Flip Houses Like a Girl

From Teacher To Six-Figure Flips

• The FlipSisters

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A pocket listing on Lookout Mountain, a seller who needed time, and a 5,700-square-foot question: can we really pull this off? We brought back Diana to unpack the full journey—how she and her husband stitched together hard money, private loans, and family funds to acquire, renovate, and sell a luxury flip that demanded both creativity and resilience.

We start with the terms that opened the door: longer closings that honored the seller’s needs and gave them space to finish two ongoing projects. From there, the capital stack grew: a hard money loan for speed, private lenders for flexibility, and family support with clear boundaries and written agreements. Diana shares how raising capital snowballs when you communicate publicly, educate lenders about self-directed IRAs, and treat relationships like professional partnerships.

Inside the renovation, the plan shifted from a tidy budget to a full-scale transformation. They removed a failing addition, finished a massive attic for functional living space, respected the home’s formal layout, and invested in an outdoor experience—fencing, native landscaping, and a tasteful privacy wall—that matched family buyers’ needs. Along the way, a designer relationship went sideways with inflated bids and thin deliverables. The fix: reclaim scope, put it in writing, and use an hourly stager for sharp, budget-aligned finish decisions.

Selling brought its own lessons. An early $1.85M offer was declined in favor of a higher list, but time and carrying costs pressed hard. After addressing inspection hits—crawlspace humidity, cupped hardwoods—and swatting down a last-minute insurance objection with a fast quote, they closed at $1.75M cash and walked with roughly $200K. The honest reflection: they might have netted more by accepting that first offer, but the profit funded new ventures and sharpened their playbook.

If you care about real numbers, real negotiation, and the unglamorous decisions that make or break a luxury flip, this conversation will meet you where you are. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s eyeing a big project, and leave a review with the one lesson you’ll use on your next deal.

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The Flipsisters
Leaving people and places better than we find them.

SPEAKER_02:

