Wholetail vs Retail? Please advise

[Greg P.]

Hello, I know many successful investors here are doing rehabs with granite, stainless and just a very complete rehab. Is there anyone doing wholetail aka clean reo flips? When I look at comps and see that some of these REOs sell quick that are clean. They sell for a lower price but they do still sell quick. Is there a reason not to fix up a house to a clean REO quality house? It seems I could list it for a lot cheaper that would attract many buyers and someone would bite because it's still a clean house. So basically, instead of your 30-40k rehab, it's a 10-15k rehab and sell for much less. Please advise. Thanks all.

[Steve L.]

I have done this a handful of times with success. You have to be careful, if you selling to an end user who is planning to get a loan and the bank is going to require you "prove" the items you did to substantially increase increase the value.

If my exit strategy is most likely to be a cash buyer, my purchase price cannot be easily determined, or I can do things to justify my margin (permit un-permitted space, convert a carport to a garage, etc) I am more inclined to do less work.