Who Has Experience With Credit Cards? My First Flip!

[Johnny L.]

Hello fellow BPers!

I have been an agent for the past 5 years now and started educating myself on flipping a couple of years ago. I have read as many blog posts, books and watched as many YouTube videos that I can on the subject (No guru youtubers). I now have enough cash reserves to buy a house cash in my market. However I do not yet have all of the money needed to fund the rehab portion of the deal. This is my question to you...do I wait to save up more cash to fund the whole deal including the rehab? Or do I utilize 0% APR credit cards that only require the minimum payments without interest for 15 months? Specifically looking at the Chase Freedom Unlimited card. I would have enough cash to cover the minimum payments each month and then pay the whole card off once we close on the deal.

What is your opinion? Thank you in advance for your responses!

[Odie Ayaga]

When you say you have cash reserves how much are you talking? When you say it's enough for houses in your market how much do they go for? How much of a line can you get on the cards? Two things to consider:

1) The reason I ask is because you don't want to get stretched thin on your first flip. They tend to cost more in repairs than expected, fetch less than expected and take longer than expected. While it's cheaper than hard money if you stay in budget, you'll need a plan if you go over so it may be beneficial to go hard money and use your reserves for overruns and emergencies.

2) Will you be satisfied only working on a single property to completion if another opportunity arises while you're working on the first? If not you may not want to tie all your money up in a single property which could take far longer than expected.