In this episode, I sit down with the remarkable Diana, a Chattanooga mom who's flipping the script on her family's financial future.
In just her first 12 months, she accomplished these 3 HUGE things:
She will discuss the above and also share with us:
Her journey is packed with wisdom on adding value to properties, juggling project timelines with family life, and the financial savvy needed to thrive in this industry.
For those teetering on the edge of starting their own house-flipping venture, let Diana's story be the catalyst you need to make an impact in homes and communities, one property at a time. See how with the right guidance and approach, anyone is capable of crafting a lucrative and fulfilling house flipping business.
GOODIES
1. THE book on women flipping houses is here! Click here to grab the digital download of my new book for just $4.99! Just as everything else we do is different, so is FLIPPED: Lessons and Stories of Women Flipping Houses and Facing Their Fears.
2. Sick of sitting on the sideline watching other people do the thing you want to be doing? Are you FINALLY ready to do what it takes to flip your first house and want incredible step-by-step training and support to get you there faster? Click here to see if we may be a fit to work together.
3. Follow That Flip! Follow this 8-part video series as we flip a house!
4. Our goal is to inspire 1,000 new women each month and we've been achieving it with help from loyal listeners like you! If you are getting value out of this podcast will you kindly leave us a rating and review and help us spread our message?
5. Are you a real estate agent tired of chasing the same potential clients as everyone else? Sick of the roller coaster commission? Get the REI Agent Pro Certification! Click here for info and to join the waitlist.
Debbie DeBerry | The Flipstress®
Leaving people and places better than we find them.
In this episode, I sit down with the remarkable Diana, a Chattanooga mom who's flipping the script on her family's financial future.
In just her first 12 months, she accomplished these 3 HUGE things:
She will discuss the above and also share with us:
Her journey is packed with wisdom on adding value to properties, juggling project timelines with family life, and the financial savvy needed to thrive in this industry.
For those teetering on the edge of starting their own house-flipping venture, let Diana's story be the catalyst you need to make an impact in homes and communities, one property at a time. See how with the right guidance and approach, anyone is capable of crafting a lucrative and fulfilling house flipping business.
GOODIES
1. THE book on women flipping houses is here! Click here to grab the digital download of my new book for just $4.99! Just as everything else we do is different, so is FLIPPED: Lessons and Stories of Women Flipping Houses and Facing Their Fears.
2. Sick of sitting on the sideline watching other people do the thing you want to be doing? Are you FINALLY ready to do what it takes to flip your first house and want incredible step-by-step training and support to get you there faster? Click here to see if we may be a fit to work together.
3. Follow That Flip! Follow this 8-part video series as we flip a house!
4. Our goal is to inspire 1,000 new women each month and we've been achieving it with help from loyal listeners like you! If you are getting value out of this podcast will you kindly leave us a rating and review and help us spread our message?
5. Are you a real estate agent tired of chasing the same potential clients as everyone else? Sick of the roller coaster commission? Get the REI Agent Pro Certification! Click here for info and to join the waitlist.
Debbie DeBerry | The Flipstress®
Leaving people and places better than we find them.
You're listening to the Flip Houses Like a Girl podcast, where we educate, empower and celebrate everyday women who are facing their fears, juggling family and business, embracing their awesomeness and wholeheartedly chasing their dream of flipping houses. Each episode delivers honest-to-goodness tools, tips and strategies you can implement today to get closer to your first or next successful house flip. Here's your spiky-haired breakfast taco-loving host. House flipping coach Debbie DeVere.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks for hanging out with us today. In this episode, I'm going to introduce you to one of our flip sisters, diana. She's in Tennessee and her first 12 months of flipping houses it was just amazing. So three huge highlights One, she made over $150,000. Two, she retired her firefighter husband. And three, she tripled her family's income. What Isn't that amazing? Yes, it is totally amazing, and she will let you know. It is completely doable for you too, wherever you are. She's definitely a big proponent for coaching and mentoring and getting educated so that you can make smart decisions and you don't waste time trying to figure it out yourself. All right, without further delay, let's get into this conversation with Diana. You're going to love it. You know the thing. Start with your name who you are, where you are, what you were up to before you got into flipping, and are you still doing that, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my name's Diana. I'm 39 years old. I live in Chattanooga with my husband and our two girls. We have a four and a almost three-year-old. So that's been mostly my job for the last few years.
Speaker 3:I previously have been a teacher. I have a degree in anthropology, a master's degree in teaching, and kind of spent my 20s like traveling around and not knowing what I wanted to do. And every couple of years we're just like, oh, I'll be here for a little while, try this, be here for a little while, try that. And I've always just like, kind of like kept moving and that's kind of been my spiel is like I've been able to pivot, like if this wasn't the right relationship or if this wasn't the right job. I've just kind of kept looking.
