**NEWBIE** What areas to look for when considering doing flips?

[Justine Ricketts]

I want to start flipping, but don't know what areas/states to look at. What should I consider when looking at market areas?

[Evan Polaski]

@Justine Ricketts, the markets and areas you know.  I know a lot of people have done out of state flips, but I don't know how, especially in the current market environment.  

There is so much demand for investment property, that margins are much tighter than they were a couple years ago, so therefore a lot less room for error.  With flips, those errors come from unknown market risks, contractor quality risks, materials and labor costs and timelines, interest rate (if financing) but also on exit, etc.

When you have a team in place, and have done a lot of flips, you can better control some of those risks, but if it were me, I was just starting, I didn't have any team in place, I would only invest locally, since I know the markets very well, and I can better control contractors (even though I don't have a set team) by showing up on sight almost daily.