Empower and celebrate everyday women who are facing their fears of going facing their audience and coldheartedly facing their dreams of flipping outfits each episode of where it's honest and goodness, cool tips, and strategies you can implement today to get closer to your first or next successful house flip.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back to the Flip Houses Like a Girl podcast. This is the show where we highlight real stories of everyday women who are learning to flip houses and create freedom for themselves and their families. I'm Blair, one of the coaches here at the Flip Sisters. I've been flipping and buying rentals for the last six years and have been coaching here for the last three. But enough about me. Today we're excited to reintroduce you to Diana. She joined the Flip Sisters program in 2022. And since then, she has flipped three houses, both in Tennessee and in Georgia. A little bit about her. Diana is from the Tennessee area. She was a teacher and then became a stay-at-home mom to her two adorable kids. We can't wait for you to hear her story, the lessons she's learned along the way, and the advice she has for other women who are just getting started. Hey Diana, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks, Blair. I am so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. So I know you've had quite a few interesting projects since starting with our group, but I'd really like to hear more about your most recent huge flip in Look Mountain, Georgia. And when I say huge, I mean it. This baby was close to, it was a little over 5,700 square feet.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was big.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. So kind of talk to me about like how you found the property, you know, walking through it, doing your renovation budget, just kind of like the planning, the finding and the planning period.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So when we first saw this house, we were still flipping our two other projects, which were more normal-sized homes, I would say. And my realtor had, we've done a couple of deals with her and she kind of knows we're looking for things. And so she asked us one day, and this was two years ago, August of 2023. We were still in the middle of our two other projects. So she was like, Oh, I have this house up on Lookout, and it's a pocket listing. So one of her other realtors in her group in her office had this listing. And we were like, Well, yeah, we want to go see it because Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, we live in Chattanooga. Lookout mountain is one of the iconic areas of for Chattanooga. It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in our area. The houses are big. There's a lot of mature landscaping. It's a really beautiful area. If you ever come to Chattanooga, the things people come to Chattanooga for are like Sea Rock City, see Ruby Falls, all of that's on lookout. So we were drawn to look out. We went and looked at the house, and it was big. And it was she was really pretty from the front. On the inside, she needed some work. There had been some maintenance issues. The house was in pretty rough shape. But when I walked in, I felt that there had been love in the home. There had been a family that really loved it and then kind of it got neglected. But we were still in the middle of these two other flips. So we didn't make an offer on it right away. They were asking 600K for it. And we knew the numbers well enough to know the reason this house was a pocket listing was the owner, I think, didn't want the house to be shown for sale in her community. She didn't want her neighbors to know that she was selling. She didn't want it to go like officially on the market and for people to be walking in the house. So we knew we could have bought it and then just like resold it. There was enough we thought juice there that we could have done that. But we did it. We were like, we're still in these two other projects. So we walked away from the house originally. We just said, yeah, we love it. It's beautiful, but we're we're busy. So a few weeks later, I get a call from my realtor and she said, Hey, you know, that house, I'm on lookout. I talked to the other realtor, and she had said that she thinks the owner would be open to a longer closing date. And we were like, Well, do you mean like three months? Because that's kind of how much time we would need. And she said, Yeah, I think so. So the owner had already moved away and had kept this home. She had had a job opportunity, had moved the family, but still had some of her stuff in the house. So we were thinking, okay, this was around I think September, August, September, two years ago. So we said, Well, if she'll accept a longer closing, we also offered cash for 600, what she was asking, and we would close in three months or when we finished our first flip, because we were in flip one and two at the time. And they accepted. So we went under contract, were waiting to, you know, working on our got our other projects done. But those projects, one of them finished in November, and then the other one, I think we finished it around November, December. We still hadn't closed on that first project, and the holidays were coming up, and she still hadn't moved her stuff out. So we asked if we could move the closing date back again. We pushed it back past Christmas. And then we were still, because we thought we were gonna have all this cash from two houses that we were selling, and one house closed in December, and then the next house closed in January. So we ended up pushing the closing back one more time into January. And so this whole fiasco of like get just getting the house under contract, just getting it to the closing date in the very beginning was a pretty big challenge. I ended up having to talk to talking to a hard money lender. The house sits on two county lines. So the interesting thing about Chattanooga is Chattanooga is right on the border of Tennessee and Georgia. And so Lookout Mountain goes from Tennessee down into Georgia. And then this house is on the Georgia side and it sits in two counties. So it's paying tax to one county. The hard money lender had some difficulty, whoever was doing the appraisal, getting the loan done. So, anyways, we ended up closing it and paying cash because our other two houses closed, and then we got like a cash out from the hard money lender month or so later. So that's kind of how we funded it in the beginning. I had had a private money lender from our other projects that we had worked on for, I think around two, maybe 200K. And then we had some of our own cash, and then the hard money lender came in. So that has kind of been this whole project was like we piecemealed it together, but we made it work. We got it. So we closed in January 2024.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's I mean, that's awesome. I love the fact that like you weren't afraid to ask the seller for what worked for you. You know, I think sometimes we're so afraid to make our offers, whether it's price, whether it's timeline. And sometimes I'm like, well, you got to give them a chance to say yes or no. You've got to put your hat in the ring, right? So like I think that's really cool. And it also sounds like it was a win for the seller because, you know, for whatever reason she left her stuff there. You know, maybe it was a bit of an emotional thing and she wasn't quite ready to let go. And it probably gave her enough time to be like, okay, like it's time to go, time to pack our stuff. Like these people are trying to move it. You know, they're we I told them that, you know, they they can buy the home. Great. Absolutely. Kind of like at that point, how much like total were you in as far as like the hard money loan, your money? You know, kind of like what was your like adding it all together, purchase price and your budget for your reno.

SPEAKER_00:

So we ended up buying it for$579. We got around$20K off because there were supposed to be kitchen cabinets, but I told you, so they had had a few issues with the house and they had gutted the kitchen. And then I guess they had gotten some insurance money. So the in the garage when we bought the house were brand new appliances. There were supposed to be kitchen cabinets. They weren't there, they never showed up. So we got 20k off that price. And yes, just to your point, I didn't even know, I didn't know we could even ask for that, that time frame. And just like you're saying, like she didn't want to sell the house quick. She had been, she didn't want to, she didn't really want to sell the house. So, you know, it gave her time to get back in there and get her stuff out. So absolutely. And then as far as the money goes, and this is gonna be a common theme throughout this project, is money was in and out in all these different ways. I could not tell you in January how much of it was hard money because I know that we got a loan for around I know eventually once it's kind of easier for me, like at the end, I can kind of see so we had a hard money loan for 810. And then we had another private money for another, I say 600-ish. Okay. So I think is that like 1.4 ish is what, but then minus you know, the house for around 600. So the house, so the reno budget was 800k. That's what we spent on the renovation of this house.$800,000. Like, oh my god. Oh my god we will definitely get into that and that rental budget.

SPEAKER_01:

But I kind of want to go a little bit into the private funding there. I mean, 600k, that's that's nothing to go off at. Like, that's a lot of money. Can you kind of, you know, obviously don't need names or anything, but just kind of like how did you source that? Did it all come from one person? You know, how did you pursue getting those funds? I know that you kind of had a great working relationship already because of your two previous ones, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I had a loan for around 200K with my parents. And then we had another business that I'm involved in with my dad. We have some other real estate. And so I had another 160 with that. Then we had another 200 from I would say like smaller chunks from family members. So and some friends, small amount from like friend. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you know, paying everybody interest. Everybody knew, everybody knew, you know, what we were up to. And at that point, yeah, we had had a few flips under our belt. And so I had started to have people kind of be like, hmm, what are y'all doing? You know, could we get in on that, you know, kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, absolutely. And I tell people, like, I think with private lending, it kind of snowballs. And that's why, like, I tell our students, like, share what you're doing, you know, let people know. I'm always surprised at people who approaches me and is like, oh, hey, like I have$100,000 in this savings account. Or, you know, a lot of people don't know they can tap into their 401k, or like if they have a self-directed IRA. Um, and they've been like, yeah, like I've been putting money in here for years. And what I think is cool is like you you involved, you know, family and friends. And I know sometimes people are all like, oh, don't do like business with your family and friends. But I'm like, but who else would I rather make the money? Right. Yeah. Like I want my friends and family. Like it's if it if somebody's gonna win here and somebody's gonna get the money, like I would rather it be people I love than, you know, maybe some random bank or, you know, well, I love hard money lenders. Like, you know, I'm like, I'd rather my dad or, you know, an aunt get that money back than them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And I'd say that's one of the best skills that you kind of learn when flipping a house is how to raise capital. It is such a valuable skill. And I'd say it's so creative. There's such a creative aspect to it. It doesn't look the same, you know. My interest rate with my dad was really low because he's like, he's investing in me. He wants to make a little bit more than whatever he would get in a savings account versus like the hard money lender who doesn't know me, you know, is gonna charge three times that. So yeah, it can be very stressful, and especially like with my par my family and my dynamics, my history with him, like it has not been the easiest relationship, especially when it comes to money, because they feel then, at least with my family, my dad in particular, like, oh, you're going on that vacation or you're buying that blah, blah, blah. You haven't paid us back yet. So we've had to kind of learn, you know, I like projects that have start and end dates. And yeah, being very clear on boundary setting when if needed. But then other times people are just like, here's my money, like let you know, let me know how it goes. So then there's no.

SPEAKER_01:

My dad was one of my first private lenders too. And like it meant a lot to me that he supported me enough to basically put his money where his mouth was, even though like he couldn't see the finish line. Um, so that was really cool. But yeah, it's and it's funny, I have private lenders I do like that I've worked with, and they're like one of them's like, You don't have to tell me. Um, because like I plan vacations for myself and my family. We plan like six months to a year out, right? So like I'm going ahead and I've already paid for those off of like previous flip, you know, sales or weight. But yeah, I've had that same thought one time where I like messaged a lender and I was like, Listen, you're gonna like you just dumped like 60 grand in my account like for renovations. Um, and and I'm I went to Alaska and I was like, listen, I can send you the receipts of when I paid for this like seven months ago. And he's just I appreciate that, but like, no thanks. Like, you know, we have a contract, and you know, when yeah, I expect that it to be paid back in that time frame, not you know, before or so, yeah, I totally get that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it can be tricky, but it's doable. And like if you have a dream, if you have a goal, you know, you're gonna what are you gonna do to make it happen? So you just like you know, suck up some pride a little bit and just you know it's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Been there, done that. So let's jump into this$800,000 innovation budget because my goodness, I I've done some big homes myself. Um, I don't think I've hit that level of renovation budget yet. So, like talk us through like, I mean, the the planning of that, like how did we get to that number?

SPEAKER_00:

So my reno could have been like somewhere like in the 600s, and then with carrying costs and fees and all that stuff, that was in there. I think because I think we were all in at the end around that like 1.4. So that would have included other costs in there too. This is the thing through that for I am not the most detail oriented when it comes to bookkeeping and accounting. So that is one of my biggest challenges. I have to tell myself I'm learning because it is not very new to me. It stresses me out. I'm I feel like I'm terrible. I'm a terrible human because I don't know where every dollar goes. But I'm just that's it's okay. So the thing about this house, the reason we went into it was I'm not doing it with my by myself. I have my husband who is basically acting as our GC.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And he did that with the other two projects that we worked on. So he does not have, it's not like he's been a GC in his past life, but he grew up in a working class home and they fixed everything themselves. They didn't pay people to do things. He built his own house growing up. Like he can fix HVAC, he can he can do all the things, yeah, which has been a learning lesson for us and why I loved the flip sisters because it taught us how to analyze a deal. And when you get the house at a certain price, then you can pay people to help you. So that's a whole other thing. But yes, we did GC it ourselves. We saw the house, we saw the neighborhood it was in, and these houses were million-dollar homes. And you know, there's a little bit of a variety up there. It's not like all mega mansions, but the road that that house was on, there were definitely homes that were in the multi-millions. The issue we ran into was Georgia homes, there is a state income in Georgia. So the I I don't know if this is exactly correct, but the home prices are slightly lower than they are in Tennessee. Tennessee home prices are a little bit higher. And the city, the way that Lookout Mountain is oriented, you have most of the homes are in Tennessee, and then there's maybe a third of the homes are on the Georgia side. So when it came to doing our comps, it was a little bit tricky because we were comping it to other homes that were in Tennessee, which you had to take into account that there's a slight difference in price. And so we had sort of comped out maybe a 15% difference. And, you know, we had our realtor looking at the number. We talked to another realtor that was over there. And so we felt pretty good that we could, when we were buying the house, we thought we could get 1.5 for it. And so when it came to our renovation budget, originally we had wanted to spend around 400K. So if we were buying it around six, put 400, and then we had really good margin wiggle room. Once we got into it, my husband and I also just have difficulty sticking to a budget. If we see, if we see the margin is there, we want to bring the house to it's like it was like a artwork, you know, to us. It was like we see this vision, we see this, we see how beautiful it could be. Like, let's take the shot. I don't know if I would do this again. I don't know. I know, I know why people stick to more middle income housing, but um average sales price homes and all of that because of this. But you know, sometimes you gotta live and learn. And we certainly did that. So I know what we're capable. The other thing is like my husband and I have really high expectations and standards of ourselves, and it's really hard for us to put lower quality materials in a home if it could bring the if it could bring that value. We wouldn't have done that in like a lower income neighborhood. But because that neighborhood was so fancy and so like there are homes that are selling in the multi-millions up there. Yeah, we we went for it. And then in the very beginning, the first sort of big hiccup challenge we came into is we were still coming right off of these other two flips. And so my husband was pretty tired because he was G seeing those other two projects. We just got done. We got into this house. I went to a real estate meetup group. I knew that this level design I needed a very cohesive look. I wanted it to feel like it had been, you know, professionally designed. And my husband and I are good, but I didn't feel like we were that good. And so I do I knew I wanted to work with a designer. I found one at a real estate meetup. I looked her up online. She had beautiful projects that she had done, met with her. We went and visited some of the projects she had done, done beautiful work. I did not ask, do you stay on budget? How was it work? You know, I didn't ask tough questions to the people that she quote quote worked on their house.

SPEAKER_01:

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't interview other designers. I didn't price out what an average design consultant would be. So she gave me her price, and I was just like, okay, sounds good. Sounds good. Yeah. And so she in the very in January, we talked to her and she's like, okay, I can't give you exact numbers, but about this is what it would cost. So her design would be$30,000, but she was gonna do all of the design, pick out all of the finishes. And, you know, we thought that is a lot, but if we don't have to pick out one light fixture, one flooring, you know, we knew there was enough margin in there, and you're gonna get us this really high quality level product. You know, we thought, well, we'll try it. And then she also said, Well, I can also project manage it for another 30,000. Thought, okay, over the course of six months, we thought, eight months. I paid her a deposit, signed a contract that outlined what she was supposed to do, paid her, I can't remember exactly what it was, maybe 20K. It was a lot in January. And then she starts going and getting us bids. And the first bids for just the demo was like$60,000. And it was a lot of demo. The house was old, but it was actually it looks old, but it was built in 1990. It was not very old. Oh, wow. There was an addition that someone had done off the back of the house that was built poorly. The water was getting in between the addition and the how the brick house. And so they had turmit damage. That wood was all rotted. It was basically falling off. So we had to take off about I don't know, I think it was like a thousand square feet of like porch. They had like a sunroom and a porch and a deck off the back. And so we had to take off all of that. So her quotes started coming in high. And we were like, uh, my husband didn't feel good about it because the crews, we did have some crews that we had been working with. We were like, okay, we'll get more quotes. So we got more quotes, and our guys could do it for like$10,000. And so these were some yellow flags that, you know, were popping up. And then she started bringing in, yeah, her electricians and her her plumbers, which she works on like commercial jobs too. And so I'm sure they're very highly qualified humans. And this is kind of the dance that we're playing, is like we want really high quality work, but we're not willing to pay designer prices for it. And so we started having issues. Mike kind of took it back over pretty quickly in February and was like, kind of told her, you know, hey, I'm just gonna go ahead and like get the quotes. I'm gonna go ahead and like I'll do the project management basically for it. Problem is I didn't put it in writing. I didn't get her. We taught, we talked to her about it. Right. We assumed, okay, we talked to you about it. And then she sent us her first bill after we'd already paid her$20,000. Her second bill was for another$20,000. And we were like, you're like, wait a minute. What?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so by then she had maybe given me like a notebook with some like Pinterest, some some design things, but I was really underwhelmed with what she was giving us. And it was not spec to our budget. It was really just like a Pinterest board, which for a few thousand dollars, three, four, five thousand dollars, maybe, you know, could have been helpful. And we did, we did use her design ideas, but who girl. So I didn't learn my lesson though. We paid her that, and then she continued on charging for project management. And so finally it took me till probably July before I was like, okay, in writing, here's an email. We owe you zero dollars. Any other additional work will be done for free. You know, please respond to this email that you've gotten it, you've received it, and that you agree to it. It took me six months. So this was like six months of stress. And I don't know what it I think because she was a female, I think I liked her. I really wanted to work with her.

