2 month flip in Los Angeles
I just finished a Real Estate “flip” and wanted to share my experiences. I also feel a debt of gratitude to my real estate team, Hoston & Associates, and wanted to give them a plug.
To start, I should share that our home had been in the family for 30+ years. Our father passed away and after about a year of grieving and getting our affairs in order, we were left to determine what to do. The home was a 4bed/2bath home in a blue collar neighborhood of Los Angeles. We either wanted to keep it as a solid rental property, or remodel it and sell it for top dollar.
We had experience renting out rooms for our father to help him pay the mortgage. We were successful placing ads in Craigslist, doing the procedural aspects of tenant screening while he would meet. It worked out really well for everyone as he met some great people, the renters enjoyed having a “fatherly” figure around and the money aspect worked for everyone. However going forward, I knew that moving to a whole-house rental would be a new dynamic.
After speaking with many realtors and exploring our options, we decided the best thing for the family was to move on to the next chapter in our lives. Keeping it would have been great financially, but not emotionally.
We made the choice to work with Danielle Hoston of Hoston & Associates because we knew that she and her team were go-getters, and had extensive real estate investing experience as commercial brokers. They even hosted some fix or flip-style TV show.
In looking at the house, we realized that it definitely needed some tender loving care before going on the market. She helped us navigate the pros/cons of investing more money into the property to fix it up and was able to help communicate with the contractor on what to include, all from 600 miles away (we no longer lived in the area and were renting the house prior to sale). We redid the flooring, internal & external paint, updated kitchen and bathroom and modest landscaping. We were able to keep within a $50k budget and based on comps, it looked like we double or maybe tripled it.
Thanks to her network of professionals, we were able to have the house ready in 3 weeks, strategically priced and sold on the first weekend, priced well above our expectations. I would highly recommend her and her team for any personal or investment transactions.
Now we are looking for our next project and she has set the bar high. In fact, we had such a positive experience, we plan on continuing to work with her in the future.
You can find her contact info here: