The Power of Patience in House Flipping

This topic might not be the most exciting, but it’s one of the most important. I’m going to go through a few times you should practice patience in your house flipping projects and what you should be doing during that time. Patience is an underrated skill when it comes to flipping houses. With patience, you can have a more successful and profitable flip.

Patience starts at the beginning of your project in looking for a house and building your team and is applicable at the end before you move on to the next project.

When it comes to flipping, things don’t necessarily happen quickly, but with slow, consistent action. You are more likely to regret being hasty than being patient. Let’s talk about the importance of patience, where it comes in most often, and how it’s viewed as a strength.

Patience When Building Your Business and Finding Houses

I was talking to someone who went quickly from modest homes to million-dollar properties with a high profit. While that’s a great outcome, everything went down from there. What we can learn from them is to have patience in building your business.

Thankfully, I feel I did it the right way. When I started, I flipped houses on the side. It wasn’t my primary business, and I didn’t need it to fulfill my income. That wasn’t what the purpose of it was. The purpose of it was to learn because I wanted to have another skill that I could make a career out of if I chose to, if I loved it and if I felt like it was a good fit for me.

So I didn’t have that pressure on myself to replace my income immediately. I didn’t have the pressure on myself that everything I did had to be right.

I wasn’t doing very expensive houses because I was learning, and I didn’t want to make mistakes on big expensive houses (not that I could have chosen, I didn’t even have the financing options available to buy those big houses).

Having patience helped me to learn and focus on building my knowledge which was super important to me. Don’t get me wrong; It was tempting to go for some houses I came across. I had to have the discipline to wait. Wait until I had a better knowledge base, wait until I built the best crews, and wait until I had great funding options to pivot and change the business made sense.

So when you don’t have patience, you make decisions quickly, and sometimes those might turn out, and sometimes they might not.

• Before finding a property, here are some of the things to decide:
• Your budget
• Your timeline
• Your ideal location
• How much work do you want to put into it

To be confident in your offer, you have to have those things set. Without those, you’re just going in and writing a random offer. You should be intentional about where you’re buying houses as best you can to make sure that you have the best opportunity for profit.

• Here’s another list to consider when taking your time and doing your due diligence:
• Focus on location. Are you looking for the right place?
• Are you looking in an area that goes for a higher price?
• What do buyers want?
• Look at comps… What are other homes including in terms of amenities and style?
• Do you know the school districts that people want to live in?
• Do you know where people want to go when they live in a certain community?
• Do you know that people don’t love houses that are on highways?
• Do you know that if you have a property surrounded by multi-family apartments, people might not feel the same way about that on the resale side?
• Analyze the resale price (don’t guess)
• Make sure you also look at the house as often as possible (opt for a nearby project you are able to go to easily).
• Look at comparable sales that sold for that same price point, so you know what they look like and meet or exceed value.
• Go to open houses

All of these things help to make sure that you best understand the potential for the property you’re purchasing, but they do take a little extra time.

You’re not necessarily going to get a gain immediately from that. But you’ll be building up the knowledge and the exposure to properties.

Pro tip: If you have the availability with an agent to schedule some time, go to four or five different communities and look at houses at the same price point. You would be surprised. There are so many houses that are similar in price point but are completely different inside. Use this tactic to learn markets and to learn what you can get for your money.

Patience with Your Team

When you’re working with people, it’s easy for impatience to creep in, right? So you might have to have more than one person that you work with, who you have to work with their schedule.

You might have to wait for your real estate agent to get you a response. As unfortunate as that may be, and as quickly as we would like to ensure we get one, it may take a little time. Make sure your expectations are set up ahead of time.

Another note is to have consistent criteria. Your agent and team will be able to help you much more if you have set criteria and keep them the same. When investing and working with agents, they appreciate that communication and knowing what you’re looking for from them immediately. Then, if they can’t meet those criteria, you can make sure you have someone else you can go to for that.
Think about the time you get back when you have a trusted agent to help. They can help you shave off some of the time for searching for properties if they can go preview properties on your behalf, or if they have properties that are maybe brought to them by other people off-market, they can qualify them pretty quickly or not as to whether they would be a good fit for you.

Hiring Contractors

Another area where patience is crucial when building your team, is when hiring contractors. Time is money, but sometimes the time, in the beginning, will save you time in the end.

• When you’re hiring contractors, you need to make sure that you are doing a few things to protect not only yourself but the project.
• Meet with more than one contractor.
• Ask for and check references.
• Get multiple bids.
• Discuss expectations and timelines before hiring.
• Walk through the property with prospective contractors if possible.
• Ensure you feel comfortable with them and have confidence in them.

I had an experience a few years ago with a contractor where patience saved us time, money, and quality. We did our research and found out that while their rates were low, they were not a trustworthy, quality option. Their reference helped us decide against them.

You need to take those slow steps to ensure you get the right people for your project because it costs you so much more time, money, and stress when you don’t have the right people from the beginning.

Pro tip: Run through the specifics with everyone involved in your project to get confirmation, and get it in writing! You need to get things in writing because unless it’s in writing, it literally didn’t happen.

Patience Through Bumps in the Road

Before getting into the business, you’ll want to be clear that nothing can go smoothly 100% of the time. Things will go wrong, you’ll get frustrated, you’ll get bad news, and you’re going to hit bumps. Thankfully, these bumps are a learning experience, but they still hurt when you’re in it.

Prepare for those bumps as best as you can. Think of things that no one can even really control that could throw you for a loop. Like delays in materials, be patient, but decide what the best plan is. Should you wait, or should you opt for different materials?

Anytime you’re working with contractors, there’s things that may come up, but just know that’s not unique to you; it’s not personal. As I mentioned, there are things on the front of that relationship that you can do, getting things in writing, checking references, and interviewing more than one contractor.

Other unfortunate situations include weather delays, theft, or other things that happen on your job site that you didn’t intend to happen. The process for getting permits can change; it can take longer. They can require a structural engineer. They can require drawings. They can require a plan review, which can take a couple of weeks. Those things cannot be controlled. They just need to be learned from.

An unforeseen problem could be an expensive problem found during the inspection. For example, if it’s the sewer line, you can learn rather than have that come up during an inspection with a buyer to have it taken care of at the beginning. That means paying an extra couple hundred dollars to have the swerve line scoped before listing.

Another common issue is underestimating repair costs. That can happen because material costs, especially in the last couple of years, have rapidly changed (even during a project).
Knowing those things happen and it’s an opportunity to learn and develop a healthy response that will be helpful in the future is really what it’s all about.

Maintaining that patience, the idea that this isn’t quick, isn’t going to be a short-term fix. This is going to be something that I potentially want to do or build upon this knowledge for a long-term business, for a long-term plan, for a long-term financial picture, for a long-term goal that I know is important to me. And because of that, I’m going to allow myself the opportunity to do things in a way that exercises patience because it’s important and it’s valuable.

I hope to be the voice in your head when you’re making decisions and going through the process of flipping!

Patience Before Moving On

Instant gratification is not a thing in the flipping business. Take the time when you need to, be patient. From beginning to end. Before moving to the next project, take the time to analyze your last project. Ask yourself what went right or wrong and what could be avoided in the future.

Take the time to use my checklist: Fixer Upper Checklist

Ready to take that next step when it comes to flipping?

Here are some resources I’ve put together to help you get the information you need to move forward on creating your flipping life.

Make sure you have the Fixer Upper Checklist so you know which areas are critical to added value in a home.

If you are interested in learning more about the House Flip Blueprint course, go here!
There are several videos on finding houses, renovations, and funding on YouTube. Check out your favorite flipping topics and new videos weekly.