SPEAKER_01:

And I had you want to believe that people are gonna like show up and do the things they said they were gonna do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. I got the rug, just I don't know. So I still this community is pretty small. I still like see her and have to, you know, be nice and it's fine, but that was a huge. I am way faster at firing people now. I tell you, I've learned that like that lesson that was a$60,000 lesson that I learned. But we got a beautiful product at the end of the day. We got a beautiful product, so got into it. Mike started working with his guys. We didn't really have any big issues. He, oh, the the biggest thing, we took that addition down. And then Mike goes up into the attic, my husband. And one of the things that we had done on our two previous flips was we had finished basements. We had unfinished basement space and we finished it. In this house, it had a huge attic that we finished. And so even though we took off, you know, about over a thousand square feet of space, we added over a thousand square feet of space up in the attic. So that really helped us out. And we could just envision like a teenage birthday party, a whole football team. There was like this house was made for a big family. It had four bedrooms on the second floor. And then the attic, we add another bedroom and like kids' living area. So one of the things we did talk about was whether or not to add the master on a main. That would have been an addition off the side of the house. We talked about moving the staircase to opening up the space inside with the kitchen and the living room. We ended up just opening up that space a little bit and kept a more formal because it has a more formal um layout and design of the house. But all the bedrooms were up on the second floor. We asked around and people said, you know, up here the houses are older and people are used to having bedrooms upstairs. Also, the person who buys this house has a lot of kids and they're a youngish family. We just, that's who we built the house for. And that's who ended up buying the house. So I'm glad we did that. But we did, you know, at that price point, you're just knocking out who's gonna buy the house. Well, it's not going to older retired people, you know. Oh, okay. Well, it's not going to anybody who can't climb stairs, you know. Right. Yeah. So everything else, as far as the G seeing, like our subs did a pretty good job. Mike at that point and had had most of them for, you know, at least two projects. Like our main group of subs who does the flooring, the painting, the tiling, all of that. Those guys were good. We found a new plumber because we had been through a couple during our other two flips. So we had we found a new guy. Mike really liked him. He did good work. The electrician, we still did okay. And then HVAC was okay. But by then, it was like we had had enough experience. So things moved a little bit more smoothly through the renovation. It was just, yeah, the size of the house, and then putting that much into it. There's five bedrooms, like seven toilets, you know, six baths, something like that. So it adds up. And then the exterior space, we also took this lot. It was a very flat lot, which was really nice because up on the mountain, a lot of the houses are like on a brow and they don't have much of a yard. And so this house had this great lot, but it had no boundaries around the edges. So it was like on a highway with these little cabins in the back. So we added a fenced-in yard for kids, dogs. I found a great landscape designer. She did great for like 500 bucks. She gave me a beautiful design with like, here's all the plants, you know, that are native up there, low maintenance. We went through a few landscapers, and then we did this like really beautiful, because there's these little tiny, they're long-term cabins, they're not short-term cabins, but long-term cabins in the back. And so when you're walking out the back living room, you basically stare right at this cabin. And so when we had bought the house, she had this brick patio with like eight foot, 10-foot brick around it, kind of felt like you were in a walking into a prison cell. So it was really weird. She had a hot tub back there, and then you have this huge yard, but it wasn't really usable. So we took the brick down to like so you could see like the view.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but then yeah, but the view was staring at this cabin. So we added a wall, like a stucco wall brick. And stuccoed it and then added like a little formal garden that walked into the side yard. I mean, we probably spent, you know, 80,000 on the yard, all new sauna, irrigation, drip systems. So lots of new things for us. I think the other thing is my husband and I want to build our own house one day. And so we were kind of using this as like a practice house of like what would we want to do? Yeah. Yeah. And we did learn a lot. We learned a lot. I've never done a brick, you know, stucco wall outside, but it was actually surprisingly easy-ish to do and added a, it was just absolutely gorgeous. So my realtor ended up, she was great. She would come pop in and give her, you know, her advice and just thoughts on materials and things. And I ended up the stager, the woman who staged the house, she was involved for the last like probably four or five months because it, you know, it takes forever to get those last things off. But she was the one I ended up whenever I would have like, okay, is it this wallpaper or this wallpaper? What do you think about this color or this color? And I would ask my stager for free. And she would, she gave great advice. So next time around, I'm like, I just I would hire someone as a like on an hourly consulting, you know, basis, like help me pick out these five finishes. Yeah. So that was really great. Kind of building that little team. In general, you know, my husband and I work together pretty good. We still, you know, we have young kids and there's a lot. It's it's a lot to add on to a relationship when you're you know, and so I've tried to have more like roles for each one of us. Like you, this is your job and this is my job. Yeah, absolutely. Defining the roles. And so I'm not stepping on his toes, you know, he knows way more about construction than I do. So I just kind of come in and I'm like, this is more practical, or this is, you know, I kind of give feedback on his design. But he taught himself how to use um like SketchUp and he designed the entire house on his computer. So every angle, every room, yeah, lots and lots of hours he spent designing it. So yeah, it was pretty incredible. I mean, I am thinking about it now, like, yeah, it was pretty amazing. But in the last two years, as some people might have imagined, you know, prices have changed a little bit, especially in the luxury market. So, according to our numbers, as we were going along, we were looking at price per square foot and comps that were selling. So once we were kind of going into okay, what are we gonna put this house on the market for? We got a little cocky, I'd say. And there were some comps that could support it. And if we had time to leave the house on the market, I think we could have maybe gotten gotten the price we wanted. We put it on the market at 2 million, like 1.99 or something like that. Yeah, it was did I miss anything from like the reno or trying to think of if there's anything else kind of from that timeline? I think the next big sort of hurdles and challenges are going through with putting it on the market and then getting it sold.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So you listed it like 1.9. Right. What happened with that? Or like did when did you what made you make the decision to do like a price adjustment or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00:

