June 8, 2023 • 46 mins
Can you imagine buying three flips within your first year, all while being a nurse and a busy mom to four boys? Meet Darci, one of our FlipSisters from South Texas, who did just that! Join us as we walk through her incredible journey and learn how her determination and creativity have transformed not only her life, but entire neighborhoods as well.
Darci shares the exciting details of her first three flips, including a creative financing deal that saved a homeowner's credit and dignity in a challenging situation. We also discuss the lessons she learned from her third flip, an off-market property, and how trusting her instincts and maintaining discipline have been crucial to her success in the flipping business. Prepare to be inspired by Darci's story and gain actionable insights to apply to your own house flipping journey.
But it's not all about the houses - it's also about the people. Darci talks about the amazing support system she's found within our FlipSisters community, her husband's partnership and the connections she's made with others. Her story serves as a testament to the power of collaboration, determination, and the impact of helping others in need. Don't miss this episode full of inspiration and invaluable tips for your own house flipping adventures.
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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 andwholeheartedly chasing their
dream of flipping houses.
Each episode delivers honest togoodness tools, tips and
(00:21):
strategies you can implementtoday to get closer to your
first or next successful houseflip.
Here's your spiky-hairedbreakfast taco-loving host.
House flipping coach DebbieDePure.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, thanks for hanging out with us today.
So in today's episode I amhaving a conversation with one
of our flip sisters in SouthTexas.
Her name is Darcy and she istaking us through her first
three flips.
That she did within a year ofjoining our program.
And I think you'll find hersecond flip particularly
(01:06):
interesting, because it'ssomething we haven't talked
about too much on the podcast,because her second flip they
purchased it using creativefinancing.
They did a subject to deal onit, so we'll get into that as
well as her other flips andlessons learned and just her
(01:26):
story.
I think you will really connectwith her.
She was a nurse, she has ahusband and kids And she's just,
she's awesome.
You'll love the story, you'llbe inspired to go take action
And that's what it's all about.
All right, let's meet Darcy.
So let's go, let's starttalking about these, because
(01:47):
this is good stuff, this is suchgood stuff.
Okay, so let's do the usualIntroduce yourself, let us know
where you are, a little bit ofyour background.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Okay, so I'm Darcy.
I'm from South Texas, my tradesare registered nurse, mom to
four boys And, as of last year,i became a flipper where you
located.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I don't remember if you said that in South Texas.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I'm an hour north of Corpus Christi.
Okay small town, 13,000.
Yeah, tiny town.
Have you always been therePretty much.
I grew up here and then movedaway closer to Corpus for a few
years for college, okay, andended up moving back to be close
to family.
Nice, yeah, we really do likeit here.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Okay, so you did three projects last year I did.
So let's kind of go througheach one and do kind of a
highlights, low lights stats.
I think that'd be superbeneficial because you did some
interesting stuff and you likeyour first property.
(03:06):
You listed it for sale afterthe market shift right, and then
you did this cool subject todeal And then you did another
flip that you've learned somelessons on.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, the one that I kind of call the flop.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah the flop.
Okay, gosh, we all have one ofthose, If not more.
Okay, so walk us through yourfirst one.
So you, you founded theproperty before joining the
program.
How did you find it?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So my husband is a electrician by trade And for
years you know he's pulled intothese real estate properties and
new builds and this and thatAnd it really piqued his
interest to get into buildingand maybe do new construction.
He saw the potential that myhusband had and asked him to
(04:02):
remodel his house and hepartnered with someone else and
did that and they they didreally well.
So my husband decides he wantedto find a house in the
neighborhood to flip and Iwasn't really on board with it.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
And until one day he said so we're in a contract for
a house and like, do what, and Ionly paid 45,000 for it.
To what?
So we sat on that house for alittle bit because he was
actually finishing his friend'shouse, the remodel.
Okay, so once his friend'shouse was concluding, i thought
(04:42):
I've got to get someone on boardto help us, because he wants me
to help him with this And Ihave no idea what I'm doing here
And we can't lose any moremoney than what we've already
put into this.
So I started going online andtrying to find help and I came
across, i think, one of yourpodcasts and you mentioned
something about living in Texasand not having a basement.
(05:05):
I'm like she must be somewherenear me.
I saw you're from Austin andthat you know you're here to
motivate women.
I'm like that's what I need.
Yes, i love it.
My husband used to go get herand me.
I'm I'm more timid, i'm aresearcher.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
That's a good balance .
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It is, it is, but I felt like you'd be a good
mediator for us.
