I need advice ....should I Flip or Rent my renovated house?

I need advice ....should I Flip or Rent my renovated house?

Investor · Monroeville, OH · Member since 2016 · 43 posts · 7 votes

I bought a foreclosed house in Sandusky Ohio area in January 2015 for $8,500. The house is in a fair area and needed a ton of work. We started the renovation and did a lot of work ourselves, but also paid to have a lot of the work done. All together I have approx $46k in the house and it is absolutely beautiful! The house ended up being so nice that we was wondering if it would be better to sell it, instead of allowing tenants to tear it up (as the house location isn't the best of areas).

We have recently put the house up for sale through my realtor. We priced the house kinda at the top of the market (compared to comps in the area). It was priced at $84,500 with comps coming in around $72k-$85. After we listed the house for approx 5 weeks, we had a lot of lookers, but only 1 offer, which $81,500. The offer stated that I had to pay $4k of closing cost and also pay for any repairs the were discovered by the bank inspection/apprasial. So we accepted the offer and proceeded with the inspections.

As of yesterday I was informed that the house failed several items during the inspection, and the total repairs are estimated at $2k (the most expensive of the repairs is a new Central AC system). So now the buyer is asking for another $2k for repairs and another $500 for a home 1 yr home warranty.

So my question is.....should I rent it out for the average rate of $750 per month? Or Sell it for the reduced price of $75K ?

Here are the financial figures are as follows

$81,500
-$2,000 Central AC repair
~~~~~~~~~~
$79,500
-$5,000 capital gains
-$4, 000 closing cost
-$4,000 realtor commission
- $500 home warranty
~~~~~~~~~~~
$66,000 total selling price

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  • Investor · Madison, CT · Member since 2014 · 710 posts · 458 votes
    9y

    @Tracey Thornton. You really only gave one side of the equation here, and it looks like you're going to walk away with about 20k from a sale. That's a pretty good flip! 

    For comparison, though, we need to know more than just the rent you'll be getting. What are your expenses? Taxes, insurance, etc.? With $80k+ in equity, it probably won't make sense to keep it as a rental from an opportunity-cost perspective. 

    Often, a cash-out refi (think BRRR), is good for getting the benefit of flipping while still holding the property. If it will appraise at $80k, you could take out a loan for $60k, giving you $10k in profit after closing costs. It'll cost you about $325/mo for a 30-year loan right now.

    Since you make a profit from the cash out, your COC ROI is infinite as long as you're cash-flow positive. Run the numbers for expenses and see if you can do it. If you're in a low-tax area, you probably can just barely break even in that scenario.

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