Speaker 3:But meanwhile I felt like at 30, I was like I still don't know what I want to do. I don't like teaching. I know I want to have a family, but my husband and we moved to Chattanooga and that like was a really steadying force for me and starting our family here. But even that I was still like pregnant with my daughter and like taking online classes at our local community college. I started a Google project management certificate and that was the first time where somebody was like have you thought about project manager? Cause I was trying to figure out, like I'm not really good at anything, like I'm not really good at like one thing, I'm kind of more of a generalist, like, uh, I can see big picture type of things. So started that and I think it was maybe I was pregnant or had the kids and a girlfriend sent me like a rich dad, poor dad video and my husband and I got into that. You know YouTube rabbit hole, learning about passive income, and you know our minds are like what are we?
Speaker 3:doing Like why are we spending all our time at jobs that we hate? And blah, blah, blah. He has. So my husband's definitely my partner in all of this and has been along this whole train, so I'll talk about him a little bit. But he has more of an entrepreneurial background. He had started a couple like businesses with his brothers and they didn't necessarily weren't super successful, but taught him different skills. So he was on board basically getting into real estate. His brother was actually like, oh, we should look at, we're talking about passive income, we should really talk about short term rentals. So that that's the house that I'm. This bedroom I'm in is actually, um, the house that we bought with his brother and, uh, our sister-in-law, and this is the house that we got into right before I joined your program. So I'm like I have two babies at home.
Speaker 3:My husband's working full-time as a fire fighter. Uh, he was wrapping up a farm that they were working on. We fire fighter. He was wrapping up a farm that they were working on. We're like let's buy this house and renovate it ourselves and do all the work ourselves and all the decor and paint and everything which we loved. That part and that's definitely something I'm learning was like I love the buying of the house and the making it beautiful and and thinking about like how do we make this better for this next person? But the management aspect of it I don't love.
Speaker 2:There is nothing passive about managing short-term rental. No, it is high touch.
Speaker 3:Everything. Yeah, yes, and so, yeah, that's what I was like. We bought it in December and we put it on the market in October and we still had to refinance out of it and it's like this thing doesn't stop. Then it's now you have all these people coming and messages that have to get sent back and forth, and so I was like I thought this was supposed to be passive, and my dad was actually the one that was like you guys should be flipping houses. And we're like, no, no, no, dad, you don't know what you're talking about. Like we need to be doing short-term rentals. And I just remember, oh, so our, our county, our city, uh, banned like all new short-term rentals in the meantime. So we had already bought this house, we were able to get it to be a short-term rental, but in the meantime, like there goes our pipe dream of like we'll just buy five short-term rentals and like retire happily. And you know that didn't happen. So we're like, okay, we need to pivot.
Speaker 3:So, um, I saw an advertisement for your group and it really, really resonated with me. My husband's like very stubborn, I'll do it myself. And from his background, what he grew up seeing was like you have to do it yourself. You can't afford to hire people to do everything. You're not going to make any money if you do it that way. I'm like, oh yeah, well, I see other people doing it and they're not doing it all themselves. So like, pretty sure, we could probably learn how to do it a different way, but we'll try it your way too. So that's kind of been our, our spell. So I joined your program like right as we were ending up, this one got this refinanced, went through the whole process of all the modules and learnings and stuff and then started looking for our first house to actually flip, to sell all the modules and learnings and stuff and then started looking for our first house to actually flip to sell.
Speaker 2:You've since done two and you still have your short-term rental. Do do I remember something? You posting something in the group that maybe you're selling it or selling your interest in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we family members and, um, you know, trying to keep relationships and you know, yeah, well, even last summer my husband's like over here because he doesn't want to hire someone to do the. We have a pool and a hot tub. You know, this is a big place, it's a 10 person place. So he's over here like cleaning the hot tub every week and the pool and a hot tub you know this is a big place, it's a 10 person place. So he's over here like cleaning the hot tub every week and the pool.
Speaker 3:And just like, because we thought we would do it ourselves and because we have partners like to add in, a property manager just takes away a lot of that. If it was just Mike, mike, my husband and I and then the property manager, that would make sense. But when you keep cutting that piece of the pie, it's like is it really worth it for like this much money? But for right now. For right now we've got somebody you know handling the hot tub and stuff and so for right now we're keeping it. But yeah, that could change in six months.
Speaker 2:We'll see. We'll see. Okay, so you have since bought and renovated and sold two flips. Yes, take us through your first purchase, even though it's your second sale. Does that make sense to do it that way, or how do you think it makes sense to do?
