My partner would rather pay top $$ for a flip than buy a fixer

[Adrian Rae]

His POV is that he’d rather have the cost of all the improvements built into the monthly mortgage payments than spend the time and credit card/debt to complete improvements on a fixer.

We focus on STRs but ensure the LTR rate out cover the mortgage (I double check expenses). So far we flipped a condo in Scottsdale and took out an interest free cc to pay for the contractor and furnishings. We still have the cc debt to finish paying off but the property has already appreciated 60K in 5 months. He’s not interested in long term appreciation, he wants cash flow so he can pay off the mortgage in 10 years or so. He’s rather not lose time and add debt making improvements on our own - he’s willing to pay for the work to be done, even if 10k’s of the purchase price and pure profit for the seller.

Is this a short sighted approach to developing a REI portfolio? Personally, I'm trying to make the case that the 30k we spend on our own flip can actually provide 2x as much value IF we were to sell it - but we aren't selling anytime soon so he doesn't see the value in that.

We're new, with only 2 STRs currently but looking to scale so we can quit our jobs and just focus on REI.

Can anyone else justify paying top dollar for turn key properties when just starting out as REIs? (we put 5 or 10% down)

Thank you!!