Yeah, that house.
I call Anderson, and once wegot on the program with you, it
took us six months to flip.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And did you all do a lot of the work yourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yes, so my husband was the GC.
He had people do the roof butplumbing everything else And oh
and sheetrock, everything elsehe did on his own or we did.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Okay, did you enjoy that part?
I did.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I really did, and I loved seeing how much my husband
loved it too.
Uh-huh So, and I loved that itwas right by our house, so we
would walk there every day.
our neighbors would see us, ourkids would go with us.
We saw how it was just a streetbehind us and everyone all
started taking care of theirhouses.
The house next door it gotpainted, they put a new roof on.
(06:24):
they really became ourneighbors.
I would water the grass andforget to turn off the sprinkler
, and our neighbor would go turnit off for us, and it was.
I really liked that experience.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I did.
That's really cool.
That's really cool.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And this house had been abandoned since before
Hurricane Harvey.
It had it had.
All the windows had beencovered up since before
Hurricane Harvey.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh, my gosh, which was what year?
2016?
Yeah, I think so Good grief.
So, yeah, i bet the neighborswere thrilled to see it coming
back to life.
Yeah, that makes a bigdifference in what you see when
you leave your house and whenyou get back to your house.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Uh-huh, yeah, this was just owned by an investor
that he had inherited a lot ofproperties in our area and he
had moved to Austin and didn'tdo anything with it.
And my husband just saw itthere and went and talked to a
real estate agent and you knowit was done pretty quick.
But but yeah, all in all, wehad it for a year.
We bought it, we sat on ituntil we came to your program
(07:33):
and got started.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So Did you pay cash for that?
We did Okay.
Uh, hence the what are youdoing?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Exactly We did.
And then when we sat down andreally put the numbers together
and saw how much it was going tocost, once he started tearing
into it, we seeked PMLs.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Oh, cool, nice, Okay.
So what was what ended up beingyour renovation budget?
What did you guys put into thatone?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
We ended up spending 110,000, and that was about 20
grand over what I thought wewere going to spend.
Okay, but our ARV was also$35,000 more than what I thought
we were going to sell it forwhen we first started the
(08:32):
repairs in January.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
When you put it on the market, did you put?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
it on May.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And in May was that when y'all started shifting.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
No, we didn't start shifting here until October.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
See interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So that's so.
Remember this, because this iswhere things change for us.
On our second flip that we soldin November.
So so with this one, there wasanother flipping couple in town
that had sold a house and gotreally good money for it and a
not so great neighborhood.
And I reached out to the wifeand she kind of told me some
(09:10):
things that she did And myhusband and I decided you know
what?
we found somebody that's goingto be a potential buyer and he
was a doctor in town And we saidyou know what, let's make this
house a little nicer than whatwe thought we were going to do.
So together we decided to putin a few more bells and whistles
, a little bit more curve appeal, and but even then we put the
(09:35):
house on the market for 214,which was a gamble, because no
one in this area flips a housethe way we did, besides that
other couple.
They were the first ones tobreak the mold And they sold
theirs for like 159 a squarefoot.
What we were asking for ourswas 160 a square foot.
(09:58):
We put it on the market andwithin 24 hours we had seven
offers, which was unheard of inour little county.
Our real estate agent was justlike oh my gosh what do I do?
And we wanted to keep it on themarket for a week because we
wanted to showcase everything wedid.
(10:18):
She's like we can't do that.
Like we have so many, we don'tneed any more offers.
And all but one of them were atasking or over, and the one
that wasn't at asking I was kindof glad because we knew these
people knew it would be a painto deal with, so luckily they
weeded themselves out.
But it was a good but still aproblem to have having that many
(10:43):
people Yep.
And then have the issue ofknowing that most people are
going or all of them had to havefinancing.
You're going to have to dealwith this appraisal, yes, crazy
was not going to meet our askingprice or the contracted price.
So the doctor who wanted to buythe house he was not our
(11:10):
highest, but he did give usasking And what our agent
decided to do was to send aletter out to everyone.
Of course she told us about ittoo, but she said I think we
should send a letter out toeveryone telling them to give us
their best and biggest offer.
And I said okay.
(11:32):
I said I just don't want tohurt anyone's feelings, and it
did.
They ruffled.
The doctor was the first one topull out.
He was very offended by it Andwhenever I went to visit the
flip sisters in Austin to go seeyour latest flip, i was just
like, oh my gosh, I don't knowwhat to do.