Speaker 3:um, I would say just like chronologically Perfect, let's do it. I joined your program, started going through the modules. I had a great real estate agent as a friend and she was taking us. We started looking at houses on the MLS and this is still kind of things. We're still kind of crazy and going over even houses we would go to. We went to one house that's like hadn't been touched since 1950. And there were like 20 people there with somebody had already paid an inspector who's like there with his clipboard. We're like what is going on here? So we're like, okay, did that for like a month, put out some, put some offers on things, and it wasn't getting too much traction. But that was just such a good process of getting out there and looking at houses and putting an offer. So then I started looking for wholesalers, got on everybody's email list. They started sending me things and this house he had sent it to me. He followed up with me and I looked at it and compared to the other houses that we had been looking at, this house had already been demoed and the top floor it had already passed all its rough ends and the top floor was drywalled. It was like very clean, you know, compared to all these houses we're walking in that are full of garbage, that smell like cat urine, that like are a mess, we're like, oh, this house, we're just going to get in and get out and put some tile on it, like, yeah, this looks great. That house we kept for 11 months and just that was the house that we just finished. So lots of learnings with that one, but that's OK.
Speaker 3:So, biggest things we came into right away. It didn't have. It had an electrical power pole, temporary power pole in the front yard, and I didn't know what that meant. But we had to go through the permitting process. We had called the city to see like where we were in the permitting process before we even closed on that house, and they were like they couldn't tell us or I don't know. We just kept getting like different answers to things. And we talked to some people and they'd be like, oh yeah, you know it'd be fine, you just pull your final. And then other people would say, I don't know, it depends on your inspector, and then the people at the city. So once we finally, well, we can get to that. But, um, we put an offer. They were asking 195. We offered 185. We settled at 190. The electrical wasn't complete. They had told us it was complete, so we got a five grand off for that.
Speaker 2:So we ended up paying one 85 for it and this was a wholesale deal, wholesale Nice. Did somebody else already start the flip and they needed out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and he was like a local guy and this kind of you know ran out of money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so you found it through a wholesaler and that one. How did you finance that so?
Speaker 3:originally I was going to use a hard money lender and then we had refinanced out of this house so we had some cash to bring to it and so we were going to cover some of it and use a hard money lender. I found a lady. Her terms looked good, she was recommended in another group, but we were going out of town and I was trying to get it to close before we left and she didn't close before we left. We go to town. And she was like, oh, just, we'll move it back to this day. And literally I spent all of that week like, okay, we're going to close on this day. I'm getting on the plane and she's letting me know like the last minute, like this is not going to close on Friday, it's going to have to be next week. And I was like, lady, we've already pushed this back once I'm.
Speaker 3:It was really that was my first like closings for me have been stressful. So I remember I got home and I love myself, like got a little upset. And then I called, picked up the phone and I called my dad and I told him what happened. I was not expecting anything from him but he was like how much do you need? What's the interest rate? Are we going to do on this? So, anyways, he ended up bringing, allowing us to bring cash to close. What did you pay? You paid 185.
Speaker 2:And what were you thinking the renovation would be?
Speaker 3:Okay, so we originally had thought around 80 K. Okay, um, I got back, I went back and looked at my like original scope of work and we were going to put in like granite countertops and do kind of like a mid range. Once we had got in and we relooked at okay, our square footage and our numbers, cause it had a full basement that he had just.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, this is that one, yeah, yeah, okay, our square footage and our numbers because it had a full basement that he had just. Yeah, so both of our flips actually had full basements. He had already framed out the basement of this one and cleaned it out, and so he was going to do it as like a five bedroom. We took it down to a four bedroom, made it into like a little um apartment, mother-in-law suite kind of thing in the basement. So we ended up spending $135,000.
Speaker 2:So okay, Did you borrow purchase and renovation from your dad? Everything.
Speaker 3:No, I had a $200,000 loan from him, so that was like $185,000 plus a little bit.
Speaker 2:And then? So how did you finance the rest of things? Oh, was it from your cash out?
Speaker 3:Yeah From, yeah From us.
Speaker 2:From you.
Speaker 3:From your pocket. Okay, yeah From us. Yeah, okay From that one, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then so that thing took 11 months, so that thing took 11 months. What, what happened there? What what? Yeah, let's go through that.
