Flipping Full-Time in NJ: #9 Complete

In late March of 2019, we purchased our largest flip to date, both in terms of the purchase price and square footage. This was a property that our agent was able to get under contract at auction and later provided to us. With regards to our flipping model, we usually stick to our model of purchasing project houses under $180k but the market had been extremely competitive and supply was limited; it also seemed like a great deal on paper so we ended up closing on it for $212,750 (all in). The house was just under 2,000sf with four bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. It was also situated in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Brick, NJ.

Lucky for us, someone had just refinished the hardwood floors so we decided first to cover everything with a protective, high-density cardboard product. Next, we demolished both bathrooms, completely gutted the kitchen and tore off the existing roof. The siding and rear screened patio were in fairly good shape so we decided to keep them but thoroughly cleaned them via power washing. We ended up converting the half bath into a full bath and installed a drain in the rear screened patio after noticing some drainage issues. Our original renovation budget was $40,000 but we ended up coming in closer to $45,000 after some unforeseen electrical and plumbing issues along with other scope changes regarding the large living room off the back of the house. We figured we could later absorb this additional rehab cost with a price bump from the bathroom conversion.

In June of that year, we listed the house for $329,900, confident that it would go quickly given the time of year and the grade of our final product. We were wrong.

It took another five months to sell, along with over $17k worth of price reductions to end up at a final contract price of $312,500. Even with the additional incurred costs, we still made a decent profit because I was extremely conservative with my numbers given the size of the project, however, if I did not account for that additional time on market or those reductions, it would have been a different story. The lesson with this one was the kitchen. At the time, every other flipper out there had been installing white cabinetry but we wanted to separate ourselves from the pack so we went with a darker, pepper-corn color. The cabinets themselves were beautiful but it did not work in that particular kitchen because there was very little natural light. This, coupled with the fact that we did not open up the kitchen wall to the front living room, really limited our buyer pool as everyone nowadays is looking for an open floorplan (which we should have known). Another lesson learned but luckily, we still made out fine with this project.

Check out the pictures below for some before & after shots!