r/HouseFlipping

Hi everyone.

I did a long review of some of the tools I used in a general real estate chat. It may be more useful here:

$10k/month budget is where we started. now, we're at 17k/month. Home base is Appleton/SE Wisconsin including Milwaukee. and Green Bay to the north.

Here's what we found on everything we touched.

MOTIVATED SELLERS

. Started at sub-20% contact rates

. They switched strategy and it got worse. Failed MLS sellers who wouldn't budge on price, plus people who denied filling out forms

. Always pulled 1-2 real sellers per month

. Closed 77% of leads we considered SQOs (Sales Qualified Opportunities) when we called within 5 minutes

. A lot of in-between people doing their own renos chasing top dollar. Not much financial pain in the pool.

. Great customer service. Pretty fair on disputes.

LEADZOLO

. Switched here after Motivated Sellers

. Rough start, then contact rate and lead quality got solid

. About 80% connect rate

. Closing 1 in 10

. Zero "High Motivation Milwaukee" leads (their Google Search product). Every lead came from Meta.

. They charge $450 for a Milwaukee search lead they never deliver

. Their Meta leads are enriched web forms. Seller fills out a contact form, they skiptrace it, you get extra contact data. You can do the same thing on BatchLeads for under a nickel.

. They removed transparency and lumped everything into one product per region.

BATCHLEADS

. Skiptracing for less than $0.05 per record

. Retail comping with pictures and property details

. We use it for list pulling, comps, and skip

INVESTORBASE

. $249/month

. Finds cash buyers within 1-5 miles who closed in the last 2 years

. Full deal history per buyer

. Enough info to open a call, text, or email

. Export to spreadsheet, push into your outreach tool

. Retail comping tool is rough. Picture access and property details lag way behind BatchLeads.

SMRTPHONE

. Native Podio integration. Call, text, record, all inside Podio.

. Friendly customer support

. Call quality gets shaky at times

INSTANTLY

. Strong deliverability

. Pre-warmed email accounts available. Lets you build a full cold email foundation from scratch.

. Run cash buyer lists, build sequences, deploy AI agents

. Subsequences fork the path based on opens. Openers get the detailed version. Non-openers get a clickbait subject line.

Cost:

. Emails/domains: $5-15 upfront, $5/month

. Subscription: $70-200 depending on tier

. We're on Hypergrowth at around 100/ month. mostly for the gold, so we can verify our lists from Batchleads and Investorbase.

Hope this helps someone when deciding on tools. We opened Motivated Sellers back up and it's doing better than right after their switch to 'pre-qualified' Either service can get you a deal, and the off-market/direct factor opens up the spread quite a bit. Our average spread on wholesales is 24k. Add in Novations and wholetails, and we're closer to 40k average, so the math works for us.

Google Ads

We also run our own Google PPC. I can't really rate Google Ads, but we do have the best campaign overall in Eastern Wisconsin, and a few other markets now. We are running 40% click to conversion, which is where the big savings comes in. Just like Meta, it takes a while to start seeing the savings.

You gotta find converting keywords that a lot of the other investors aren't using. We use Semrush, so that helps us a lot in terms of knowing where to fish, which is basically how many searches people are doing in each area.

Find the parts of the lake where the fish are biting and there's not a lot of other boats. We've been with Motivated Sellers a long time, and have added two more Acquisition guys, so we need close to 250 leads per month now.

As an active flipper, I probably delete 90% of the wholesale texts I get. Why? Because the rehab estimate says "Needs $15k in light TLC," but the photos clearly show a sagging roof and a 1980s electrical panel.

If you want to assign deals for $10k+ fees in this market, you have to hand buyers numbers they actually trust.

I am tired of bad estimates and want to help out.

Here is a real-world example of a deal I analyzed yesterday in Detroit, MI:

• Wholesaler's Estimate: $20,000
• Actual Line-Item Estimate: $42,500
• Where they missed: The roof was at the end of its life ($7,500), the kitchen needed a full gut, not just paint ($9,000), and the plumbing was galvanized ($4,000).

I have some free time today—if anyone is sitting on a dead deal and wants to know what a flipper's actual line-item rehab estimate would be, drop a property link in the comments below. I will run it through my underwriting model and reply right here in the thread with the breakdown so you can see the math.

My neighbor was evicted from his home and the house is now being flipped. The workers have been throwing trash and discarded materials with nails in it over the fence into my yard. I’ve asked multiple times for them to stop but they don’t seem to speak any English. I’ve contacted my HOA about it but I’m not sure if they’ll actually do anything. What are my options to do if this continues and my HOA does nothing?

Hey guys,

built a tool that delivers 150 motivated seller leads per month — inherited properties (we track obituaries nationwide and identify the heirs) and active estate sales. Each lead is fully enriched: property address, decedent or owner name, top 2-3 heirs identified, with phones and emails for each.