(11:52):
I couldn't even enjoy because Iwas just.
I felt so bad.
I offended this doctor.
I kind of felt like I had putthis house together with him in
mind.
As soon as I got back to BeagleI went to knock on his door and
be like listen, just give himmy heart and say here's where
I'm at.
And I even wrote letters out toeveryone and sent it to my real
(12:16):
estate agent and just saidlisten, first I want to thank
you for the offer that you gaveus, because they were all great
offers.
There's just seven of them tochoose from.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I don't like multiple offers.
Like I know it sounds great,but they're stressful because
everybody except for one personis going to be mad.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah And you start looking and I'm like I'm not
going to make this personal.
Next thing.
I know I'm like I was not in asmall town because I knew most
of these people or theirrelatives if they were moving
here from out of town.
So here's what I did.
I looked at all the differentoffers and I looked at how much
money each person was puttingdown on the house.
(12:58):
One in particular was puttingdown 50 grand, but it was a VA
loan.
My real estate agent said markthat one out, it's a VA.
My husband said mark that oneout, it's a VA.
I'm like.
Why I'm like?
because it's going to be abigger issue with the appraisal.
If it doesn't meet appraisal,it's going to fall through Me.
(13:20):
Being a researcher, i am.
I look and no, it says that ifit doesn't meet appraisal, the
buyer is more than welcome tocome up with the money to make
up the difference.
I remember that I really stuckto my guns on that.
My husband was pissed.
My real estate agent thought Iwas crazy, but I didn't see
(13:40):
anyone else that couldpotentially come up with the
funds.
I'm like if they have 50 grandto put down, i feel like they
will be able to come closerwhere some of these others.
We had two that were FHA Oh gosh.
Yeah, they put down the bareminimum.
I'm willing to think thatthey're not going to be able to
come up with an extra eight to10 grand if needed.
So that's who we went with, andit did take a little bit longer
(14:04):
because this gentleman he hadleft the service many years ago,
so it was hard to come up witha documentation for his VA loan
to go through, oh gosh.
But his agent and my agentworked together to find him a
conventional loan and it finallywent through.
So it took like 35 days toclose, got it?
(14:25):
That's not bad.
No, and we sold the house for220 instead of 214.
So we thought we were onlygoing to make like 22 to 23K on
this house and that was with theaccounting for holding on to it
for 12 months But we ended upmaking 36, 640, which is that's
(14:47):
good for our little town of13,000.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No, that's incredible .
It's not just good, that'sincredible.
That's like 15 plus percent orsomething.
That's amazing.
And after holding it for 12months, like Yeah, yeah, so
that's awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, and in the middle of all of this.
So when my husband was workingon his friend's property, i
would drive over there because Iended up this man as a bachelor
and I had to act as his wifeand making decisions on
different things, which wasreally cool.
I loved it because I got tostage his house.
I helped him pick out so manydifferent things Really cool.
(15:28):
But on my way over there Iwould pass by this house that
looked abandoned and he had toldus about it too And he said,
hey, you guys need to go seewhat's going on with it.
And when I was in your program,i learned about something called
sub-tues.
So this house.
I ended up tracking down theowner And there was a carpenter
(15:51):
that we sub-contracted to dosome work.
And I said, hey, do you knowthis guy?
Because we all grew up here AndI thought maybe they know one
another.
And he said, yeah, i grew upwith him.
He found me, his number.
I contacted the guy, learnedthat he liked to text, so we
texted for a little bit and thenhe fell off the radar.
(16:11):
And then I had paid for aforeclosure app And that house
showed up on the app in Januaryof last year.
So I messaged him And I saidhey, man, i'm bothering you
(16:31):
again just because I want you toknow that your house is
officially going to go toauction in February And if you
want to sell it, i am seriouslyinterested.
You want to meet up tomorrow?
And he said yeah, let's meet.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Did he know that it was going into auction?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
So this house?
he stopped paying on it forCallee almost a year, but with
COVID they weren't foreclosinganymore.
So they finally opened it upAnd he didn't realize OK, he
didn't realize, but he was justso far behind, he didn't have
the funds And he had moved outAnd it just wasn't conducive for
(17:17):
him to try to save it.
Yeah, but without going intohis personal story, it was just
he and his wife were no longertogether, but it was community
property.
So not only did I have toconvince him but I also had to
convince her.
And they weren't exactly on,they were sort of on speaking
terms, but sometimes he was inand out of the picture.
(17:38):
But for me it was personal inthat 14 years ago my husband and
I almost lost a house And wethought it was our dream house
And it was during 2008.
And, bubble bursting, i hadlost my job, we decided to move
(17:59):
back to our small town And wellit was an investor that
contacted us.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
And we ended up doing a short sale on the house.
But we got to come back homewith decent credit, right, and
with some dignity, right, andthat's all I could think about
for this couple.
And I know for me.
I've had sales jobs before, butthen I ended up going back into
(18:30):
nursing because I love healthcare and I love helping people,
yeah.
So it was a big motivator forme on this house And we ended up
purchasing it with about anhour left for me to get a money
order to the lender to keep itfrom going to auction that
following Tuesday, oh gosh, yeah.
(18:53):
So, in the gut, a couple grandin his pocket too.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
So I think this is a really great conversation
because so many people are likewhy would a seller ever agree to
a subject to deal?
They don't get it Right, and wecan say, well, these are the
reasons why Nope Doesn't makeany sense to me, that I would
never agree to any of that.
Why would I agree to somebodytaking over my loan, like, why
(19:22):
would I do that?
So how would you answer thatquestion?
As it relates to this specifictransaction, Sure.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
So for this person, they ran into issues where he
was laid off at his job.
He had made some bad choicesthat cost him his family and his
health, and he was trying toget himself back on track And he
(19:54):
had just given up the idea ofbeing able to take care of this
property and acre of land thathad been let go for a year and a
house that had sat vacant Andhe just didn't see any way to
get out of it other than justlet it go.
And, um, you know, for the wife, she moved back home with her
(20:15):
family and she wasn't working.
She didn't have a way to saveit either.
So and I know for me personallywe tried to put our house on the
market for sell by owner,because we didn't have it for
very long and we didn't haveequity in it.
And I just thought, man, if wego and sell it, we're not going
to have the money to be able toget out of our rears, you know.
(20:38):
So I had agents call me.
I even had my old agent thathad sold it to me going what are
you doing, girl?
Like I see this for sell byowner?
sign in your yard.
Why didn't you call me And I'mlike because I can't get for it
what I bought it for.
And yeah, it was investor out ofDallas that called me, and I'm
(21:01):
just still so appreciative forthat.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
See, exactly, i think this is such an important
conversation.
It doesn't the person on theother end, the person who owns
the property.
It doesn't have to be that theyfeel like they got the raw end
of the deal.
They can feel like they gotsaved, like, oh my God, they
(21:26):
totally saved me because creditgets saved, dignity gets saved,
like all kinds of things getsaved, when we can do a creative
financing deal like that, oh mygosh wow, you know, and you
just have to be super upfrontand let them know the pros and
the cons of it.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And we really did try to figure out what we could do
without doing the sub two.
But at the time it was just wehad to act so quickly that there
wouldn't be time for like afull sale.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Right, yeah, and you can't get.
You can't go get a loan thatfast, like you had to.
Subject to, was the way to stopit being that close to auction,
Oh my gosh.
Ok, so you took over theirpayments.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We took over their payments and gave them a couple
grand, and even thesubcontractor that helped me get
in touch with him.
They went and knocked on hisdoor.
I gave him a couple hundreddollars.
Nice, i got in touch with theattorney that you told us about,
allison Tipton.
She's the one that helped uswith the transaction.
(22:34):
She was great, awesome.
I had a friend that worked at abank here that was a notary.
She was able to help thiscouple you know, do the notary
help them with the money order.
She helped me.
She became part of the team too, and it's awesome.
So now this house, we haveended up paying off that note
(22:55):
because we have decided to keepit and move into it.
Nice, we tore into it and sawthat there was some extensive
termite damage.
My husband's very good attearing into things.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I'm learning this.
I'm learning this.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
And.
But you know it's out on anacre And it just it's going to
fulfill a dream for us where wecan go to a bigger spot for our
two boys that we have two thatare already out of the house and
two younger ones, and one ofthem has health issues And I
(23:34):
haven't been able to work fulltime because of it.
He's home a lot.
It's going to give us more likerunning area.
We're going to be able todesign this house the way we
want it, and it's so neat to goand fix up a house like we did
at Anderson, but it's going tobe even neater to be able to
live in it and say we did that,yes, so, so, yeah, that's really
(23:58):
cool, but here's where we comeinto our flop.
So while we were waiting onAnderson to close, a friend of
mine started calling me.
She lived out of town but she'sa real estate agent and she was
trying to sell a house forsomeone that lived here in town
(24:19):
whose mother was a widow andneeded to move out and move
closer to her family, and thisperson did not want to put their
house on the MLS.
