Buying and flipping foreclosures

[BigRichard]

Anyone done this before? Where is the best place to look for auctions? Anyone had any bad experiences doing this? Lost money?

[lewdog]

Watch Flip or Flop on HGTV and do it like they do. They seem to make good money. Get a hot blonde wife like that guy too.

[Brock]

It's a tough gig to make money on now. I made a lot doing it in the 2000s, because it was easy to do with other people's money. It's hard to make the numbers work out presently.

[Jimmya]

I'll be honest. We make quite a bit of money so my dumbass thought flipping houses would make us big time rich. Lost an ass load of money... Over 100 grand...... Very happy never to do that again. Like somebody said.... Materials are crazy high and we were using our own labor plus cheap labor.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

A better investment right now would be to sink a shitload of money in USO

[jspchief]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Watch Flip or Flop on HGTV and do it like they do. They seem to make good money. Get a hot blonde wife like that guy too.

California housing prices... 40k in renovations gets you 60k in home value. Do the same shit in the midwest and you'll be lucky to get 43k out of that 40k.
But I agree on the blonde part.

[2bikemike]

I have purchased a couple of Foreclosed Single Family homes. I bought them with the idea of keeping them long term. My goal was to rent them with a 10% ROI after expenses. This has worked well for me. Any increase in equity of the home is gravy on top of the 10% ROI. I bought them at or near the bottom of the market.

I also bought a duplex on a short sale, that is a cash cow. It has averaged approx 25% ROI. Again the equity increases are just gravy.

My situation was being in the right place at the right time with the finances to take advantage of the crashing market.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by Simply Red

somewhat - I'm more like a junkyard for laptops.

Do you smelt and recycle them?

[Iowanian]

I've done 3, did pretty well on the first 2, lost my ass on the 3rd.

Pick carefully for location, don't overbuild..that's what I did wrong on the 3rd.
If I do it again, It will likely be lower end, small houses to fix, but it will be a while before I get a strong enough urge, or a true bargain has to come along that just needs some polish.

Enter with caution.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by jspchief

California housing prices... 40k in renovations gets you 60k in home value. Do the same shit in the midwest and you'll be lucky to get 43k out of that 40k.
But I agree on the blonde part.

True...

The key here is to secure almost the entire neighborhood. Have a friend trying to do this to a certain part of KC. Basically reverse white flight, it is funny. People got pissed when all the white people left. Now they are buying the homes in droves, they are pissed they are coming back. I told him once he secures enough of them, and gets the others on board to gate the community. Should sky rocket values considering some of the houses sold for 500-3000 dollars.

Me personally, I would just bulldoze most of them. That is the easiest way to increase value. Bulldoze all those old shit homes, basically Obamas cash for clunkers but for houses.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by jspchief

California housing prices... 40k in renovations gets you 60k in home value. Do the same shit in the midwest and you'll be lucky to get 43k out of that 40k.
But I agree on the blonde part.

Definitely. And I think that show was filmed rather recently but saw them buy a dump 1300 sq/ft house in Long Beach, completely gutted for 500k. 120k in renovations and sold for over 700k. Even for Long Beach, that market seems a bit high and tells me why I don't live in Cali.

[notorious]

Cali market is build on blue sky demand. The bubble can fist just as easily as it gives.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Simply Red

My main gripe with owning a junkyard would be the land required.

My dad owned a junkyard for many years. I don't know how well it worked for him when he was active; it was okay, perhaps, but not a big moneymaker.

His challenge was that once he slowed down and didn't have someone out there every day, bad things happened and he didn't know about it. Thieves ran wild and other people started dumping stuff.

His yard was out in the country and at some point a housing development popped up on the hill overlooking his property. They decided that they could kick him out, so they got the city or county or someone to shut him down. By that point he was pretty much out of the business anyway, so he didn't fight it. He figured he could crush all the cars out there and sell the land. But when he showed up, many of the cars were gone and in their place was old mattresses, piles of trash, and other stuff. He then had to pay to clean the place up.

And with that, my dreams of a junk inheritance came to an end.

[B_Ambuehl]

The key to flipping houses is getting a good enough discount off fair market value. Purchase price + rehab total needs to be no more than 70% of average fair market value (sites like eppraisal.com can give you a pretty good idea what the property is worth). If you pay more than 70% the closing costs, realtors fees, utilities, property taxes etc will eat you up. So if you figure a house will sell for 100k and it needs 20k worth of rehab you likely won't make money if you pay more than 50k for it.

Also most of the TV shows on flipping houses don't disclose many of the expenses that go into it.

[Rain Man]

I hate fix and flips. The people who do them usually just put junk in - the cheapest countertops, the cheapest fixtures, etc. Any legitimate homeowner is going to have to rip all that stuff out anyway to do it right, so it's just a a big waste of money to do the "fix" part. I would never even consider buying a fix and flip.

I also think that if you're going to own real estate, the best way to make money is to keep it and rent it out. You just have to be patient because it'll take 20 years to get your money back, but then you start rolling around in big piles of money.

I've been considering buying a condo to rent out, but I'm not following my own advice. I look at the numbers and realize that in 20 years it'll start printing money for me, but the challenge is that I'll lost money for 10 years and then break even for 10 years before that happens, and I'm lazy.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I hate fix and flips. The people who do them usually just put junk in - the cheapest countertops, the cheapest fixtures, etc. Any legitimate homeowner is going to have to rip all that stuff out anyway to do it right, so it's just a a big waste of money to do the "fix" part. I would never even consider buying a fix and flip.

I also think that if you're going to own real estate, the best way to make money is to keep it and rent it out. You just have to be patient because it'll take 20 years to get your money back, but then you start rolling around in big piles of money.

I've been considering buying a condo to rent out, but I'm not following my own advice. I look at the numbers and realize that in 20 years it'll start printing money for me, but the challenge is that I'll lost money for 10 years and then break even for 10 years before that happens, and I'm lazy.

Yeah 2012 I was trying to buy this house in Gladstone. Finally got to where it was in my price point to fix up and live in. Gone in a half a day, asshole flipper. Asshole because somehow he fixed everything in 5 days and relisted the property 50k more than its dropped sale price.

I went and looked at the work he did. Paint, some new windows, not even all of them. New front door. and mulch all around the house with a few plants. Also threw up some sheet rock in the basement and freebreeze and the standard new/cheap carpet.

I feel sorry for the people that bought that house. The reason why I was waiting for it to drop was some cracks in the foundation and mildew smell in the basement. He did not do shit. Not even a new roof.

There was another house I found in Gladstone. Perfect home for me, in ground pool, all brick, just needed work as the previous owners destroyed it. Went to make an offer on the listing for the 80k... Somehow they decided to do a cash auction that was not listed for cash only. Think that was a inside job from the realtor.

You should do a flip like you want to live in it yourself.