100% exclusive to you. Same lead never goes to more than one person — different from every other lead gen tool out there.

Drafts your texts and emails for outreach too. Hit a button and it opens your iPhone messages or email pre-filled — you send from your own phone or inbox so no TCPA / CAN-SPAM headaches.

After you convert a lead it handles the rest of the workflow — comps + ARV + rehab + MAO in 60 seconds, contract generator, buyer radar with active cash buyers in any zip, skip trace, and a shareable deal page for your buyer list.

To keep leads truly exclusive I'm capping signups at 100 wholesalers nationwide. Each metro also has its own spot limit. Once a market fills, it closes.

$349/mo. Onboarding the first cohort over the next 1-2 weeks. 32/100 spots full so far. Once the first 100 are on we’re closing access to focus on making sure the leads we get everyone are quality and solid and that the software works well for them and their business.

Drop a comment if you’re interested and I’ll send you a link to the waitlist. You can also shoot me a private DM if you have any questions at all.

Trying to make wholesaling and flipping easier for everyone, I have 4 years under my belt in the one of the most difficult markets Souther California.

Cheers!

I want to focus on flipping houses now, I've done one before and I've helped my Dad do a bunch. However we do a lot of the work ourselves, so it takes longer than people who contract everything, but it's obviously cheaper.

Are there loans out there that are realistic for a flip that would take a year or so?

Borrower asked for a bridge loan/ 2nd lien. I asked to see paperwork for 1st lien. Came back to say HML requesting more liquidity, so now they want me to partner with them on this flip.

I am able to front the cash needed by the HML. What is usual percentage if I partner on the flip.

There is an outstanding loan with their borrower ($25k) on another flip.

PP: $272,500
Rehab: $90k
ARV: $480k+
Funds needed for 4-6 months

Something came up on my mind when I was just scrolling and reading wholesalers typical problem that they've always encounter on a regular basis.

Most of them pretty much agrees the fact that we need better conversation & follow-ups with a potential prospect.

But, I was quite curious if some of you wholesalers out there have systematized their follow-up processes. If so, how are you able to maintain a healthy conversation despite not sounding robotic with your follow-ups?

If conversation are so important when it comes to getting deals. Is there any drawbacks when it comes to systematizing your follow-ups?

To those people who have successfully implemented a great system regarding follow-ups. How are you able to make it streamline and effective?
Do you have any tips & insights that you are willing to give to your fellow wholesalers?

In real estate investing, the biggest bottleneck is not opportunity — it is clarity.

You can have a steady flow of deals, access to comps, rent data, repair estimates, and all the right tools… and still find yourself stuck at the exact same question:

“Is this actually a good deal, or am I going to regret spending time on it?”

That single moment — the decision point — is where most of the friction lives.

Hey everyone,

I work in my family’s real estate business doing property acquisitions and handling the financial side of deals, mainly around rental properties.

Over time, I started noticing something pretty consistent:

Most of the challenge in real estate isn’t finding properties.

It’s sitting with a deal in front of you and trying to decide whether it is worth pursuing at all.

And the process usually looks like:

• opening comps
• estimating repairs
• checking rent comps
• running ROI numbers
• switching between spreadsheets, tools, and tabs
• second-guessing assumptions
• and still not feeling fully confident in the decision

The issue is not intelligence or experience.

It is cognitive load.

Every deal requires pulling scattered information from different places, aligning assumptions, and trying to build a complete picture in your head — often under time pressure.

I started experiencing this directly while working on acquisitions and deal finance in my family’s business.

So I decided to build something simple to reduce that friction.

Not to replace investor judgment.

Not to “automate” decision-making.

But to make the decision itself easier to reach.

Now the system takes a property and turns it into a structured investment view:

• estimated ARV
• rehab cost range
• rental estimate
• ROI projection
• max safe offer range
• basic risk signals (missing info, condition signals, and market context)
• seller motivation signals (when available)
• overall opportunity score (0–100)

Instead of forcing you to evaluate one deal in isolation, it allows you to compare multiple opportunities side-by-side so your decision is grounded in contrast, not guesswork.

What I have found is this:

It does not change how experienced investors think.

It removes unnecessary friction so they can think more clearly, faster, and with less cognitive fatigue.

I am still actively building this, and I am now opening it up to a small group of pilot users who are actively working deals in real time.

Rather than over-explaining it, I will send you a live demo using real properties, so you can see exactly how it behaves in practice and decide whether it actually fits your workflow.

No pressure either way.

If you are an active investor, wholesaler, or broker and this resonates with how you actually work, feel free to comment or DM me and I will add you to the pilot group and send you the demo.

I am also genuinely looking for feedback on:

• what slows down your deal evaluation process the most in practice
• where uncertainty usually shows up before you make a decision
• what would meaningfully improve your speed or confidence when reviewing deals

Appreciate any thoughtful feedback — especially honest or critical perspectives.

