How to Start Flipping Houses for Huge Profits in 2025 (Step-by-Step!)
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Real state of investors often eventually find their niche, whether it's by and hold short time rentals birds. But today, we are joined by an expert in flipping to talk to what to expect for flips in twenty twenty five. High interest rates aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

So how do you need to adjust your flipping strategy to still be successful in today's market? We're going to get into everything from how to analyze the flip through low cost renovation tips. So welcome back to the real state key podcast. I'm actually care and i'm joined with my cohoes, tony j. Robinson.

And this is the podcast to help you kickstart your real state investing journey. And we are so excited, as always, to have none other than James dinner red on the podcast once again. And if you don't know James, he's not only an expert in the world, the flipped, but he's also one of the host of our sister podcast on the market. And he's also the author of the newest bigger pockets book, the flipping framework. So Jimmy.

walk to, you know, I say, I never thought you ever call me an author.

but here we are.

But here we are. The world's is changing. Happy to be all of you guys. You guys like some my favorite people to .

chap IT up with. Well, James, we're here to talk about your new book, the flipping framework. But the kind of started IT off, let's give some value at right away. What is something that makes a flipper stand out, something that gives you that edge, that gives you those successful flips? I think that's .

a great question because the biggest line real estate is the monkeys made on the buy because, you know, IT really depends on how you can escape the plan. So the difference in between, I think a very seasoned flipper, they can excuse and a very active isn't about the deal flow, is not the money, is the resources they have. They give them the capability to build the execute the plan.

And so I think know for any flip out there that is growing their business or they want to establish the best is you have to have the the court components and ask the people to Operate the plan in your vision so you can control the cost. Because a lot of time to flipping isn't about the buy you get, is about how you invented return by putting the right plan on the deal. And so the flipper with the most resources, contractors, vendors, those are the ones they have, the best businesses.

And to that, James, like when you talk about business plans a lot or like the plan for the flip itself and how does a Ricky come up with what the actual best plan is for a specific property? Because I think we can all maybe identify here this is a really cheap prince and comparison and to other properties in that market. But how do we actually put together .

the right plan for the property? How you put together the right plan, like how we can do IT? We are very, very active in the acidic northwest where, you know we flip band were involved in a couple hundred flips year.

And in the reason we can do this is because we have the right team around us. And so to come up with the right plan, you need the right team around you. In the right team, your first person is going to be a real state broker because that broker needs A A bill to help you identify opportunities, but also to give you what is highest and best use for the property.

And so when you want to come up with this plan, how do you make money on this? How you great equity. It's about taking data going through IT in that data, recent comparables because every house is going to have a three sets of comes there is going know if i'm looking at a house, it's a three bed, one bath.

Houses is on a thousand thousand or football print and i'm looking at cops. There could be one is a very cosmetic update pricing, which is maybe they have new florian, new cabinets, new tram spruce up back to market a little bit more affordable. Then there's going to be the secondary plan, which is, well, maybe they take that cosmetics and they take IT to a higher level and they start updating roofs, windows, updating all the fixtures to a higher level toward they're putting a nicer cabinets, nice their planes and they go for higher Price.

Then there is selling IT for the most typically, which is where you're going to add menials, which could be adding A A bathroom. You know, if i'm taking a three bed of one bath house and I turned IT into a three bed, two bath with the primary that can substantially increase the value. But all three of those cost, three different types of renovation budgets.

And you know, as flippers, what we're trying to do is find out what is highest and best use. And highest and best use is creating the most profit, not selling IT for the most. And so what we do is we always pull three sets of comes for each property.

What's the least amount of work we can do to create a margin? What's the middle ground? How can we make IT really nice without moving walls in changing, in adding spaces? And the third is always, how do we create the most amount of value, which is gonna adding bathroom.

Bathroom may be finishing square footage. But then after you find those three data points, you have then have to map the budget. So we find three different sets of cops.

We run three different budgets for what we're trying to accomplish there and then into our performer to tell us what is the highest profit and the performance is going to calculate what our purchase Prices. What all are take down financing is for the hard money because many times, we're taking these properties down with cash or hard money is expensive. Um we calculate those costs, the guster anywhere twin you know ten percent interest to twelve percent interest in one and two points. And then we subtract the selling cost, the real cost and IT kicks up the net profit and whatever that is, the highest annualized return, the highest profit that we can make over twelve more period, that's the plan that we go with. And so IT really comes down to having that broker that can help pull those cops, explain you what needs to be done to get to that value, and then having a good construction team so you can run the budgets for each one of those plans, and then you can make the right decision.

