Looking for more in Butler, Pennsylvania

[Victoria Barger]

Hi! My name is Victoria and my husband is Ben. We relocated to my hometown of Butler, PA (about an hour north of Pittsburgh) after the decline in the oil and gas industry in 2020 which left us jobless. We had "accidentally" flipped 2 homes through our previous personal homesteads and decided to give this a try full time, as we seemed to be profitable at it. In the time since establishing our LLC, we have flipped 3 homes in 2 years, doing almost all of the work ourselves. Since hearing the podcast, I know that a statement like that is gasp worthy for most of you. I'm struggling to wrap my head around how you all seem so "hands off" in comparison to ourselves in terms of labor, and so incredibly strategic as far as finding deals. As stated before, we do almost all of the work ourselves and all of our purchases so far for our business have been through our local courthouse- either sheriff or tax sale. Although our projects have been long in terms of time, all have been initially bought with cash and renovated by cash, blood, sweat, and tears. So, with relatively no/low holding costs, we have been able to be very profitable in our first 2 years in comparison to the "average job" in our area... mind you we work our tails off.... our entire lives are on the line for this, as well as our 3 kiddos that we only pray someday inherit a successful, profitable business if they want it. As private, non investor buyers begin to pour into court house sales as they also can find no inventory, we are now feeling the rope around our necks becoming tighter and tighter as to what we need to do next to be sustainable. I'm incredibly thankful for the podcast as I'm feeling inspired to try things to obtain deals that I may have never tried previously. Thank you all for sharing your experiences! I look forward to continuing to learn and grow from this experience.