How House Flipping Works

If you watch home-and-garden cable channels, it looks like everyone is flipping houses. "Flip This House" and "Flipping Out" are just a couple of the many cable offerings that sing the praises of buying a house and quickly selling it at a substantially higher price. But house-flipping is more like a basic investing lesson: Buy low, sell high. You want to find a property that is undervalued or in just bad enough shape that you can invest minimal time and money in it before selling it. There are people who have made careers out of buying distressed properties and quickly turning them around for a profit. However, in a real-estate bust, things aren't quite so easy.

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The first piece of advice that most flipping experts give: Make a budget. While finding the perfect place and knowing your skill set (or having friends with skill sets) is important, budgeting is where new flippers most often fail. So where to start? First, get financing.

This step was fairly easy when subprime mortgages were hot. These mortgages allowed buyers to pay little or no down payment. In exchange, they were socked with higher interest rates -- but when you're planning on owning the house for only a few months, that's a minor issue. When the market is flat, however, obtaining a mortgage for an investment property is more difficult, and sky-high interest rates empty investors' wallets when a property sits on the market.

As a result, cash plays a much bigger role in getting that flip started. The bigger the down payment you can afford, the lower the interest rate. And, of course, it helps to have cash around for fixing up the flip. We'll look at how to budget next.

If you're planning to buy a new-construction home, budgeting can be simple. It's just like buying a home you actually plan to live in -- you need to cover the mortgage, insurance, taxes, real-estate agent and lawyer's fees, and that's about it. However, in a softening market, the supply of houses is much greater than demand, so you may own that property for longer than you plan to.

If you're working on a fixer-upper, the budget starts to grow when you consider the renovations you'll need to make. According to most experts, you should add 20 percent to your estimate for the final cost. If you overestimate, you get a surprise windfall -- but if you underestimate, you get stuck with unexpected bills.

Structural improvements -- like plumbing, electrical, insulation, pest control, and HVAC -- are typically the least sexy but most important improvements a flipper can make. New hardwood floors and coat of paint may get buyers in the door, but a termite problem can kill a deal quickly. If your technical skills are lacking here, you'll have to figure in the cost of labor, too (that includes the time and money lost if you're waiting on your brother-in-law to finish the electrical wiring).

Most real-estate agents advise fixing up the kitchen and bathrooms for the best return on your investment. In addition to the structural changes, this can include new cabinetry, counters, hardware, sinks, backsplashes, appliances, floors and lighting. Kitchen upgrades can be expensive, but they make a big impression (granite countertops and wine storage, for example). You could also decide to go green (see How Green Building Works), which can add value to the house when the improvements are marketed as money-savers. Obviously, you'll keep costs down if the house is in good structural shape and just needs updated paint and carpets -- but things can quickly get pricey, especially if you're using contractors and outside labor.

Another aspect to consider is curb appeal -- the outside of the house. You might need to paint, landscape and fix up the driveway, which adds to the budget. If you've bought in a pricey neighborhood, mowing the lawn and repairing the fence may not be enough -- there could be homeowners' association fees. In up-and-coming neighborhoods, you might have to budget for security measures.

So once you have your budget, you can choose your spot, which we'll discuss next.

Once you've decided on what kind of house to flip -- new construction, a fixer-upper or a foreclosure -- you need to figure out the neighborhood. Don't skimp on the research here. Make sure you really investigate the area -- drive around during the day and at night, check recent sale prices and find out if any other flippers are sitting on empty houses.

­If you've decided to flip a new home, your options are somewhat limited to what's being built in the area -- typically in housing developments. Some communities also have restrictions on buyers, requiring them to live in the house so the community doesn't end up a ghost town.

If you've opted to buy a home in foreclosure, you'll be buying from a lender -- foreclosed homes are also known as REOs, or real estate owned by the lender. Purchasing an REO is a lengthy process, typically six to eight months. This is because for a bank to foreclose on a home, it must file court papers against the homeowner, which takes awhile. If it's an auction, you're ruled by that timetable. And because the home is sold "as is," banks might not be as willing to hand out a loan.

But if you're determined to buy a house in foreclosure, there are plenty of Web sites that list REO houses, often for a fee. And many lenders, like Fannie Mae, list the homes they have in foreclosure. A warning here: Many of these sites will let you search for homes anywhere in the country, but experts agree that one of the biggest mistakes flippers make is buying a house sight-unseen. The photo of the house may be pretty, but there's no way to guarantee anything else. It doesn't give you any clues about the neighborhood, and there's no way of knowing how old the picture is.

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Budgets can balloon quickly on fixer-uppers. If you decide to invest in one, you need a high tolerance for risk -- and an exit strategy. The consensus from most home remodeling experts is this:

Depending on your goals and the extent of the renovations, fixer-uppers can take a few months (or less, if you're really lucky) or years to turn around. If you want to live in your investment as you're working on it, remember that there may be a lot of sawdust in your future. And while up-and-coming neighborhoods can explode overnight, there will also be fluctuations in crime rates, local business booms and school improvements, all of which can affect your property's value. Patience is key when waiting for a neighborhood to take off.

To learn more about house-flipping, take a look at the links on the next page.