You said something that I just want to highlight for our rookie audience because I I don't think a lot of people approach flips in this way. But you said we look at the profit, but then we look at IT as an annualized to return. And I think when we look at traditional long term, tals, short term, medium term, whatever IT may be, a lot of us look at the annual cash on cash return.

But when we talk about flipping, most people just look at the pure number, like how much cash my getting back. So can you explain, James, why you look at not just the raw number of profit but that annualize return? And how do you actually calculate that annualize return?

Well, the reason I look at deals on annual basis is because IT tells me when to buy a deal and not depending on the duration. And so how you calculate in the analyze returned is, let's say, i'm buying a property and I have to invest a hundred thousand dollars into this property for the purchase prize that we have caused the holding costs. Now if I can make you know, I try to make a thirty five percent return every six months.

So i'm always shooting for about a sixty to seventy percent annual return. And if i'm looking at this property that I would invest a hundred grand into and I can make thirty five thousand dollars in six months, that's gonna give me my thirty five percent return on an annual basis, that would be a seventy percent return. And so the reason I look at everything analyzed is because he tells me when to do a deal and not to do a deal, because clarity is so important for us as investors.

What do we want to buy and does IT really make sense for our goals that we're trying to achieve? Now with flipping, flipping is one of the best asset classes that you can grow the most amount profit, you can grow your cash the quickest, but is also the risk is things can go wrong very quickly. And you know based on that, based on the risk in the market, in the asic class, I always want to know what am I comfortable with because if i'm going to take on this much risk, I want to make sure getting a certain reward.

I don't ever look at net profit on a deal. I look at how much cast i've to invest, how much do I going to make out and what does that look like on an annual basis. So if I know I want to make a seventy percent return on a twelve months basis, if i'm looking at a deal that's gonna take three months to do, IT tells me, went to buy a deal.

So if I can do a really quick deal, if I want to make a seventy percent analyze return, that is going to a turn into, I need to get a twenty five percent return in in ninety days. Now the deals going to take me a year when i'm looking at the numbers and i'm looking at where do I need to buy this thing at, I want to make sure that I have a seventy percent cash on cash return because this a twelve month basis. So by putting my my by box and putting my expectation at a analyzed basis, IT tells me when to buy a deal and not to buy a deal based on how long I to hold IT for.

We have to take a quick break, but I wanted to let you know if you are learning a lot from James s's advice on this episode, might want to check out his new book, the house flipping framework. James has flipped more than three thousand five hundred homes, and his book outlines the strategies he uses to maximize this value in flips and make them a sustainable part of any relate portfolio. So go check IT out now bigger packets that come slash house flipping. Okay, we will be back shortly.

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is a rookie investor. How do you even come up with what is a good percent? So you're saying seventy percent, but if you've never invested in real state or maybe this is going to be your first flip, how do you decide what is A A good person? Ge does not depend on your market, does IT depend on your other investments. Kind of give us an idea of how can I decide as a new investor what my percentages that I should be reaching for?

Yeah, and that is a great question. Some of that is your own personal choice because he does come down to risk. You know like if i'm onna, take on a property and you can look like I said, you can lose money very quickly on a flip.

I mean, I have cut checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars on house just to get out of the house. And you know and so IT comes with that risk. And so if i'm going to take that risk on and based on where I want to be on my goals, I want to make a certain return.

So like if i'm not making more than twenty percent on my flip, i'd rather go into a less risk of asset class like I can do private money financing and make twelve percent in a couple point so I can make fourteen percent of my money without having to do the work and having lotless risk on the deal. So for me, on a flip, I want to be at least double that because i'm taking on this risk and and so I want to be a double, but then that I need to find out what does that make me participate in our market because every market is different. Some are more competitive, some are less competitive somehow, uh, some markets are more affordable, some are really expensive.

And based on pricing of homes and what your competitive nature is in your market, you have to kind of make your adjustments. And so how you figure out that market and how you figure out this returns is the best thing you do start going to meet ups and talking to investors and finding out what they are usually making on their flips. Because, you know, like if I rented tony at a media group and you, like, I wanted get in the flipping, hey, can you tell me, like, how much money you do to typically make on these things? How much money do you have to have? I'm going to be able to explain that pretty well.

