Flip mistake - suggestions on what to do.

[Ashly McGlasson]

Hey everyone,

This might be a lengthy story, but I'm looking for advice! My husband and I flipped out first property in our small town about a year ago, we did alright for our first flip, but afterwards messed up by buying a house we planned on living in for a while and slowly renovating. Well, long story short, we got realized after we bought it that we could do a lot more deals if we wouldn't have bought this big or expensive of a house, so decided to renovate it and try to flip it. Turns out we didn't do enough research into the ARV and in our small town there just isn't many people buying house in this price range. Everyone that has seen it loves it, but no one has even offered on it. It's listed with an agent and we have it almost to our lowest price to break even after paying our agent and paying off our loans.

We have discussed pulling it off the market and listing it next spring since we are headed into the holiday season here shortly. But besides that does anyone have any other creative ideas to get us out quicker so we can do more deals? We have definitely learned our lesson with this one, but would like to get out of it at least breaking even! 

[Eddie Egelston]

I see Jacksonville, Illinois has several colleges. Can you turn your large house into student housing? I saw this video saying it is a great idea! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyooI5J91UM

Also as an experienced agent I'm not a fan of many of the 'solutions' that have been suggested here. Taking the house off the market for "slow" season is not going to help you sell your house. In fact you are going to help sell other people's houses by giving buyers fewer choices. I personally sold my flip on the eve of Thanksgiving last year. (I had 3-4 offers in Novemeber.)

Marketing to companies relocating people is such a joke. If someone is seriously getting relocated to an area, they are already looking on Zillow, or working with an agent. To think you have to reach out to these companies / buyers is a farce.

I personally had clients not hire me to list their flip because their margin was too thin. They went FSBO / flat fee, which would save them about 1% assuming they still had to pay buyer's agent. About 4 months later they sold for surprisingly less than I thought they would have. The holding costs alone would have paid for my services; let alone the potentially lower sales price and opportunity cost of their flipping bankroll. Sadly they are my latest example of why you don't go with low-service brokerage and cell phone pics online.