work done when they are supposed to. If they are moving too slowly then they might hold up the other parts of the renovation and cause a chain reaction.

These contractors work for you, so don’t be afraid to remind them of what they agreed to when they signed their contract.

If your project gets held up because of them, you won’t be able to sell as quickly. The longer that your property goes unsold, the more it will cost you. Holding onto a home isn’t free. You have to pay for things like maintenance, and insurance every month. This is way staying on schedule is so important.

Flipping Properties | The Do’s And Don’ts

To Learn How To Flip Properties, you must first learn the Do’s and Don’ts of the business.

How To Flip Properties Success Vs. FailureIn the last half decade, a great number of people have started to join the dynamic field of house flipping. House flipping has the potential be an incredibly profitable industry for new investors with a lot of ambition.

However, many new investors jump into a house flipping project without realizing the full gravity of the situation. They often make rookie mistakes that they’ll regret later. As a beginner, you should try to avoid these mistakes by researching and learning as much as you can about how to flip properties.

How To Flip Properties | The Do’s And Don’ts

If you want to learn how to flip properties, it would be smart to see what problems other just like you have run into. In the following section, we pair a common mistake (don’t) with its alternative solution (do):

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Middleborough Part 2 | Cost of Repairs

Hey, guys. It's Mike, with House Flipping School, back for the second video of the Middleborough property. In this video, we're going to breakdown what we were projecting for our rehab costs. If you remember in the previous video, we talked about the cost of repairs, we estimated it was at about $25,000, and deducted that from our 70% formula, which bought us to $120,000.

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Creativity Part 3 | Banks

Hey, guys. It's Mike with House Flipping School. Welcome to the House Flipping School whiteboard. You just heard me talk about the art of the deal, and how we structured a deal to make some money before we sold the property and cashed out with our profit.

I left out some important information, and quite honestly, I forgot about it because this deal happened about a year ago. I want you to pay attention because it's kind of funny in a way, and I stumbled across it when I presented the loan package to the bank in trying to borrow some money.

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