Like, hey, on my last deal, I put on one hundred grand and I made forty and if I hear that consistent tone, that tells me, okay, i've got to be around a forty percent return. Now, another way to do IT, if you don't go meet up with investors, as you can track this with data fairly easily, you know, there's so many different websites out there that will help you track flippers to wear. I can.

Or even my title rap, I SHE call up my title web and say, hey, can you give me a list of all properties that we're botton soul within a twelve month period, in the last twelve months that were bought by an L. C. And he can send me that list.

I can then pull up that list on a tax record and go, okay, with this investor body for this. I can then go through the photos, usually before and after, because a lot of times they're on market and go, okay, what they did this scope work, which I think is gona cost about this much, and this is what they saw IT for. I then can put IT in a performer, and I can see what they're return less.

And I can if I do that on five to six deals as a sample size, IT tells me what my average returns in the market. And so you know, the thing is, as we're getting started in our new investors, that, that sounds a lot more complicated than IT really is. So like what do you do? You pull this list, you get the data again.

Having the right partner and broken on your team is so, so important. And so if you're new investor going out on finding that broker that works in that space, they will pull all that information for you. Or if you contact a broker that is selling a lot of flips in your market, they're gonna know what their client are buying and selling things for and typically what their renovation costs are, and they're gone to help you explain that to you.

And because you're seeing the volume with them, you know that they're involved constantly. And so you know, if you're new, I think the best thing you can do to figure out your market return, to find a specialized broker or not your mom, not your dad, not, not your ant, not your friend. Find the broker who selling the most amount of flips and the most amount of investment properties, contact them and that who you want on your team and where else.

uh, James, can you go to find the investor friendly agent?

One of the best resources you can have is the bigger pockets broker finder because these are brokers that want to work with investors. But the beautiful thing is you're finding a targeted broker is looking to work with investors, you know like our our business in not real state. We are brokers that is only services foreign investors.

If actually came to me, go, hey, I wanted to find my dream home. Can you show me twenty homes? And let's go look at them.

We're actually I don't work with that kind of client. I give them to somebody else. We work with investors. And so if you find a broker like us, that's where we can speak the same language and and we're going to hate this is what you need to do to transact because that broker also has an interest in you transacting, so they can make a commission.

But they also have an interesting new long term with the investment broker because, you know, for me as a broker, my clients are client of mind for ten, twelve, thirty years because they are consistent buyers as long like take care of them. And so you know, go on bigger pois, find the brokers in your area, they work with investors and then start interviewing them. And if they can tell you what the return should be a good person to engage with, if they don't know, they might not know your market like they should.

And for those of you looking for that bigger pockets resource, head over to bigger pockets. That comes flash agent find. You find a good investor family asian in your market.

Now, James, master class on kind of the return analysis on a potential flip. But what I want to talk about now is actually choosing the market. Now you've got a really unique dynamic because you're in one of the more expensive markets in the united states. So for Ricky that are starting out, I guess, how do you actually go about choosing which market you want to start in? Like how how do I pick the right market to become the first time flipper?

But that is a really great question, right? Because are always trying to figure out you know the expensive barkeep that is hard. They eat up a lot of capital um many times they have a lot more restrictions like seattle. It's it's not only that deals are expensive, the permitting process is so brutal and is so complex. IT just takes a long time. And so you for a new investor getting in those expensive metro markets, IT is, you know you definitely want to have the right team around you or if you are in that market and you want to participate, but you don't have the resources I have them with, partner with an Operator to where you can start learning that market and learning those processes, that one of the best things that you can do now if you want to research the market like you know, i'm certain to look into outside markets of where the flip. Now for me, I do a little bit more passively flipping.

I actually find more experience Operators and try to partner with them in outside markets rather than chase the market because i'm always for flipping is all about the resources, it's all about the skill set, is all about the experience because, you know, the more houses you do and the more experiences you've learned, the reason I think i'm a fairly good flipper is because i've lost a lot of money and i've meant a lot of mistakes. And and with eighteen years on our rebels, we've made a lot of mistakes and we've earned a lot of lessons and we've able to change. But you know, if you want to get into a new market, the first thing you want to do is shop your budget.

What cash are you working with, you know? And if you have fifty thousand, okay, will we have fifty thousand that we need to go to a more affordable able market? Maybe ohio is a great one to be in for um or you know homes that are selling for under three hundred thousand.