The daughter didn't, because Ithink she was just so
embarrassed of the state of thehouse.
Her mom was elderly.
There was just a lot of stuffin it.
(24:42):
It was really run down And Ithink that just emotionally, it
was just too much for her tohandle, sure, so her friend was
looking for an investor in townthat would buy it off market.
And I didn't want to look at itbecause I was just still so
focused on Anderson and the subtwo that finally, when it was
(25:03):
starting to close, she's likeDarcy, i'm about to put out
flyers on this house, will youplease just come look at it
before I do?
And when we did I saw oh mygosh, it's wrapped in brick, so
we don't have to tear it down.
It's exciting all over it.
It's going to need a new roof,but it's gone a third of an acre
(25:24):
in this neighborhood that Inever drove through in our tiny
town.
It's in town but it's not.
There's oak trees everywhere.
It's a quiet street And it's alittle house.
But I mean, i think that thesheetrock is salvageable, i
think that the kitchen issalvageable And I quickly saw
that this is a great flip for usto do, and maybe three to four
(25:48):
months and make a decent profiton it and use it in the house
that we wanted to move into,nice, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's always those.
It's going to be a quick, easyone.
It's going to be a quick, easyone.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
You know how I mentioned my husbands were
really good at tearing intothings.
Yeah, the first thing that hesaw was this yard and its
potential, but he saw that therewas just so much brush, so he
hired someone to go out thereand clear that, and then he
started tearing into some trees.
He decided I'm going to take abreak from doing electrical
(26:27):
while I just focus on this houseso we can get it done quickly.
And that was such a big mistakebecause, you know, we didn't
take into account that he's notbringing money in And we needed
to consider him as labor and pay, you know.
And then I said why don't wehave some people come in and
(26:49):
help you so that we can get itdone faster?
But those people that came inand helped, there was a lot of
dead weight And we should havesome of the projects we asked
for help on.
They did on time and material,instead of us asking for a cost
upfront.
And you know, coming from asmall town, they won't do me
wrong And maybe they didn't.
(27:10):
It didn't work in our budgetAnd I think within two months we
were already through.
Oh gosh, not even that.
A month and a half.
We were already through like80% of our budget And a lot of
it was like buying things upfront, like the floor, you know,
things that weren't laid outyet.
(27:30):
Yeah, my husband's like, don'tworry, we've already bought most
of it.
It's okay, but he's sort of somuch labor, right, right, and so
that house.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
What did you pay for it?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I'm going to tell you that was my first mistake also.
So we paid 70.
I had offered 65.
And the mutual friend who wastheir agent, she said they asked
if you would go up to 70.
Because this is the last of themoney that their mom has for
(28:08):
her care.
Oh gosh, and I didn't see thatnumber, like my when I used my
deal analyzer.
like 65 is already like the topof what I wanted to do.
Yeah So, but I kept thinkingwell, it's got brick, you know,
(28:28):
so we're not going to have to dothat much.
So I could pay a little bitmore.
But I said, okay, we'll do the70.
So we're afraid someone elsewas going to snag it And I said,
okay, we'll do the 70.
Now I could have been like wecan give you 66 or no, we just I
(28:50):
wish we could, but this is ourtop.
And I had also said to help getthe deal, i said, if you feel
comfortable representing both ofus, because this mutual friend
she did come in from Houston andshe cleaned that house out
herself.
Oh, wow, and I had a greatmission on this house.
Yeah, you know, but I also, youknow, i don't know, sometimes
your heart gets in the way, andyou do dumb things instead of
(29:10):
looking at the numbers.
So I did, yeah, so I went withthe 70.
And I thought that our repairswere going to be at about 50
53,000.
They ended up being 103.
Oh gosh.
(29:32):
So, going back to Anderson, wewere, we were very fortunate to
sell it for over asking priceand sell it at that amount.
But this house, the marketstarted shifting And we saw
houses that would have beenselling really quickly a few
months back.
(29:53):
We're sitting on the market Andthey were starting to reduce
their price And that made menervous.
But my husband said you knowwhat?
so many people I mean we'regetting phone calls left and
right, people wanting us toremodel their houses.
Or do you have any houses onthe market?
He's like I know we can sellthis one the same way we did
(30:13):
Anderson.
And he was like I think we couldeven get 170 square foot for
this And you get tied up on thatlingo because that's what the
real estate agent is telling you, but the real estate agent
isn't having to put money intoit to hit that 170.