Speaker 3:So we get in and we immediately like I have subs coming in, we're looking at it and we're getting electricians and and at that point I had talked to some what I now know as key contractors and so I had both GCs come in to look at it. They never really got back to me, they were busy. They were like you know, it'll be three months from now. I'm like I can't wait three months. Probably now they probably could have done it in three months and still been done faster, but that's okay. So how to keep contractors come in, and at this point my husband you know it's going to be like I'll do it, you know it's, we can do this, we just got done doing this house, like we can do this. So like, okay. So we had this key contractor come in. The permitting was like our, our little wrench. So we it took us a little while Like we realized we had to have a GC to pull, re-pull the builder's permit. So we called in a favor with someone that we knew that was like builder's permit. So we called in a favor with someone that we knew that was like you know, that's a GC, who knows my husband, who knows he does good work, like he can come and pull the permit for us. Yeah, so we got through that. Then it was the electrical and plumbing. And we found through the permitting office the person who pulled the original electrical permit. And so because we're bringing in other electricians and they seemed a little bit unsure about the whole city thing, and I'm like, okay, I'm like so let's just find the original guy that you know did it, and he came in and he was like, oh yeah, well, I didn't do the work, but you know I can do it. We're like, okay, cool, um, so he started working on it. We found a plumber that said he would come in and they started. We wanted to change just a couple of things. So they kind of redid the rough in Meanwhile. We got started in the outside, redid all the windows, redid all the siding, um, added a back deck, um. So we were trying to like do what we could. And then it was like we just reached a point where we were trying to pull the permit and it was. It was just, I don't even know, debbie, like what happened between, I would say, our rough in permits finally re-pulled maybe two or three months to get, because we ended up having a re-pull and the like. The electrical inspector didn't make us open walls, but the plumbing inspector did. So we had to reopen all the walls to redo the rough and permitting, yeah, yeah. And then from that point then we started going and, um, we had to re-pull, we had to put down the flooring, we had to re-pull, we had to put down the flooring. We had to re-pull that up because of a pipe that we changed out of vanity, from a double, from a single to a double, and the plumber didn't put the cap on the pipe and luckily I walked in. It had been less than an hour.
Speaker 3:But there's like water pouring out of the um wall and down into the basement we had. You know it's dry walled, it's like the flooring was done. So like I call my husband he's over at the other house, which is right across the street comes over, drills a hole in the floor to like get the water to go down, and like I do know where the water valve turnoff is, I just it was a weird valve and I didn't know. It just didn't look. It wasn't like you could just turn it. I didn't know, I don't know. So that was something that you know.
Speaker 3:We had to redo some drywall down in the basement. We had a toilet leak from when they installed the toilet. We had to redo that drywall in the basement. Um, I think, yeah, our plumber, our electrician, he just didn't show up. He just didn't come, like he did the rough in work, we got the rough in permit re-polled and then he just like got busy on other jobs and never showed up. And my husband and his dad and um, we have a family member who works for electrical company that like came and helped us get it done and I mean he, you know, came back over and looked at what we had done and but that was we were because we were working with the permitting department and it was taking us so long. I didn't want to switch plumbers or electricians again. Now, I know, now I would have a lot sooner, but you just want to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2:I know, but that's the biggest lesson Like it it's. It's one of the biggest lessons we have to learn. I'm glad you learned it. You learned it way faster than I did. It took me like four or five years. So, yeah, it's hard. It's hard because we think, well, at least we know what we're in here, like, we know what to expect. They're not going to show up, or they might show up one day, you know. And it's like who knows, when we start this new relationship with somebody else, what's going to happen? Are they going to just do the same thing? Yeah, it's tough. It's tough, this whole managing people thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, and then when you add like not even just the plumber and the electrician, when you add in the city and the permitting, like this is a, there are a lot of relationships and like I felt like maybe the plumber didn't have a great relationship with them and they were kind of like messing with him a little bit. I don't know, though, and then I've also heard that the city, their website, sucks, and so the I would check in with my plumber and say hey, did you pull the permadeat? Oh yeah, I pulled it. Okay, well, they haven't shown up yet, and sometimes they show up like within a couple days. So you know, if it goes a week or two later, you know I finally had to call the inspector myself.
Speaker 3:He's like well, I really don't like, you know we don't like talking to the homeowners you know I prefer to talk to the plumber and I'm like but do you have our inspection? Like? And he's like no, I don't have it. It's like okay, well, I need to know this. So that was another like. We literally did not pass. These people were had their moving truck down the street ready to move into our house and we had not passed our final occupancy. Our final plumbing did not get passed until literally the night before and they were under contract with us for almost two months.
Speaker 2:Like oh my gosh man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that that house took a while and we going along, we we decided, you know that we could get a certain price for the house, but we needed to. We couldn't do granite like, we needed to up the level of like what we did. So that's really like the difference between the 80. 80 also didn't have any money for plumbing no plumbing, because it had passed. We thought, oh, we passed, like Like, well, we probably spent, and the HVAC units were heating and cooling, not something else, I don't know the name of it. We ended up buying two new HVAC units. So we didn't think that we were going to have to buy for that. You know the electrical, the plumbing, trips to Lowe's and Home Depot for stuff, you know. But we just, we just got through, we just got through.