That is my first thing. I got a shop inside the budget. The next thing I want to do is go, okay, where is the growth? One thing that has been super impacted for us on our flipping in our investing is we have growth in seattle, we have population growth, we have tech growth, we have job growth.

And that's what really makes up market more stable for flipping because even when we go through market cycles, if we have that consistent economy and their consistent growth, we have less open downs and we have more stability. And as a flipper, stability is our best friend, actually appreciations our best end. But stability is what really what we want, right? Like we don't want to have these influx.

We don't only set on houses for a long time. We don't want the markets go down. And so you know, first thing I would do, shop for budget. What can I ford? The second thing I want to do is what are the markets that are merging.

So I want to look at where's the population growth, where's the job growth? Where's the highest income growth? Because you know, as people are transition in, they're making more money.

Guess what? They want to buy renovated houses. And as they relocate, they want the best product. And as flippers, we can deliver the best product. And so you know, I would look at population growth, demographic growth and then your budget from there, then finding the right team because I would rather flip in a market I like less if I had the right team around me, then a market that I really loved and had a team that I didn't really have because flip ines built on the Operations in the discipline is not just the market.

And so you know, as a new flipper, you know, I would really reach out, find out what those markets that have the best teams in there, they can help facilitate you. And especially if you're gna flip at a state, that's a hard business. You know, i'm a backyard flip.

I flip everything that I can put my hands on. And if I can put my hands on IT, I I partner with an Operator so they can. And so you know if you're going to flip back at the state, you have to have the right boots on the ground or gonna be flying across country every week just to check on your job site. And so you know research the market you like, which you can shop, and what team you can .

build around questions to that because I agree, like the team is one of the most important things when you're rehab work. But let's say that I took James dyer and I dropped you in the middle of, I don't know, kansas city and say that you can't partner with someone else like you have to go out there and build that team yourself. So I dropped you in kanzas city.

You've got no connections there. How would you actually go about building that team? Like what steps would you take starting from grounds?

You know, I did just have to do this, you know, so I just put the house in new poor. B, H, we just listed most expensive ever did.

I saw that nine million.

nine million box work.

James, when I saw that, so beautiful, but so scary. Like, kudos to you, man, because when I saw that, I was like, man, you ve got to have some some guts to do a flip of that. That's amazing.

Yeah now needs to sell, but we're getting good feedback. I think we prize IT well um yeah, that's the bad thing. You know the good thing about more and more expensive markets that give you a lot of profit, but the bad thing is your whole times are brutal, right? Like even when your leveraging or like fifty percent of cost, you're still paying a lot in interest every month .

and you share IT this before or two or even just like a small shift in the purchase Price, right? Like, you know, a five percent shift on a two hundred thousand doll home, very different than a five percent shift on a nine million dollars, right there. A lot more risk. And I .

imagine that how somehow came down about nine hundred thousand dollars that that would not be good. But you know, that's the risk that we take a slippers, right? The one thing I did learn, and I want to get back to answer how did I start over, is as flippers in investors, I have learned I never should stop buying because the markets always going to go like this.

And what happens is, a lot of times, as we go through different cycles, investors lock up when they are losing money. And the thing i've learned is always buy more, because if i'm losing money, I can buy my way out of that because typically, that means the market going into correction, everybody locks up and the deals get a lot Better. And and is that discipline of just staying in the game? And so for anybody listening, if you're having a hard time flipping burr, shorter rentals, whatever IT is, you have to keep move in forward because if you are having issues, shows the resignation and that means that you're going to have Better opportunities.

And a good opportunity is always a good opportunity. And you know, IT is important. That's why you have to have those good teams around you.

You know, how do you get started? Because I can always buy. I have the people that can execute IT. Now when you're starting over, it's hard thing like because IT took me a little while, even a new poor, I hide to build a new team for this.

But you know the first steps that i'm doing when I get into a new market is i'm i'm finding a title officer, which sounds weird. Title officer, you know, if you find the right title officer, they can point you in so many directions very quickly to get you in touch with the right people. So I had my title officer indoor duced me to his counterpart down a soco.

That title officer introduced me. I said, hi, I need six brokers that work with developers, investors. I don't want open house brokers, I think against that, but that's not what i'm looking for.

I don't want to retail brokers because that's not what i'm looking for. And so they put me in touch with six different brokers. Out of the six brokers, I really like three of them. And out of those three, I end up transacting with wonder. And because those are the people that could start finding me the opportunities and also pointing me into the right neighbourhood, aware I want to to start flipping in the same broker that you've connected me with. Also, guess what, had a general contractor in a builder he could refer me to, which then allow me to start building the construction and learning about costing construction.