Right, right, Where before?
I mean I was going to get, likeI was hoping for, like 140
(30:38):
something a square foot.
I didn't want to play that gameagain.
Yes, because how often doessomebody have that much money to
put into the deal where theycan pay the difference from what
it appraises for and whatyou're asking, right?
But I finally just did this andsaid, ok, we just got to get
this house put back together Andthis may be a big lesson
(31:02):
learned And it was because weended up selling the house for
170 a square foot, which isgreat.
Yeah, we ended up selling itfor 200,000, where I was hoping
to sell it for 175,000, 80,000before We did sell it for
200,000.
But we just put so much into it.
(31:25):
When everything was said anddone, we only made about 11,000
on it.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
But you made money.
Oh my gosh.
I thought you were going to sayyou lost all this money.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, but think about this, Debbie my husband didn't
work for four months, yeah, andthat that doesn't include his
labor Got it OK, ok.
So now I mean, we weren't if itweren't for that.
You know we were not in the red, but we were.
Yeah, oh man.
(31:56):
So we put it on the market for205.
And within 24 hours we had twooffers.
Our, our agent brought a cashbuyer to the table And he
offered us 200.
And then, a funny thing, rightacross the street lived a
(32:17):
husband and wife that wereactually divorced but still
living together.
The wife, or the ex-wife,wanted to buy the house.
I guess she'd been watching uswork on it for months And she
had nowhere.
What's an offer in so random?
Yeah, for full asking, but youknow she was going to have a
loan and we knew at 170.
(32:40):
Well, it was going to be 174square foot, i think.
I knew that it would notappraise for that And it was
like how do you not take thecash sale?
So we took it and it closed intwo weeks.
Oh my gosh, thank you.
Yeah, i wasn't having to worryabout it during Christmas, but
(33:03):
now here I am in February andI'm going.
Should I have come back to thecash buyer and said you know,
we'll take 203.
I just need to thank my luckystars that we got out of it
Leave well enough alone, rightLike it's.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's.
It's a trade off of stress.
And what are you willing totrade?
What are you willing to trade?
And?
and we're also going to alwaysthink, oh gosh, i could have
done that differently.
I should have done thatdifferently.
What would you say?
your biggest lessons learnedwere on that specific house.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
That you have to stick to your numbers.
And you have to stick to yournumbers.
You have to not be afraid tocommunicate with your team, and
when I say team, i mean thepeople that are working on the
project.
Do not hire someone time andmaterial on this, because how
(34:05):
the heck are you going to stickto a budget?
And they need to know that youhave a budget, that you're not
just an endless money bag.
And this is where it getstricky.
Being married to your generalcontractor, i was getting ready
to move out and move into thathouse.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well, i was thinking about the episode that just
released with Toby right And she, so she and her.
Her husband is a GC And she'slike you know what.
It sounds great, it sounds likethat would be the best thing
ever, but it also comes withsome challenges of its own right
(34:46):
.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Like, yeah, so absolutely, and there were just
there were some things that wedid agree on, but I feel like so
often that we would have toargue through it, especially
with that one, and I didn't likethat.
I love the kids got to do thesame things like they did to
Anderson, their parents workinghard.
(35:06):
And my kids of this day, myson's like mom, there's a house
on the market over there.
You want to go look at it.
I love it, you know, and whatwould you do to it and stuff.
But I feel like there was alsoa lot of emotional turmoil
between my husband and me onthat one.
Ok, and being able to reflecton it now because now you know
(35:26):
we are flipping this house tomove into at Loma Linda, the sub
two, and that's really cost usBecause instead of having more
money to put into that house, wenow have less Right And less
time.
Because my husband is burnouton his job as an electrician and
he's decided to go back to thepower company.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
OK.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
And now he's like in this mad rush to try to get as
much of it done as he can beforehe goes back to a full time
position, and I'm really sad forhim because he is so good at
what he does.
It.
We've just if he, if we evercan entertain it again, whether
it's flipping or remodeling forpeople or new construction, we
(36:08):
have to be able to trust thesenumbers.
Yes, take with them.
Yes, because this is a marketand it's going to fluctuate.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
And I don't want to play that game of waiting for
unicorns of people with 50 grandin their pocket or cash buy And
so, yeah, that's.
Those are big lessons learned,and I think that we're learning
it too, because the house thatwe currently live in we're like
(36:38):
do we want to sell this one anduse it to put more money into
the other house, or do we wantto rent it out?
