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       Focusing on kitchens and bathrooms

      Depending on their condition, kitchens and bathrooms sell houses or sink deals. A spacious kitchen with plenty of counter space and all the essential amenities – a clean range, refrigerator, microwave oven, and dishwasher – creates an impression that the kitchen is a great place to prepare meals and hang out with friends and family members. A sparkling-clean, well-lit bathroom with plenty of storage space creates a sense of comfort and cleanliness that permeates the house.

      

Although you should never over-improve a property, renovations that bring the kitchen and bath up to market standards always pay for themselves by adding real value to the property and making it more attractive to buyers. See Chapter 17 for the full scoop on renovating kitchens and bathrooms.

       Making moderate changes

      Somewhere between painting a room and building a room addition are moderate changes that you can make to a house to improve its value and draw more buyers. These improvements include installing replacement windows, replacing the screen doors or entry doors, and refinishing wood floors or installing tile or vinyl flooring. Chapter 18 lays out your options.

      

According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2013 Cost versus Value Report, you get the most bang for your buck on renovations by replacing the front door.

       Tackling structural enhancements

      Some houses are begging for a few major overhauls. Maybe the house has an unfinished attic that’s perfect for an additional bedroom or a beautifully landscaped backyard that has no easy access and no deck or patio. In some cases, you may discover a dinky house surrounded by mansions. By raising the roof and building a second story, you can double the living space and boost the house into a higher bracket. Chapter 19 takes on some of these major renovations, which may inspire your own creative visions.

      Although this book focuses on the buy-fix-sell approach to flipping houses, you can profit from a flip in numerous ways, including the following:

      See Chapter 20 for details on the various approaches to profit from a flip. In Chapters 21 and 22, I explain how to market and sell your home for top dollar. And in Chapter 23, I explain certain tax considerations that may help you keep more of your profit by paying less of it to your rich Uncle Sam.

      

Your options for profiting from a house flip basically fall into two categories depending on your goals: cash or cash flow. In other words, do you want to receive your money all at once by selling the property? Or do you want to keep the property and use it to generate a steady cash flow (by leasing the property or selling it on contract, for example)?

Chapter 2

      Do You Have What It Takes to Flip?

      IN THIS CHAPTER

      Anyone can do it.

      If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say that about flipping houses, I could retire on my own private island in the Pacific. When a real estate investment guru says, “Anyone can do it,” what she really means is, “Anyone like me can do it.”

      I prefer presenting house flipping in a more realistic light by saying, “Anyone who has sufficient desire, energy, and sticktoitism can do it.” By following the advice in this book, you can acquire the necessary knowledge, gather investment capital, and find plenty of properties to flip, but if you don’t have sufficient gusto and grit, your flips will most assuredly flop.

      This chapter leads you on a journey of self-examination to determine whether you have the right stuff to flip real estate – time, energy, a strong financial position (with your own or other people’s money – OPM), organizational expertise, people skills, tenacity, decisiveness, imagination, endurance, a healthy sense of humor, and a good support system.

      Most casual house flippers are weekend warriors. They hold down a day job of 40 or so hours a week and then work nights, weekends, holidays, and vacations on flipping houses. They typically invest anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week, depending on how dilapidated the houses are, how ambitious they are to turn a profit, and how much of the work they want or need to do themselves.

      Full-time flippers, who have enough cash on hand to finance their flips and cover their living expenses, typically invest 40 to 80 hours a week.

      Although you may be able to delegate most of the work that goes into flipping a house, several tasks demand your uninterrupted time and focus:

      ❯❯ House hunting

      ❯❯ Networking to develop relationships that expand opportunities and flip houses in less time and for less money

      ❯❯ Negotiating and closing the deal

      ❯❯ Securing financing for purchases and renovations

      ❯❯ Budgeting and other accounting tasks

      ❯❯ Planning, executing, and supervising rehab projects

      ❯❯ Marketing and selling the property

      

The amount of time required for these tasks varies greatly depending on how you choose to have them done. For example, if you hire an agent to help you find houses to flip, you may spend only a few hours checking out prospects, but if you choose to cruise the neighborhood for distressed properties, you may spend several days or even weeks finding a good prospect.

      In the following sections, I explain the advantages and disadvantages of part-time flipping, tell you when you can safely start flipping full time, and list the tasks that you should (and shouldn’t) delegate to save time.

       For the time-strapped: Part-time flipping

      When you’re just starting out, consider keeping your day job and moonlighting as a house flipper until you establish yourself. Your day job provides steady income and security, which enables you to qualify for traditional financing at lower interest rates. Your paycheck helps you cover the mortgage payments, finance renovations, pay quarterly income-tax payments, and stay afloat when the housing market cools. Your full-time job also (hopefully) provides you with health and dental insurance, retirement planning, and other benefits you don’t get from flipping houses.