First full gut renovation - tell us you experience

[Jaron Walling]

Up until this point our REI experience has been cosmetic+ BRRRR deals. In 2025 we started actively looking at listings, wholesaler deals, and driving for dollars. Given this market there's no low hanging fruit. The sold prices for distressed stuff (what we look for) compared rents don't make sense in most cases. Profitable as a flip? Maybe for the right guy, but the margins are tight. My wife is not going to support time away from our kid to make $12k gross profit. I don't blame her. 

Long story short we need get out of our comfort zone and aim higher (forced appreciation play/ nicer neighborhood, no cash-flow) or buy cheaper more distressed properties (cash). Aiming for full gut interior, electrical, maybe plumbing, drywall, windows, flooring, HVAC, and probably exterior paint and landscape. Our rehab budget would be about $60-70k for 1200sqft, 2/3 bed, 1bath. We have some contractor support. I want to GC on our next project, and think differently. I'll complete some easier projects to save on labor. 

Is this realistic? Is BRRRR dead in 2025? We need some inspiration.

[Scott E.]

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

@Scott E. Appreciate the thoughtful response. We have created equity in all our deals and want to keep doing it. Seeing the before and after gets me excited. It's one of my favorite parts especially if you can swing a hammer and complete a small part of the renovation. We're in the messy middle so it's hard to justify the jump to a challenging rehab. I'm fearful we don't have enough contractor support to get the rehab done in a timely fashion. 

What prompted your transition into more full gut renovations? Good history with the same contractor(s)? How many cosmetic renovations did you complete before going big?

Pretty early on I had a mentor explain to me this: 

You can buy a $300,000 house, do $50,000 worth of work, sell it, and walk away with a $50,000 profit in about a year's time.

Or you can follow the exact same formula but buy a $1,000,000 house, do $500,000 worth of work, sell it, and walk away with a $500,000 profit in about a year's time.

The latter of course generally takes a little bit more time (and of course more capital) but it was a very eye opening realization for me. From that moment forward I did everything I could to scale up just a little bit on every project.

Much like you I really enjoy improving neighborhoods and seeing the before and afters. Very fulfilling work. But it became too hard of work and too much risk to be making just $30,000-$50,000 per flip (before tax).