Speaker 3:So that house was in February, we got it going and then we sort of got to a standstill. And so what are Mike and I doing when we're at a standstill? We're looking at real estate and this wholesaler I had contacted and contacted me and he had sent me a house and I was like, ooh, these numbers look good. And that's always like cause, a lot of stuff we see from wholesalers. The numbers don't make sense, they seem overpriced, whatever, and so this guy had sent me something I was like, well, that looks pretty good. So we went and looked at it and, um, it had a someone, some family issue. There was somebody living at the house that didn't want to move out of the house and he was like, well, you could take it to court or whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:And like, I, I don't really want to deal with that right now. Um, so he ended up getting out of his contract with this house. But he was like, but I have another house that's going to be coming up and I was like, ooh, I want to know. You know what that house? And we went and looked at it and that was our second flip that we got into. That was our mid-century modern beauty that we bought May, I think 13th. Okay, so the first one you bought in February, it was like March 1st, I think that we ended up closing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so during those two months you were getting permits and trying to get all that situated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we did as much as we could on the outside. So that's why we did the windows, we did the siding, we did the deck, like.
Speaker 2:I'm glad y'all did that. Some people just wait and it's like no, you want to like, you want to keep moving, you want to try, you want to try to keep that momentum. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we redid the rough ends. That's what we did Redid the rough ends. And then it was like then we got to this point of like okay, yeah we have to pass, we have to repass all our rough ends and right, it didn't happen quickly, so we bought another house, but this house we knew, like we knew when we looked at it, like this was a special house, this was a really beautiful house and it was in.
Speaker 2:We had great comps and which one was it that you didn't anticipate? Um, really finishing out and adding all the square footage from the basement? Which which property was that? Was that the first one or the second one?
Speaker 3:Um.
Speaker 2:I would say the second.
Speaker 3:the second one both had basements right. The first one he had already planned on finishing that basement out Cause it had already gotten like demoed and he had put in um the framing for bedrooms. And so that's what we paid one 85 for that house, cause he's selling it as like a five bedroom house.
Speaker 3:Got it, the second house. The basement was super dark and like dank and um full of stuff and I don't think he was necessarily selling it as a you know, 3000 square foot house. She's selling it more as a yeah, it ended up being a really big square foot house. She's selling it more as a yeah, it ended up being a really big.
Speaker 2:That's. Yeah, it was a big house. Okay, yeah, 3000 square feet, okay. So he, it's so important that we add value in every way we can, but so finishing out that space, did it save your numbers? Like, would you have made money if you didn't finish out that space on both of the houses?
Speaker 3:Um, yes, yes, we. Our numbers looked good in the beginning without the basement, and that's like when we bought the house we made sure the numbers looked good. Yeah, you know either way. Yeah, we, just when we redid the numbers for the second house because we had bought it at an even better price, that's when the like, the spread got really nice.
Speaker 2:Got it Okay. So the first house ended up going on the market after the second house, so the first house actually became the second sale.
Speaker 3:It actually got on the market first became the second sale. It actually got on the market first, so the first house got on the market first. We finished that house first because I knew it was going to be a little bit trickier. The road and the way it was oriented was going to be a little bit. It wasn't going to sell as fast as the second house. We knew the second house was going to do really well and so I really wanted to push to get the first house done, especially before Thanksgiving, cause we went on to the market like November I don't remember what it was like November 3rd or something like that and I knew the holidays were coming up. So I was like we really need to get this first house done, because the second house I was not as concerned. I knew the finishes and things that we were doing inside really pop and really stand out, yeah, and the lot was really cool and so yeah, but but first house got on the market first still sold close.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yeah, and then. So what did the first house? So you were all in for gosh around 320 with the purchase and the renovation, not including carrying costs or interest or anything like that. What did you end up selling? The first house, slash second sale for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the first house sold for 405.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so what did your profit end up being Like? 35. Nice Congrats on that, thank you. And then the second house. What were any construction surprises there? How long did that renovation take?
Speaker 3:It was seven months, like kind of total, from closing on it in the beginning to closing on it at the sale. So it took us seven months. It was about six months of reno.
Speaker 2:Was part of what took longer the fact that the guy was on working on both projects at the same time yeah.
Speaker 3:So I would say we were a big hold up because mike my husband at the same at the same time, was still a firefighter and so he works at 24-hour shifts. It's like super weird 24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 24 off, 24 on. We also had two family vacations planned that summer and so and he has to be a dad too, like you got to show up sometimes. So we realized like we are holding this train up also. So in July, that's when we looked at our finances we he had some. He had had a farm with his brothers at one time and they sold off some equipment. We had a little bit of money come in as that and we're looking at like, okay, what are you going to make the fire department for the rest of the year? It was like 15 K.
Speaker 3:We're like, okay, we were looking at our numbers for this woods house and we were like what are we going to make when we sell this house? We're like a lot of money. Is this house going to get sold before Christmas If you continue to be a firefighter? We're like, ooh, maybe not. So, yeah, for the end of the year. I mean, that's it.