So before I even bought a house and just started talking about buying house, he introduce me to a builder, and then I got to go walk job sites with him because I got ta get to know the market a little bit, like what do things cost? What do people put in, in what are those expectations? Because I have flipped a lot of homes up in seattle, and I know I like the back of my hand.

Newport ts are different beast. If I going ohio, that's a different beast of what I need to do. And so that broker then introduced me to the construction partner. That partner allowed me to start learning cost, learning the process before I even wrote the offer.

Because when you get into a new market, you have to know there are certain things that can crush a deal on a flipper and is not just your construction cost, it's your whole cost. If you buy a property in the wrong location and you don't know the permanent process and you close on IT and IT takes you nine months just to get a permit to get going, that can be detrimental to a deal. And so this allow me to start walking job sites to understanding cost understanding process.

I found out what I should not buy, and IT crossed off fifty percent of the houses right away. And so gave me clarity on what I was looking for. Now, as I started learning that, I also started reaching out to in networking with builders all around town and flippers all around town, getting to know them, talking to them, talking about deal flow.

How can I help them in their business? If he was funny, I was going out and talking for you, hey, how can I help you? I an intern, because, again, I was a new market.

And so I wanted to learn. I'm walking through job sites. But by doing that, they're pointing out to foreign suppliers there.

There give me referrals to cabin suppliers, countertop suppliers and I building up that list. And during that time, as i'm looking for my deal, i'm learning my cost. I'm learning the spaces.

I learned how to control my budget in access to materials that I need from there. I have a lot of the key components at that point. Then I came down to financing hard money in california is a little bit different than other states.

It's a little bit more regulated. The process is a little bit different um you know and guess who my title rep referred me to, three different hard money lenders there that I could start working with and talking to. And so first then I do find the title wep, then find the broker.

And the broker can give you referrals for general contractors and where you should be shopping, not your broker. Go find the next one, then start understanding the market, start driving IT walk and feel IT understanding IT, then start digging in to the lending in. The data behind that title rubs again, or some of the best people to pull you data.

My title up, down there pulled me every flip that was done within a three, my radius of where I was looking. And I could see what they paid, what they sold IT for and how long that took. And so by doing that, I really could understand the numbers. I could understand what a good deal was IT. I can do this all in a sixty day period very quickly.

I guess we had seek our final outbreak but will be backup James and Justin.

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Okay, let's jump the right back in. So Jimmy, not that you have built your team and you've located your new market. When you get this property under contract, what are the steps that you're taking to actually build out your scope, football and the plan for the rehab? Do you have any kind of template or checklist flipping framework that you're following as you approach the rehab process?

You need framework for your process. Um you know I think that is one of the most underrated skipped steps from investors that you know if I think if you an investor that is going way over budget on your projects, you know it's because you're not having clarity on what you actually wanted do when you're giving the original scope to the the contractor.

And so you know one thing and i've we've been involved in over four thousand flip transactions in last eighteen years. And so we've a lot of experience. We can walk through a house, I can kind of look for things, but that doesn't mean that I don't miss things.

I miss things on the regular. I mean, actually knows me fairly well. I get very A D, D.

I start pop and all over the place like a good sales person. Wood, and you are getting distracted. Then you've to shoot some social media content to tell people what you're doing. All these things are disrupted to your business, right? And so i'm very disciplined with the checklist.

We have a detailed scope of work that goes, okay, we need to check these things and do they need to be replaced, you know, from the electrical panel to the outlets to the the flowing, where does the fLorin go? windows? How many windows were to replace? And so by having this checklist, IT trains my brain to go through and check all those spaces.

And by having a detailed scope of work and a detailed scope work on a checker list is really just anything that you need to do on a renovation we have in checkbox es. And I can go through check and make notes. IT keeps my brain focused on the house, and by compiling that into that scope work, then I know exactly what I need to do at that point.

Um and so you know having that checklist is really important if you are a new investor, I think one of the things that you should do is if you don't know about construction, what you want, you don't know about estimates, you don't know what to look for because the home inspectors, not to tell you what IT caused to renovate the house and when you do this, walk to or with a contractor, bring the cops of what you're trying to achieve so they can see exactly what you're trying to do, what needs to be replaced. And you can see the materials that are going in where the bedrooms are, where the bathrooms are, what the primary bath needs look like and give them clarity with that. That will help you get your, your, your scope work created by having the professional come out with you.