So we put it on at one point, yeah, like nine five. Two weeks later, we got an offer for 1.85 from a realtor who does a lot of work up on the mountain. And he had been to the house with my designer who told us she was bringing a quote friend by. So she brings this guy in. He's actually, I'm sure you've heard there's certain places where there's certain people that are just he's the guy up there. He does a lot of, he does a lot of transactions up there. He's also one of the most difficult person, like not nice.

SPEAKER_01:

They usually those usually go hand in hand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so he came in, the house wasn't even done yet. The like he could not see all the level of finishes that we were doing, and he started like throwing numbers out there to us. We already had a realtor, but he wasn't our representing realtor. So I don't know if he had a grudge against us about that, but it was just kind of weird to us that he was throwing out these numbers to us, even though he didn't see the quality and level of the finish.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So we kind of had a weird feeling about him in general. And just the way that he was talking, he's kind of derogatory about things and people. He was just like kind of not a not a great like dude to talk to.

SPEAKER_01:

You're just ooh, please. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So when he brought us that offer, we didn't negotiate. We just said this is our asking price at 1.95. And he sent back a nasty message as oh, they, you know, should have learned their lesson, and you'll, you know, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. I don't know exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

We are he had their opinions, real and their opinions.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he does this with everybody. He's kind of nasty to everybody. Everybody works with him, has had a story. So we say thanks, but no, no, thanks. Like, we're just going on the market. We're just going into spring season. Like, we're just going into summertime. So then it was crickets. After that, it was crickets. We didn't get another offer. We went into spring. I didn't want to change, I didn't want to lower the price till at least like June. So I wanted it to sit on the market for a while. And so we let it sit. And our carrying costs per month were about$10,000. Maybe nine. All the loans. Yeah. And the staging was expensive to stage it, completely staged. So that was the other thing is we didn't have that contingency sitting in a bank account, you know,$60,000 in case it had in case it sits on the market for six months. I thought, no way. Like this house is so beautiful. It's so perfect. In the summertime, it's gonna sell. So we did our first price reduction in June. And then come July, it was like we were getting, we were getting a little worried. And we were thinking, we okay, so also the hard money loan lender that I had gone with, we had a one-year loan with them. It was not a six-month loan, it was a one-year loan. So one year with them was right when we were going on the market, basically. So we did an extension, we did an extension with them. No big deal.

