Looking for more in Butler, Pennsylvania
Hi! My name is Victoria and my husband is Ben. We relocated to my hometown of Butler, PA (about an hour north of Pittsburgh) after the decline in the oil and gas industry in 2020 which left us jobless. We had "accidentally" flipped 2 homes through our previous personal homesteads and decided to give this a try full time, as we seemed to be profitable at it. In the time since establishing our LLC, we have flipped 3 homes in 2 years, doing almost all of the work ourselves. Since hearing the podcast, I know that a statement like that is gasp worthy for most of you. I'm struggling to wrap my head around how you all seem so "hands off" in comparison to ourselves in terms of labor, and so incredibly strategic as far as finding deals. As stated before, we do almost all of the work ourselves and all of our purchases so far for our business have been through our local courthouse- either sheriff or tax sale. Although our projects have been long in terms of time, all have been initially bought with cash and renovated by cash, blood, sweat, and tears. So, with relatively no/low holding costs, we have been able to be very profitable in our first 2 years in comparison to the "average job" in our area... mind you we work our tails off.... our entire lives are on the line for this, as well as our 3 kiddos that we only pray someday inherit a successful, profitable business if they want it. As private, non investor buyers begin to pour into court house sales as they also can find no inventory, we are now feeling the rope around our necks becoming tighter and tighter as to what we need to do next to be sustainable. I'm incredibly thankful for the podcast as I'm feeling inspired to try things to obtain deals that I may have never tried previously. Thank you all for sharing your experiences! I look forward to continuing to learn and grow from this experience.
Hey Victoria, it sounds like you and your husband have a solid grasp on what it takes to flip and most importantly remodel a home (the costs, materials, time lines etc...) which is a huge part of being successful in this business. That being said, becoming more "hands off" and hiring help will cut into your profits BUT with your hands on experience that gives you a leg up on making sure your crew is doing what they are supposed to. Majority of investors fail in this space by getting burnt by contractors and being taken advantage of.I think you guys are in a great spot to start flipping more homes and being able to "GC" your flips and taking a step back from the manual labor. Again you might not net as much by doing the work on your own, but you may be able to take on more projects at a time since you will ultimately have more time on your hands! You could also leverage your cash and use hard money - again this will eat into your profits but one thing hard money is good for, is leveraging your cash and being able to jump into multiple deals instead of just one at a time!
I started off just like you spending nights and weekends renovating properties. This gave me a strong foundation for understanding the process but I soon realized I created a new job, not a sustainable business. It takes a totally different skill set to manage the process instead of doing all the work. The best thing about outsourcing all or most of the day/day labor is it forces you buy/negotiate better deals. Good luck!
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Lender
- Next Door Capital LLC
Thank you so much for the encouragement, responses, and insight. I'm hoping that we will become more hands off as we move forward because I also agree that it will be what makes us sustainable. I have been binge listening to the podcast and my mind is blown with all of the concepts that I had never considered. I'm kind of embarrassed but equally excited to start applying everything. Thanks!