My first fix and flip that allowed me to be free!

[Brandon Irvine]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $448,000
Cash invested: $40,000
Sale price: $535,000

My wife and I bought this house with a letter to the neighborhood. We sent out 132 letters to the streets that we wanted to live in Terra Linda for years and new it was a desirable place. We did a lot of work ourselves and hired out new carpet, and some painting. We really focused on curb appeal and making the house look appealing. Our expenses were about 15,000. We added new carpet for 1800. We pulled the old carpet which had nice wood floors underneath, which was a big bonus! Caulked all bathrooms and replaced trim ourselves. We also fixed the deck ourselves and cleared out the back yard. I put in nice landscaping myself because I had time off in the summer being a teacher. We had professional contractors pain the living room and kitchen. That came to 3,500.
One night we decided that we should move to Port Angeles my hometown and become a realtor with my mom. I'm currently working on getting more deals like the one above but the big advantage is i'm in the business now and know the numbers really well. It's also a plus to have contacts with all the contractors and I get to sell my own flippers which allows me to market myself and save on the fee's.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I've always been interested in real estate and took my summers to fix up my rentals and thought with the hot market I could make a little money.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I found the deal with letters. I negotiated by meeting them with my realtor. They wanted to fix it up for us and sell it to us for 459000. We just offered on a house down the street for 480000 and got beat out so I new we had 20 thousand right there. I told them we could buy it for 448000 and we would fix up the things ourselves. It was a win, win they didn't want to hassle with it and we liked making the house our own.

How did you finance this deal?

We had a conventional loan with 5% down which came to 21,000. Our loan was 425,000.

What was the outcome?

The outcome allowed us to move to Port Angeles with the cash and start my own career in investing and real estate.
My wife now is at home with the boys and I'm working full time getting my business going.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I learned that if I could do deals with cash only I could make about an additional 10% and if I could cut the be a agent myself I could save and the fees and now the market better than anybody. Being on the inside track, I find deals daily it's just a matter of getting capitol now!