Now as you get Better at this and you do more jobs, you can take these estimates and you can start to break those down. So what we've done is we have our walk through checklist, but then athons, we've gotten estimates from contractor or five estimates, ten estimates we can go through and start calculating. What's the average that they charged me to install flowing?

What's the average that they charged me to install a light fixture? What's the average they charged me a rewire house? We've taken all those averages and we put IT into an excess spread sheet. So I can go through and just type in the square footage how the accounts are um you know where it's going, what the square footage and IT kicks me out and estimated budget based on my historical install rates from there. It's just about me selecting the materials and we can create a very detailed scope of work in estimated budget that we are almost ninety eight percent hitting on almost every one of our projects. This really about just taking the data that you get and breaking IT into a sheet to where you can actually calculate the alignments.

yeah. And what James is leaning, anyone can do this. This is not some crazy excel smart at is being built as you are taking whatever the expertise s or the job.

So for example, painting will use that you're putting painting and you know that the contract do you use? You use charges, say two fifty per square foot. So you're going to put that as the line item.

So then you're going to calculate that, okay, the house set you're looking at is two thousands quercy. You're going to plug that into another column and you're going to have the formula set. So due two thousand times to fifty, and that will be your output as to. How much is going to cost for the painting and you'll go through and you can do that for flowing for a tile for, you know, a bathroom on average, say, a small bathroom, medium bathroom, a large back room. No, James, you do that for kitchen as to like it's going to be a small kitchen, medium kitchen, large kitchen.

And then you also do IT based on upgrades to as to like what kind of countertops are we using things like that? Are we going very high and are we going low end? And this is something that you can build now even before you actually do your first property, whether you're doing a rehabbed or rental or a flip is started to build this out.

Look at what other people are paying in your area. Ask other investors going to the bigger farms, go to lose er harm home deep and look at the signs they have in the store, say we will and self flavoring for three ninety nine percent. Phy use that as an estimate, a starting point.

It's at least something. So worst case scenario, you're having a low contract or common in Stellar flowing. And that's actually who I used for all of my flooring. He does all of the lose contracts. So you know, you can start to build this out now. And as you go through, it's going to make your life so much easier, building a more and more accurate scope of work in a budget for your property to because it's .

so overwhelming when you first start, right, there are so many things that go inside of a house. Now i'm kind of a house nerd. I'm a construction nerd. So now is just like everyday work for me, like I can look at the house like this cost this, this cost this. But I did not have that eighteen years ago. And you know, one of the biggest mistakes I made as a new flipper was not knowing my cost before I bought a deal, I guess, because some investor told me that sounds about right, but I had no idea what my cosy.

And so the best thing you can do if you want to get started flipping for knowing your cost is take an you know, if if you see a certain type of product that you're targeting, let's say, cosmetic fixture, but a cosmetic that needs windows roof in the a full update with caddis flowing doors train all the things go have three contractors bid that house. Those three bids are going to be three different numbers, and they should be very similar. They work with ambassage in general and then take that square footage divided by the bids and is going to give you an average Price per square foot for a cosmetic renovation and then you can do the same process or maybe a major fixture where you're replacing all the plumbing, all the electrical, all the mechanicals, and you can do three bits.

Then divide that by the square footage, get the average Price of square foot. And so when you're looking at a deal, go, okay, well, based on what I saw, this house is very simple. This need, this scope of work that quotes i'm getting our seventy box of foot.

So my budget should be this. You can do a very, very simple way, a matter about just put in the work and doing the work and bringing the contractors out to the house. And you know, no matter what IT is, don't worry about whether you're buying in the house or not.

The contractors are earning your business to get the job. You're trying to find a good team. IT could be a listed house called the broker.

He, can I get three estimates before I summer my offer? Go get those estimates, do IT again. And then that gives you that baseline for understanding the cost in that market.

I'm going to do the same thing. I just moved arizona. I will be doing the same thing in arizona as I start by there because at least need to understand the baseline. And then i'll start working backwards for this core cost.

James, I was a question I was going to ask you touch out a bit already. If i'm if i'm a Ricky again, i'm i'm doing this for the first time. I just want to make sure that the sequence of events for the listener's was you're saying you should actually try and get these bids before your under contract on this property, not necessarily trying to do all of this during your due diligence phase. Is i'm here just I am clearing for listeners.