So we're still going back andforth with it.
But I will say our flop ofLouise has taught us look at
those numbers And it reallyhelps to be a lot less emotional
(37:01):
about it, trusting thosenumbers.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Aim into that.
So, yeah, that's the biggesttakeaway, and you've been
telling us that from day one,and I remember it was really hot
.
You voiced as you said I amreally worried about the people
that are going in there andseeing these prices skyrocketing
and saying, well, i have moreleeway.
(37:27):
Yes, i don't care so much aboutmy budget.
Yes, you're like that's agamble.
You're like I've been doingthis a long time.
These numbers aren't going tostay where they are.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, It's always about following best practices,
like even, and it's really hardwhen you see, oh my gosh, it's
going up $10,000 a month.
This is awesome, i'm going toput more in and do all this.
And it's great when it works,but when that shifts before
(37:57):
you've sold, it doesn't work Andit's very stressful.
It's hard.
Discipline around followingbest practices.
Discipline and best practicesare the.
Those are the biggest twothings I think that we need to
think about all the time,because it's hard, because we do
(38:18):
love houses and it's hard to belike nope, stick to the numbers
, but this house, no, stick tothe numbers.
I get it.
I am exactly the same way, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, and I'm just really grateful that I can only
imagine all the flops we wouldhave had had I not joined the
program.
And I deal with I'm my ownbiggest critic, which I'm sure
we can all say that we are.
But I've just dealt with somuch fear of failure over the
(38:54):
years, having a son with specialneeds And it taking so long to
get a diagnosis, and I went backto school to help him.
And then when COVID hit, i was,i was a nurse and realized that
he has an autoimmune conditionthat flares up when he's sick,
(39:14):
so I had to quit my job as anurse.
I I was also an FNP schoolnurse practitioner school, which
my goal was to become a nursepractitioner and help children
like him.
I ended up taking a hiatus onthat too, because I was
homeschooling him And he did endup getting really sick from a
common cold virus And it set usback And I just get to the point
(39:38):
where I'm like I can't make onemore mistake.
Oh gosh, i was just counting myfailures up, but by flipping
houses it gave me something moreto do than think about his
illness.
It gave an outlet to becreative and to feel like I was
(40:00):
managing people and that I wasstill a productive person,
because there were definitelytimes where I felt like even
having the health care knowledgethat I did like my hand, it was
just out of my control with myson.
What's also been neat is my sonhe's not in school full day yet,
(40:22):
so when I pick him up I takehim to these houses or he's here
and he sees me on the computerdoing things and he's very
inquisitive And I like tobelieve that this is going to
put a seed in him, becausethere's definitely days where
we've had to think like evenremodeling this house We're
(40:42):
we're making it for in case helives with us into adulthood,
but we we ultimately don't knowwhat his future looks like.
But I wonder if maybe this willstrike a passion in him to be
his own boss.
And because he does, he doeshave that perfectionistic trait
(41:04):
of his dad, but he is veryanalytical and he's just so
inquisitive about it And I thinkhe's seen me struggle
emotionally and have to recoverfrom that and keep going And
that's a big part of his day today struggle.
So There's definitely dayswhere I feel like I'm messing up
(41:29):
as a mom, as a wife, but when Ithink about what he's seen in
these last few years and the kidit shaped him into.
I'm proud of that.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, That's huge.
I don't even know anything elsewe could end on than that.
That would be better Likethat's just beautiful for real.
That's huge.
Congratulations on all of thethings that you've accomplished
and gone through Right.
We've all got our stuff.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
I mean, it always makes us better.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
It does.
It always feels like it in themoment, but we have to trust
that It will pass.
It will pass.
Oh, that trusting part can behard.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
It is, and there were days when I felt like I
couldn't speak to my GC Or Icouldn't fix my son.
I felt like I was helpless.
And then I would go and I'd geton our Facebook group page
where I'd get in on a call andI'd hear what the flip sisters
(42:41):
were going through, or just fora minute I would just take my
mind off of my own struggles andjust celebrate someone else's
win.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yes, Doesn't that feel good?
It can help reset and reframe,yeah, yeah, and then just
trusting it'll pass.
And it does.
Yeah, it does.
Thank you for sharing yourstory.
Thank you, all right, i'll letyou go.
I know you got a kiddo there.
Thanks, darcy.
(43:12):
Thank you, i'll see you in thegroup, all right, thanks,
bye-bye.
See, the reason why I think thisepisode is so important.
Well, one of the reasons Herstory is just really powerful.