SPEAKER_01:

No big deal.

SPEAKER_00:

So then come time we did a second extension with them. I never asked how many extensions would you do? I never asked. So in July, it was like they were telling us, okay, in August, we will not be doing another extension. And so our loan would be due August like 26th or something. So come the end of July was, and we had, you know,$800,000. And I like, I'm good, but I'm not that good. I can't just come up with$800K. Like we could have. So we were thinking, okay, what are our options? Right? What are what are the different things we could do? So we looked at keeping it as an Airbnb because of the county it was in. It's like right. You can't do Airbnbs in most of Lookout Mountain, but you can do it in the county we were in. So we had talked to it. We found a different lender who, and also getting it, it was still on the market. So we would have had to take it off the market and refinance it. We would have been able to pay off all our big loans, but then still had a few smaller loans and then furnish the house and all that stuff. So it's a whole big deal. So we did have a background, right? Not ideal. So we're like, or we knew our margins were still good enough that, like, if we could just sell this house, then we'll be fine, you know. So we we brought it down to I think 1.85. And my realtor, we told her, you know, hey, like, go talk to XYZ, the realtor up there and see, you know. So she did, and he's like, Oh, well, you know, she said, Oh, hey, blah, blah, blah. You gonna, you know, let me know if you have any buyers. And he's like, Uh, your seller's gonna be more realistic. So high, the price is too high, blah, blah, blah. And um, she's like, you know, I think they're they're open. And so yeah, he brought us another deal. It was a cash offer for 1.7. And so at that point, we looked at our numbers and we're just like, okay, what are we gonna accept? Right. Not what do we want, what will we take?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We said, okay, let's come down a little bit. So I think we went back at like 1.75 and set maybe we negotiated from like 1.8. We they ended up, we went under contract with them at 1.75. So that's what I think that's what we ended up with. That's what it sold for. Now we had to deal with this very fun realtor during that period of time. Yeah. They took, you know, they did their home. It was the house went under contract. It was a cash offer, but contingent on appraisal and inspection. They did their inspection. Another thing we could have done in that meantime of that six months was done our own inspection. We hadn't been in the crawl space in probably a couple months. So when they did their inspection, they found a lot of humidity in the crawl space. We encapsulated the whole crawl space and added a dehumidifier. Um, so that was like six thousand dollars. And the humidity when they installed the flooring on the whole first floor, the humidity was too high. And so we had put in hardwoods and the hardwoods like cupped. Yeah. So we ended up giving them like a$10,000 concession for the flooring, which was our bad, was on our end. So got through that process, but he tried to pull out like one more time. He tried to say that the homeowners were having a difficult time getting home insurance for it because the home had had previous insurance claims on it. And we immediately, I'm like, I've since, because of our new company, I've since joined a BI. And I would say that has been one of the best things that we've done is joined a BI because I now have access to a plumber who will show up tomorrow, an electrician who will show up tomorrow, a basement guy who came and saved our butts. You know, I have insurance people. I call and within a few hours, she had me a quote and said, No, the home is insurable. Yes, it's expensive because the home is very expensive.

SPEAKER_01:

And so it's an expensive giant home. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So he tried to add that, like at the end of his appraisal period or that two-week window or whatever. Yeah, that the house was now contingent upon them finding insurance, insurance, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so no, we've already negotiated, we're good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, my realtor was like, uh no, you went, you made a cash offer, you know, and we did have other backup, like we had other people who were interested. We were gonna be, you know, we would have kept it, blah, blah, blah. So he ended up coming back the next day and they agreed to it. And they did close, they closed on time. Um, we didn't have any problems. And then, yeah, once we closed, then the new owner actually, you know, reached out to us and we're now talking to him, and he's very, very, very appreciative and feels like the house was made for his family, and they've been so lovely about yes. So glad we don't have to deal with his realtor.