Speaker 3:It's like one again, like once we got our brain into this situation. It was like we are going to make less money if you stay in this job or you quit and we hustle our little booty tooties off and we get this sold like in a month and then we're going to be fine. So to me, for us in our situation we are not coming from like a doctor or a lawyer where we're making $100,000 a year I could see that being a very difficult decision to like leave a job like that, like we're not talking about that kind of money, you know and the time commitment for him is a lot. It's not like he's sitting at home working from home. He's physically out of the house, being woken up in the middle of the night, not getting sleep. So his brain is in too many places For me. I needed him to focus and so we made the decision in July and that's when things started moving.
Speaker 2:Was it hard for him to make that decision or no, when he looked at the numbers?
Speaker 3:No, I think we're very much so on a team. I'm there to support him, he's there to support me. Like his brother had already quit the fire department and moved out of town and so he saw I think it was just a matter of time before he was going to quit, cause, like neither one of us are really good W2 employees, I think we were both like this we want to have control and it's like this like limit of like this carrot stick.
Speaker 3:We're like why would you stay this, like to maybe make 50 K in 10 years, you know? Or we could make that this year.
Speaker 2:Like yeah On one, flip on most almost one flip, so okay. So with your first flip, your biggest lessons learned were around permitting and managing contractors, like making sure everything is. You know, scope of work is detailed, making sure you're holding them accountable and replacing them when they don't perform. Yeah, what else on the first flip? Or were those the big things?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean especially if you're going to have inspections as a part of your process to hold on to that last payment, to not pay the plumber until he's passed that. You know that was the problem. We had already paid our electrician and already paid our plumber, and so they didn't show up, you know, and, and they did to some extent we were able to like get the plumber back, but not having that last paycheck hurt. Knowing what we're good at and what we want to do, my, like my husband's not really a people person, like he's really good when he does his job, like you know, managing contractors and and and he got to the point he was used to like every day going to work and being with his twin brother, and now he was like going to work by himself. He's like I don't like going to work by myself. I'm like you don't have to.
Speaker 3:I shared a podcast of a woman, one of our flip sisters, who's like killing it and you know like this is her numbers and she's hiring a GC, you know. And so it took a little while for us that mindset piece, that that was the big like kind of learning lesson for us too. It was like we don't have you. The investor is a hat Like that's a job, yeah, and we didn't. That didn't click until we had to go through the process ourselves.
Speaker 2:And really running this as a business, running it as a business. Yeah, and it's hard in your first flip because you're like this is my first one, is this a business? I don't know. So it's tough, yeah, yeah, okay. Second flip what did you end up buying and putting into that one for the renovation?
Speaker 3:So we bought that for 140. Originally we thought maybe 80K. And again this is like really because we're we didn't we did have like a scope of work and our details, but because we didn't have all our contractors lined up with our, our key contract, you know, our key contractor wanted to give us a very big quote and not like detail it out, so we ended up spending another 135 on that one. And this is like we still aren't sure exactly where all this money, but like we've gotten it pretty close, but there's still a few grand where we're, like, you know, not sure.
Speaker 2:So the one that you completely had to finish out the basement, this one we redid yeah, we completely refinished. Yeah, okay. So that's a big reason why that one, the numbers increased on that one. Okay, got it, yes, so next time maybe just plan on 135K renovation.
Speaker 3:Is that like, yeah, maybe Normal, yes, moving forward, we are going to be a lot more detailed and the big ticket electrical plumbing, hvac, roof foundation like just put in 10K for all of them, and then, if you don't need it, okay, great, okay.
Speaker 2:So you had to finish out that one. You put it on the market. That one sold pretty fast Cause that one yeah, that one under contract like real fast. So people loved it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we had a great open house. I think we had 10 people come in. We had two full price offers on that house and we actually had like three. This lady had given us kind of two options and so we had listed it for 419 and one I don't remember now exactly. We got to 435. One, I don't remember now exactly, we got to 435. So that's what it sold for. So we had these two kind of competing offers and one was like I'll go up to this, and this other lady said I'll just do this. It was an FHA loan, but we didn't have any problems with that. They came, they inspected the house. It was fine, the loan was fine, we'd held it long enough. So that was fine. Yeah, that house went on the market like December 3rd. It closed December 28th.
Speaker 2:Oh, dang Nice With an FHA loan.
Speaker 3:I think she had been maybe a backup offer on our other house, and so she had started the process Got it Okay, okay, so, okay.
Speaker 2:So your first flip was a 35K profit. What was this one? 115. Okay, yeah, so I mean nice. First year, 150k. You made $150,000. Your first year of flipping houses, my first year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, isn't that crazy. I had in my journal from last year January I want to double our income. That was my goal last year and we like tripled it, you know. So that gives me chills, I know, and that's amazing. That's huge Congratulations. It's life changing, especially where we live Like we. This is not, you know. This is a an amazing, you know this. This money gives us enough money this year to like breathe and pick projects that we really are excited about and that things that we want to do and not just work because we have to work.