I think IT depends on professional car to see a little bit too and what where the deal comes from and how flexible they are with that. You know like I am a person that you know I if I say i'm going to do IT, I follow through on IT even if I regret IT later, but I, my iread told the person I committed to, the person, someone on this commitment.

And so what I also don't want to do, room my name in the market of tying up houses and then let them fell in inspection because I don't understand my numbers. Now if you have a great deal, always secure that deal. And you know but what I would say is know your cost and don't wave inspection before you know those costs to go in because you can buy, you know, I mean, in two thousand and seven, I 把 I 怕 an amazing deal， but I didn't know what I was doing, and I ended up losing all my money on the house.

And in anyone else that was experience could have made money on my house, but because I didn't know how to control those cost, what my cost would be, that's how I got round, way out of control. And so you know, you can secure the deal. You don't have to, you know, because my thing is, when i'm going started in a new market or learning this, I want to get going right away for me to take thirty days just to get a deal on a contract.

Where's i'd rather just start going to do a listing that's active where the broker will let me in and get that going in the first five days because that's going to help me get a deal faster because I understand my numbers. And so don't let securing a deal be your excuse of why you can't do the work. Just do the work and start understanding your cost, then you'll be a lot easier to security or so.

James, very wrap up here. Let's talk about the dispose this property that getting rid of IT selling IT put in on market. What are like maybe three, you know, lipper tips that you have for a rookie investor as to the rehab on the projects ready to sell, here are three things you should do when you're putting your property on the market.

You want to make sure you're delivering the right product to the market because you've already taken on the risk. You've bought the house, you've went through the renovation, whether there was thirty days or six months, you've done all the hard work. And then what happens in the slipper's?

We want to get on the market, make our money and we start rushing that, that final detail, you do not want to do that. So you know for us is really important for in in seattle that we have a good brand, that we have a good product because not all flippers are built the same. Some people don't do is high renovations.

They don't take the care and consideration. That's why flippers have a bad name. And so naturally, your buyers going to walk in the house, they go, this is a flip, and there's going to be a little bit nervous because of all the horr stories that have been heard.

And so what we want to do make someone comfortable not only with our finishes in our approach, but that they're buying a good house. So for us to ensure our sale quickly, we want to show the the buyer that we care. How do we care? We get a preinspection done no matter what some flippers will say.

I don't get a preinspection dunk. I don't want to know about any problems. I have to disclose them. I'm a flip that goes I want to know the problems. So either at least I can tell the cellars there or I can go fix IT prior.

So we always have a preinspection done um where the the homes factor comes out, they run their whole preinspection report. At the same time we do our own punch list where we go through and we make our own puns report. We are blue tape in the house where taking photos of anything that we see is wrong and we put IT into a picture report for the contractor.

Once the per inspections done in our photos reports down with our r punch list. We then leave IT for the contractor to then go through IT. We then meet that contractor on site once she's done and walk through and check every one of those pictures off, every one of those line items off.

So we know that the buyer is getting a good house. The second thing we do is we want to make sure that the property feels good. So we stage every house.

Now some people will say they don't and I I understand why. Especially you're in a more affordable market, they have standard for plans. You might be a more batra home community.

It's pretty easy for a buyer to envisions. So sometimes they don't want to stage for me. I don't want to have any sort of objection when i'm selling a flip house because i'm selling a home with very expensive debt on IT.

Every day that goes by can cost me three to four hundred dollars a day. With the Price in that a half, I want to make sure that the feels good, it's staged, its warm, the temperatures set at the right temperature, and that is very, very clean. The last third one that we always do is we make sure that the home is on constant madness to wear. The property is always well, take care of buyer's, show up yards tight, the yards weeded in edged, and that a buyer feels really good as a walking in the first, first impressions.

okay. So James, why don't you tell us where everyone can find your book if they want to learn more about .

the flipping framework calm? And yet the new books called flipping framework, where we break down all the basics of flipping from finding the deal, building your team, interviewing contractor source in the money. It's an adz process of flipping and how to grow scale. And so go to bigger box stock com and get your order in today.

Well, if you want to learn more about James, we will link uh, his information and also a link to his new book in the bigger pockets you can also find him on on the market and also Oliver a instagram at J D. E. Clips and Oliver youtube.

That project are well, James, thank you so much for joining us, and i'm ashly. He's tony. And was you guys next time on real city root podcast?