SPEAKER_01:

Hopefully, I know it's funny. I tell people like, I really feel like real estate and being in real estate has made me a better person. Because, like, sometimes I'm like, you just have to play well with somebody in the sandbox, even if they're not your people, they give you the ick, but like we have to get this done. So, how do I, you know, just maintain professionalism and move it forward? Yeah, I totally, yeah, it's not fun all the time, but like I like I said, I think it's made me a better person. Well, because it also like it, and now I it goes into my personal life too, where I'm like, okay, like this isn't my favorite person, but like, you know, I need we we need to work together. Yeah, great. So, like that sounds like it kind of ended well. So, you know, after all the dust settled and everything, do you have like a rough figure of how much you guys profited and walked away with?

SPEAKER_00:

It's around 200,000. It's yeah, numbers are still rough. We're still we're still figuring, I don't know if we'll ever figure it out, but it was somewhere, it was somewhere around that. And it was like the hard part too, is like if we had taken that first offer, you know, that would have been an additional 150k we lost because we didn't take that first offer with the holding costs, yeah. So yeah, but 200 is not nothing, and it's allowed us to move into our next project. So oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so lots of lessons learned.

SPEAKER_01:

Like that's great. Yeah, and I like to tell people it's kind of funny. I I in coaching, I hear that a lot where investors are like, Well, I could have had this and I lost it, and then like I try to change mind frame there to, you know, you didn't technically lose it because you didn't have it, um, but it still hurts, right? Like you feel like what we could have done, you know, we could okay, yeah, I totally get that. But 200,000, like walking away with that after that, like a huge project and some of the things that you had to overcome is absolutely incredible. So, and you made a beautiful, I mean, I've seen the pictures, it gorgeous house. Like, I'm so glad that the family that moved into it loves it because it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. Yeah, it it was an incredible project. And I'm glad, I'm like, I'm grateful we went through it. It's like one of those, I don't know if I'm gonna do it again, but this process of raising capital, especially this much capital, like the project that Mike and I are now doing, we bought five territories of a franchise. So when they're asking, like, oh, you know, you're gonna need 250K for that, it's like, I gotcha, don't worry. Like, we'll figure, we can figure this out, you know. I also I have a partner who's very supportive, who's very helpful. He he's good with he's better with numbers than I am. And so the other thing is just like learning to rely on a lot of other people and asking for help and building a team. It's so you can't do it by yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 100%. And it's yeah, I tell people it's both humbling to me and also exciting in the fact when you learn that moment, like that I don't have to do everything. Um, and it actually works better for me to like hand off the things I'm not good at to somebody who is good at them. You know, I'm empowering them to shine in their area, and then it allows me to shine in my areas and not be like really frustrated and sad because I can't get something that's, you know, should be really easy done and I can't. Well, cool. It's not your area of expertise. Give it over to the expert.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a hundred percent. And they need jobs, you know. These people, they need work, so you know, you giving them work is that's undervalued, I think, is being being the one that has work for people. Really valuable. Yeah. So it was fun. It was a lot. It was a lot. I feel a little bit of, you know, there's a little like I don't want to say PTSD, but these projects, they take so much time, energy, emotion. It takes a little bit to like recover. I feel like yeah, still recovering from this one. But I'm like, I know this these again, this like the skill set that you're learning to like analyze a deal and to add value to something and to know what the value is gonna be when you're done. It just, it's so the skill set applies across so many other different avenues in the world in your life. And so just so, so, so thankful for all of you and the coaches in this program because yeah, it's changed, it's changed our life. Mike, you know, Mike was a firefighter, I was a teacher, and then we got out of the W-2 world, and now we're trying to, you know, flipping, not rely all of our income on flipping, but have a another active income source and then flip on the side. So that's kind of the plan now.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yay! Like that is so amazing. And I'm getting all the feels because like I, those are the stories that like I live for and I love, you know. So thank you so much for like hanging out with me and sharing our your story with our listeners. I hope everybody that's listening made it to like just that last phrase there is like so worth it. Uh, just to hear how you can use flipping to like completely change your family's life is incredible. So, for all you listeners out there, thank you so much for joining us today on the Flip Houses Like a Girl podcast. I hope you found some inspiration and practical takeaways from Diana's story. Remember, every successful flip starts with one brave decision to get in the game, and you don't have to do it alone. If you're ready to take the next step towards flipping your first house, we'd love for you to learn more about the Flip Sisters program. It is the leading coaching program and community design specifically for women across the country who are ready to flip houses in their local markets. To connect with us, check out the program, or just get inspired by more stories like this one, visit us at www.theflipsisters.com. And as always, thank you for listening, subscribing, and sharing this podcast with other women who are ready to step into the world of flipping houses. Until next time, keep going, keep growing, and remember, you can absolutely do this.