r/HouseFlipping

I work on the private lending side of real estate and am genuinely curious to hear from the investor/borrower perspective.

There are obviously a lot of hard money and private lenders out there, and terms can vary pretty significantly. What actually matters most to you when you're comparing lenders today? Rate? Points? Leverage? Speed to close? Draw process? Flexibility? Being able to actually get someone on the phone/access to decision makers?

And on the flip side, what has been your biggest frustration with hard money/private lenders you've worked with?

hello everyone i just started a profitable business with low risk and want to invest my income into real estate im looking for a mentor to learn how to brrrr fast and efficiently - lets network and learn from each other.

about me: Pharmaceutical trucking fleet owner full time day trader (stocks)

heres where I'm at. I bought a duplex in lowell with my brother we thought it would be a great project. two units, good area, we could live in one and rent the other out.

turns out the previous owners did some really creative renovations. none of them were done right. we found mold behind the walls, the plumbing is a disaster, and the roof is basically held together with hope and prayers. we're already 20k over budget and we're maybe 40 percent done.

my brother wants to keep going. he says were already in too deep to quit. I think we should cut our losses and sell.

has anyone here sold a partially finished flip? I need some advice because my brother and I are fighting about this and I don't want this to ruin our relationship

honest question. On my first flip I budgeted 15% for contingencies and ended up using almost all of it. On my second I did 20% and still went over.

Latest one was a plumbing issue. Found a wet spot behind the dishwasher during demo. Classic. Called someone to check it out and they found more damage behind the tiles. had to reroute a couple of pipes and redo part of the wall.

Called a burst pipe repair sydney to come in with their camera gear and check the rest of the house just in case. Found a few more spots that looked sus but werent leaking yet. probably saved me from a future call from a buyer.

So now im wondering what everyone else does. Do you just accept that theres always something unexpected and pad your budget accordingly? Or do you do extra inspections before buying to minimise surprises? Feels like every house has hidden problems.

I want to start flipping to make some money i want to start local what should I try to flip to get me started

Bought the house for 400k. Needs 200k in Reno. Will be worth 800k. My take is 40% of the project. We both put down 8k for earnest money and the rest is a loan. I brought the project to him and hes providing the means to finance it.

My partner wants to buy me out of my 40% share. What would be a fair price to begin negotiations? I realize there’s a lot of missing info here, I’m just looking for a place to start.

Planning to build our first home in Dallas, Texas to sell and start the journey as a builder! We have the land free and clear secured off market from a Wholeseller for about 21-23% of the ARV of the house we're hoping to sell at! We would like to put up a house that could sell quickly! We have several years of experience in land development, engineering, etc., but haven't really done a full build yet. We are GCs ourselves and also have builders who are willing to partner with us or some who can provide a builder’s guarantee! Ideally would like to do it ourselves to cut down on budget! Trying to get recommendations on who can help new builders like us and what we can expect?

bought a house last summer. thought id be smart. new floors paint kitchen bathrooms. looked great in the photos

listed it in september. got a couple showings but no offers. dropped the price twice. now its been sitting empty for like 6 months and im still paying utilities and property tax on it

honestly at this point im not even trying to make a big profit. just want to break even and move on. i called a local company called just to see what theyd offer. they came in lower than my listing price but after calculating 6% agent commission plus holding costs plus the risk of waiting longer... it was actually pretty close

i havent decided yet. part of me wants to hold out for a better offer but the other part is so tired of this house

anyone else been in this spot. what did you do. hold and wait or take the hit and move on

I’m a student in the Cincinnati area and have already bought a rental in my college town. I’ve saved up around 40k and am wondering what would be the best way to get the highest short-term return. I’m thinking of flipping and new builds although I don’t have any experience with either of these. Thanks

This is my 5th flip and it's the first home I've encountered where the yard, front and back is dead - dead grass, no landscaping at all. Normally I'd toss in irrigation system and sow grass, do some perennial beds and mulch to make everything pop.....BUT the wtaer cost in this town is crazy high (high mtn desert) and there are water restrictions almost every summer. So watering grass is insanely expensive: my neighbor has beautiful grass but pays almost $600 a month just watering 😳.

I don't mind SOME xeriscaping, but on a 1\4 acre of land, that's just ugly to do 100% of it. Likewise a 1\4 acre worth of grass is cost prohibitive. What do y'all do, or what would you do in this situation?

Everyone talks about the wins but I want to hear about the lessons that actually changed how you operate. I am working on my second flip right now and keep thinking back to my first deal where I completely underestimated the carrying costs. I had the rehab budget figured out pretty well but I did not account for holding costs eating into my margin month after month while the project dragged on. By the time I sold I had basically worked for free.

Since then I build in a much more aggressive timeline buffer and I am obsessive about tracking every week the project is sitting. But I know there are a hundred other ways a first flip can go sideways. Contractor noshows, permit delays, buying in the wrong neighborhood, misjudging ARV, the list goes on.

For the experienced folks here, what was the one mistake on your first deal that you would never let happen again? Did it change your process, your team, your market criteria, or how you evaluate deals upfront? The real education in this business happens in those painful first experiences and I would rather learn from other people's stories than repeat the same mistakes myself. Drop your story below, the messier the better.

2 bed + 2 bath home plus 2,000 sq foot separate garage from house. Overlooking beautiful large creek.

I bought a house to renovate. I ended up living inside it. My dad was supposed to most of the work, but every time he comes by, for some reason I get very angry and don't want to any work. It is turning into something that is very slow unnecessarily. I did get a new roof and attic insulation and he installed a heat pump and water heater.

so I bought this house thinking I'd make a quick 20k. it was a foreclosure, got it cheap, thought it just needed paint and floors. well jokes on me.

opened up the walls to run some new electrical and found knob and tube wiring in every room. had to rewire the whole house. then the plumbing started leaking. then I found a roof leak that turned into a full roof replacement. I'm like 15k over budget and I haven't even touched the kitchen yet.

I'm running out of money and honestly I'm just over it. I don't have the energy or the cash to keep going. I've been thinking about just selling it as-is and cutting my losses.

has anyone here walked away from a flip that went bad? how did you do it? did you sell to a cash buyer or just take a loss on the market? I feel like a failure but I also feel like I'm drowning here.