Speaker 3:And I think that's been like my trying to figure out like, okay, do I want passive income? It's not just about passive income. I don't want to go sit on a beach Like I want to get excited, to wake up in the morning and like do things that I'm excited about and, um, making things beautiful and more practical and um, better design is like what we're living for right now. And so, and it's so meaningful to people. And you look at these houses and everyone's doing gray on gray, on gray on gray. Still, it's like guys, can we stop with the, with the gray, something, you know, just a little bit of fun, and that was like what really stood out with our second flip. You know, we did a colored back splash, we did colored door trim and it's these little things that stand out, that it's just paint or it's just a little bit. You don't have to like go crazy, but makes a big difference, personalizes it.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely a huge difference. People are always like, how do those houses sell so fast? And it's like, because we're not doing the cookie cutter thing, we're not doing like we're all creating really cool places, like spaces for people, so that is huge. You tripled your family's income. You spearheaded all of that. That's really cool income. Yeah, you spearheaded all of that. That's really cool, yeah. The thing is is when you said it just lets you breathe, oh, my God, I get that. I, I get that. I totally understand that. And that's a different kind of freedom, like that freedom of really just like like this sense of peace and it's okay, we're okay, like we're better than okay, and getting to choose what you want to work on and choose what fills your days. I mean, that's the ultimate. That's the ultimate thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's like the hierarchy of like life. Right there is to get up and to do the things that you want to do. To me, I feel like you know to have the ability to do that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this year has been amazing. It was very stressful at times, like just to get to the closing table for both houses, like dealing with private money. I'm, I would say, like money and me have had a very distant relationship. I'm like you're cool over there. As long as we don't, I'm not going to worry too much about you. You don't worry too much about me, like, as long as I don't go into debt and credit card. I've never done that, but I just never faced it really and took control of my own finances and that's been something that I'm working on.
Speaker 3:To be the CEO. It's like, yes, okay, I do want to have a bookkeeper and an accountant and people to help me, but first I need to know what I'm talking about or what this looks like, or you know. So that's been huge for me in dealing with contracts. Like makes me very uncomfortable and but it's the right thing to do and it's what we have to do. So doing those things that I don't want to do, you know, some things like no, I don't want to do it, but nobody else is going to do it for you, so guess what you get to do.
Speaker 2:And it's just like you said, it's important for you to understand it too. So it empowers you, like when you understand how something, how what the numbers should look like, what you know, when you understand the how and the why behind something. That's empowerment. I feel like that's what we're all striving for is that kind of awareness.
Speaker 3:But I wouldn't have done this without joining your group. Like women or anybody, you can go online and everything's out there for you, but you're going to get overwhelmed. And what joining this group does is it. It gives you like this is your one, two, three. Do these things first Don't worry about this quite yet Like just tunnel vision a little bit. Put your blinders on, do this, then do that. Okay, great, next week you can do this, this and this. And just like taking those tiny little steps and chunks at a time and it snowballed.
Speaker 3:Like, yes, and it's not magic, I didn't, like I knew what we were going to make six months ago. You know, this isn't, this wasn't a huge. I mean, you kind of don't really know until the very end when you go on the market, like you know what the exact numbers are. But I knew we were going to do really well and so that's if I could just tell anybody is like get a coach, get somebody who's done it, don't try to do everything on your own. Like we did, do it on our own for the first time and my, we almost lost, like our, our relationships with our family members and like it was. It was a crap show and we're lucky to.
Speaker 3:I could have seen us like just getting done with this and then never doing this again, but you can join a group of people that's going to be there to like help you along the way. All the little things that might come up, you know they can. They've been there, they've done it. This is what they've done and show you, like, at the very end this occupancy, our building inspector came and we were so worried about getting this building inspection done, right before the lady was going to move in and she's like well, I could have done a temporary building like one for you if you had had to do that. It's like that's what people who are in this can tell you, like, whenever you think there's this thing, that's this block, like there's always a way, kind of in or around.
Speaker 2:So what a testament. I mean really like you. I'm so, I'm so happy for you guys. I'm so happy for you guys. All right, are you looking for flip number three? Are you under contract right now?
Speaker 3:Just closed on flip three two days ago. Yes, awesome. So we had a hat and I'll say the other thing is I feel like we've done a pretty good job at saying no. I have done a pretty good job at saying no to things in the past, like when things didn't work out, it wasn't the right time, like that's fine. So we had this house, this.
