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First House Flipping Deal - Final Analysis
When I first considered house flipping as my exit strategy for this property I was very fearful of putting a lot of money on repairs and then having the house sit unsold for months in such a bad market. I based all my calculations assuming that I would have to hold the house for 6-8 months. I knew what I had to do to flip this house but there are also so many Atlanta foreclosures on the market that I had to price the property right and market it right. For this I knew I would have to use an agent to sell the house instead of selling it myself. But it couldn’t be any agent. I chose the agent to list the house because they had experience working with investors and had an above average marketing strategy and tools with a very heavy internet presence. As you can see from the final pictures one of the strategies was to use professional pictures and have lots of them on the internet. After foreclosure homes look very bad so I knew I could easily do better than that. For some reason that escapes me most real estate agents use crappy pictures for listings that look like they were taken with their phones and in a hurry. The very first time anyone is going to see your house is on the internet. If they don’t like the way it looks on the internet they will never go look at it and if they don’t look at it they will never make an offer. Without going into a marketing and selling discussion I will cut right to the chase… 
We started work on the house in the middle of March. Work was initially completed around the third week of April. I say initially because like I mentioned in the Flipping a House article some unforeseen problems surfaced up and delayed our work completion. Once all work was done, house cleaned up and staged we finally officially listed it the last week of May. As soon as we listed it we started getting visits to the house. The firs week we had 6 showings when I know of people that get 6 showings in a month Once at the house, potential buyers and agents gave us very good feedback on the way the house looked. They really liked the fully finished basement and both the kitchen and baths were a hit. The suggestions I got from my general contractor were dead on. However, two weeks passed and no offers… Then exactly 17 days after it being on the market we got our first offer and it was the only one we needed. It was $4,000 under our asking price with another $3,000 for closing costs. I was ecstatic We accepted the offer and after passing the home inspection with flying colors and having to do a minor repair we closed the sale on the 14th of July.
How did we do?? Here are the final numbers:
Considering that this was my very first house flipping experience I was very pleased with the final results. On top of that there were three other very good things that happened as a result of my work: - The neighborhood no longer had an “eyesore” type of property that looked horrible and was being used as a rental, bringing property values down. - The sale of this property now raised property values for the neighborhood. - The buyer got an excellent house where they will have to do almost no work for the coming years. As far as I can see this is truly a win-win situation for all involved. Although it was hard pulling it off and there were several sleepless nights in the end it was truly worth it. Now, I cannot wait to find myself another Atlanta foreclosure and do it again October 2009 Update: I found the next one!
My little cutie pie "helping" me paint...
Return from House Flipping to Flip This House
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. This was a sign that we were being found on the internet, that the house looked good in pictures and that the price was right.
. I was completely expecting to pay closing costs and have to discount the asking price due to the market, so this offer was spot on with my projections.
