Just another newbie flipper

[Ron Olivera]

Hello BP, I'm new to REI but have been in residential construction for 30+ years. I've recently came into a few bucks and I want to take that and start flipping. I'm also in a situation where I can (and want to) move into a good market to get this started. I'm currently in a very rural area so doing something around here just doesn't make sense. The closest large market to me would be Kansas City. I've also been looking at Memphis too.

For the last few months I've been spending countless hours researching REI and house flipping in particular and I think I've got the basics down on how the process works on the transaction side of things (at least it doesn't seem intimidating anymore).

The problem I’m having is figuring out best strategy to get started. My goal is certainly at some point to be involved in higher end flips (upper middle class anyway) because that’s the type of remodeling I enjoy doing but the reality is that my cash is limited.

I’ve been over to KC a few times (Memphis in a couple of weeks) looking and just getting to know the area a bit better (I’m still a few weeks away from my funds) and my thought process so far was to find a couple of the low end and cheap deals in the inner city and go from there, starting at the bottom and then build cash to work my way up. But the more I look at this approach and the closer I’m getting to actually jumping in I’m starting to think that may not be the best way of spending my time.

It seems pretty clear to me that the only people I’d be selling these lower end houses to would be other investors and my fear is that all I’d really be doing is working for wages in the end which defeats the purpose of taking the risk to begin with (I could be wrong).

I understand that hard money is an option to get me into some bigger deals but I’m not sure how serious these lenders would take to someone with no deals under their belt regardless of my construction experience.

So I guess what I’m looking for is some advice to get me past this block so I can move forward. As I said I’m still a few weeks away from funds but when they do land I’m all in and this will be my full time job.

I’d like to take this chance to thank everyone here on BP. What a valuable resource. Time and time again when Googling things to try to educate myself I seemed to always get pointed back to this site. Thanks.  

[JP Moses]

Great advice from @Alex Craig here.

Definitely DO NOT recommend you launch head first into crappy properties in crappy parts of Memphis. Been there, done that, got the yucky t-shirt. That was me in 2000-2006.

Do deals in markets where the type of buyers you want to sell to are actively buying. You can get this data from the MLS or even buy it from list brokers like listsource.

I'm a wholesaler only. So I only do deals where other investors are buying. More cash sales in a zip code means more cash buyers. but not I also further filter for properties are specifically are NOT in the bottom third zip codes in terms of price/quality. Even with lots of cash buyers in those areas, it' just been too much headache for too little money IMHO.

hope that helps.