Speaker 3:My realtor brought us this house and said, oh, would you be interested in a house up on um? One of our local little mountains is called lookout and it's a really nice community. When my husband and I moved here, like we'd go driving around and we'd be like, oh, one day this would be such a nice area, like every trees are very mature and the landscaping is beautiful and blah, blah, blah. And we're like, yeah, we'd be interested in a house up there. So this was back in August and she, finally, she was like, okay, somebody in my office is working on a, maybe an off market house. And so in September she was like you want to go look at the house? I'm like, yeah, we want to go look at the house. So she brought us this house and I loved it. It's big, like 5,000 square foot, and my husband and I were like, oh, this is. You could just kind of feel too I love the feeling when you walk into places that like there's been love here, but it just been has been neglected. And so we're like, yeah, this is awesome. And we we thought about it. I talked to my dad and this was also when we were like in the process of needing to get this is September. Like our houses need to get done, and I had gotten some good advice to be careful about the number of projects that you get into. And so we were like, okay, cool, we're just gonna let it go. You know, then this is just not the right time for this and another house will come along. And so we let it go.
Speaker 3:And a couple of weeks later my realtor said, well, I think they would be open to a longer um being under contract for a longer term, or like you mean like two months. She's like, yeah, I think so. So we went under contract um to close on that the after Thanksgiving. She still had her, all, all her stuff there. She wasn't. She was like out of state. She was going to come back in state over the holidays to clean out. We're like, let's just go ahead and push her back to the end of the year. They're like, okay, but this is it right, yeah. And then I guess we had only closed on one house by this point, and we had that in our contract that we were going to close on our first house in order to get that house, and so we ended up pushing it back just a little bit longer and so we were able to just close on that house.
Speaker 3:That's what CEOing looks like, so congrats, yeah, and I love that, I love having that CEO hat and I love being the like I can kind of see this big picture and I don't love the details of things, but like I'll get into them when I have to, and then I like seeing this big picture.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then when people say, oh, there's no houses to flip, I'm like, have you looked around? Have you looked? Have you driven down the street Like I could? There's 10 houses from here. You could probably flip at some point, you know, but you're going to find what you look for. So again, some of this coaching just get coaches, they're the best.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad you said that about the. There are deals everywhere. Some people just aren't aren't buying that, aren't believing that you're exactly right. You'll see what you want to see. You'll see what you want to see. If you want to see deals, you'll see deals. If you don't want to see deals, you won't see deals.
Speaker 3:And like everything, even after we've made like a good chunk of money, like there's always like a next hurdle and a next obstacle and, like you know, you really have to get over that. Like whatever challenge you're dealing with, like you have to get through that, because if you can't get through that, then there's going to be, another thing you have to get through, so yeah, over and, over and, over and over.
Speaker 2:But that's why. That's why we do this, because we're not nine to fivers, we're not we're going to sit here in the cubicle and do the same thing all day. Every day, we want, we need the different stimulation, and that's what these different projects bring, cause it's always something new and different. Yes, yeah, and there's some things that are the same, and sometimes it's it's an easy project and sometimes it's not an easy project. We're still going to keep doing it because of those reasons, because sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's just a wonderful, wonderful thing and I love, like the I don't want a nine to five Like I love that there's a start and an end to projects and the whole thing. This, like I was looking, you know, in my whole thirties and twenties, like I've been like what can give me I can use my creativity and I can, um, use my management skills and I can uh have flexibility and get my kids to and from school and I can, you know, and provides income. Like it's important, you know, to say that you don't care, like I'm sorry, these, you know firefighters who are working for jobs just to make ends meet. It's like I don't want to live like that. So another thing real estate is me and there's so many different ways to make money within real estate and so many different hats to wear it. If you want to GC it yourself, you can. Or if you want to wholesale a house, you can. Or if you want to be the realtor all these different cool hats developer, whatever.
Speaker 2:I know I love it.
Speaker 3:So many different lanes to explore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, congrats on a killer first year.
Speaker 3:Thanks to you and your kids and everybody really Wow, thank you. Stand on the shoulders of giants and like walk in your footsteps. This is like I did not do this by myself or alone, or without help.
Speaker 2:So Thank you for letting us be part of your journey. All right, girl, I'll see you in the group. Thanks, debbie, we'll see you Bye.
Speaker 3:Bye.
Speaker 2:Diana, you are so inspiring and one of the things I love about you is that you're a doer. You don't just talk about it, you just go do, and that's contagious. So you're inspiring a lot of people. Thank you so much again for sharing your story with us. Now, listener, if you have been sitting on the sideline, if you are waiting for a sign, this is your sign. Stop sitting this out. If you want to be flipping houses, if you want to buy, renovate and sell or keep them as rentals, that is what we do, that is what we teach, and there's no reason you can't do it. I don't care where you're starting from. We have seen it all. If you are serious about starting and building this business, go to herfirstflipcom, fill out the application, schedule a call with us and see how we can help. We would love to be part of your journey. Okay, until next time, go out there, flip houses like a girl, leave people in places better than you find them and make it a great day. Bye, y'all.