Once you’re selling across more than one platform, it becomes a constant loop of:

● checking inventory numbers

● fixing mismatched listings

● updating things that somehow didn’t update properly

It’s not like one big failure happens. it’s just constant small corrections that never really end.

And the weird part is you don’t notice how much time it takes until you actually track it.

Who would anyone suggest as the fastest highest leverage lenders for flips?

I only do a few flips a year on the side while working full-time, and estimating has probably been the most frustrating part for me. I keep ending up off on lumber and labor costs, especially once prices shift midway through a project. I’m not really looking for enterprise-level estimating software or full blueprint takeoffs. Mostly just something simple where I can plug in quantities, adjust material pricing, and keep rough numbers organized without spending hours on it. Curious what other smaller operators or part-time GCs are using.

Thinking of buying a home, it’s not super functionally laid out. Has a lot of pros, but it seems like the previous owners just had an add on field day. Both bedrooms have outside access doors, there’s another room they were using as a bedroom but it’s really just another add on and also has an access door to the garage. Previous buyers who backed out and agents have all mentioned the odd layout.

If we were to go in and do all the other necessary cosmetic repairs AND change the layout would this have any effect on resell value? Basically is it worth it to change hallways and door positions. Happy to do it, but not wanting to walk into an unsellable money pit. If we only did cosmetic repairs would the layout bite us in the end when going to resell?

Found FSBO in small Central Mississippi town. Small lot with duplex (1b/1br-2b/1br) about 1400sft total. Never updated since the late 40's. Made offer of $60k with arv of potential $140k. Seller thinks its worth over $100k. Needs total wiring/plumbing - HVAC along with external rehab. Has HGTV ruined sellers forever?

Hi everyone — I’m with Sterling Private Capital, a private lending group actively funding real estate investment deals across multiple markets nationwide.

Currently looking at:

• Bridge loans
• Fix & flip
• BRRRR projects
• Value-add residential
• Small commercial acquisitions
• Time-sensitive closings

Typical deal size:

• $75K – $1M+
• Short-term financing
• Fast decision-making for clean opportunities

We primarily lend in:
FL, TX, GA, TN, OH, NC, SC, and CA.

If you’re working on a deal and having trouble with traditional financing, feel free to reach out with:

• Property details
• Loan request
• Exit strategy
• Timeline

Happy to take a look and provide feedback even if the deal is outside a standard bank box.

Hello all!

This is my first ever post and I’d like to give a bit of background. I’m a 29 year old living with my partner in Whistler BC. I am a tri national with the Canada, UK & US. I have family that lives in Colorado. I am very sorry as this may be a long one and I appreciate anyone who can take the time to read or comment.

My main income now is photography, although I have a small business still and specialize in bathrooms and trim carpentry. I can tile, drywall and frame to a very good standard and quickly now. I’m pretty reasonable with cabinetry and most types of flooring, but I know I need to be quicker however I go for “finish” over “time”. I have basically every tool imaginable that I’ve built up over the last 7 years of business.

I recently sold my house in Scotland where I lived pre-covid and fixed that up for a total profit of £30,000 and a total of £80,000. In Canadian dollar, we have to hand about $230,000 with that included. (US $170,000). My photography pays reasonably well and I get to travel a lot with it so it’s making me ask questions about where my next property is.

My thinking is that I go to a place like Colorado Springs or Denver and buy a total beater of a place and live in it and flip it myself. The markets in Canada make this extremely hard to sell and you pay a lot of tax and capital gains. Is this a crazy thought?

I usually work around 50-60 hours per week between these two businesses and I’m not afraid of a hard task. At this point, I’m so scared to fail in my life and I feel like I have come to a cross point where I have a little cash behind me and have a reasonable amount of experience and work ethic. I’m pretty willing to “sell my body” in the laborious sense for future security.

What do I do? Buy a studio apartment here in Whistler for $700kCAD, or do I move literally anywhere in the US and start flipping? I’ve been to probably 25 out of 50 states with work and have got to see the ups and downs. Can anyone clear my head on what the next step is? I’m going round in circles. Thank you!

I purchased a two-bed, one-bath (with an unfinished upstairs bungalow) on the edge of Detroit for $60,000 ($1,800 down) in February. I've put about $40k into the home already and expect to put $40-50k more for electrical, interior finishing and exterior finishing. I'm hoping to list it for 200-210k.

I have paid to fix termite damage in the basement beams, done 90% of the demo myself, and we're now beginning to re-install the kitchen and bath. I am not experienced at all in construction, so almost all of the work to put the house back together will be contracted out.

I only have about $25,000 of liquidity at this time, which would be enough to rough electrical and possibly finish both the kitchen and bath. What would be best for my situation to cover the rest of the work on the interior and finish some work on the exterior? Cash-out refinance? HELOC? I am tapped out on my DTI, so I'm assuming that home equity is the only way out of this. I am not willing to quit unless it's the last resort.

What would you do?