Learned a Lot and Still Made $19,000 on My First Flip

by Ryan

Today I went to the escrow office to pick up the check for my first flip. I got the property under contract for $100,000 and flipped it (double close) to my seller for $123,000. There were a lot moments where I worried a lot about not being able to close the deal.

There was a title issue, which made it even worse, but all parties were extremely cooperative so everything worked out in the end. I'm netting about $19,000 on this deal, which is not that bad for my first flip. I will save most of this for marketing and for really rainy days.

Here are some of the lessons I learned through this first deal:

1. Get a good amount for the earnest money from future buyers. I didn't collect earnest money from this buyer at all and was too afraid to ask for it.





2. I should have continued to look for more deals while working on this deal. This would have saved me from being too worried if this deal didn't go through.





3. I should have tried to find more buyers. I actually stopped looking once I'd found this buyer.





4. I should have looked for hard money lenders just in case my buyer couldn't go through with the deal.





5. I should have done more research to be more accurate in terms of the after repair value.





6. I should have requested all three sellers to sign the P&S at the same time. I signed with only two sellers and gave them $1,000 earnest money, too. The remaining seller actually signed a few days later.





7. I should not have given the earnest money check to the sellers and made it payable to them, too.