I think her story of her son, ithink her love for family, i
think we can all relate to.
(43:34):
We want to do everything tohelp our kid, especially when
they're struggling.
But here's the point.
Here's another point, here'sanother takeaway I want you to
have from this episode, and thatis when we are doing creative
financing, when we are out therebuying properties, it isn't
(43:57):
about the property, all right,it's about the people.
So the way she was able to helpthe property owner who was
facing foreclosure and how thatwas all that all came full
circle Because she and herhusband were in that position
(44:18):
previously And an investorhelped her out, so she was able
to pay that forward and helpsomebody else out.
We aren't taking advantage ofpeople.
We are truly serving peoplewhen they don't think they have
any other option.
They don't know Until you learn.
Oh, there are different ways tobuy and sell houses.
(44:40):
It's not just you go to thebank and get a loan Until you
learn there are different ways.
You don't know any differently,right?
Whether you're a property owneror an investor, you don't know
any differently until you know,anyway.
So I just think it's reallyimportant to understand that we
absolutely can serve people Andwe absolutely can do this
(45:05):
business in a way that is aboutpeople, not just profit.
All right, that's my soapbox fortoday.
If you want to learn how to buy, renovate, sell or rent houses
(45:26):
and you want an amazingcommunity behind you, and all of
the processes, all of the steps, all of the how to step by step
, plus best practices to follow,ways to avoid losing money,
avoid making those costlymistakes that's exactly what we
(45:49):
do day in and day out.
We teach women how to start andgrow a house-saving business
that they love, without beingsharky, without taking advantage
of people.
So if you want to see how wemay be able to work together, go
to herfirstflipcom and fill outthe application and book a call
(46:11):
with our team.
All right, until next time, goout there, flip houses like a
girl and leave people in placesbetter than you find them.
Thanks, and make it a great day.
Bye.
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 andwholeheartedly chasing their
dream of flipping houses.
Each episode delivers honest togoodness tools, tips and
(00:21):
strategies you can implementtoday to get closer to your
first or next successful houseflip.
Here's your spiky-hairedbreakfast taco-loving host.
House flipping coach DebbieDePure.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, thanks for hanging out with us today.
So in today's episode I amhaving a conversation with one
of our flip sisters in SouthTexas.
Her name is Darcy and she istaking us through her first
three flips.
That she did within a year ofjoining our program.
And I think you'll find hersecond flip particularly
(01:06):
interesting, because it'ssomething we haven't talked
about too much on the podcast,because her second flip they
purchased it using creativefinancing.
They did a subject to deal onit, so we'll get into that as
well as her other flips andlessons learned and just her
(01:26):
story.
I think you will really connectwith her.
She was a nurse, she has ahusband and kids And she's just,
she's awesome.
You'll love the story, you'llbe inspired to go take action
And that's what it's all about.
All right, let's meet Darcy.
So let's go, let's starttalking about these, because
(01:47):
this is good stuff, this is suchgood stuff.
Okay, so let's do the usualIntroduce yourself, let us know
where you are, a little bit ofyour background.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Okay, so I'm Darcy.
I'm from South Texas, my tradesare registered nurse, mom to
four boys And, as of last year,i became a flipper where you
located.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I don't remember if you said that in South Texas.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I'm an hour north of Corpus Christi.
Okay small town, 13,000.
Yeah, tiny town.
Have you always been therePretty much.
I grew up here and then movedaway closer to Corpus for a few
years for college, okay, andended up moving back to be close
to family.
Nice, yeah, we really do likeit here.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Okay, so you did three projects last year I did.
So let's kind of go througheach one and do kind of a
highlights, low lights stats.
I think that'd be superbeneficial because you did some
interesting stuff and you likeyour first property.
(03:06):
You listed it for sale afterthe market shift right, and then
you did this cool subject todeal And then you did another
flip that you've learned somelessons on.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, the one that I kind of call the flop.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah the flop.
Okay, gosh, we all have one ofthose, If not more.
Okay, so walk us through yourfirst one.
So you, you founded theproperty before joining the
program.
How did you find it?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So my husband is a electrician by trade And for
years you know he's pulled intothese real estate properties and
new builds and this and thatAnd it really piqued his
interest to get into buildingand maybe do new construction.
He saw the potential that myhusband had and asked him to
(04:02):
remodel his house and hepartnered with someone else and
did that and they they didreally well.
So my husband decides he wantedto find a house in the
neighborhood to flip and Iwasn't really on board with it.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
And until one day he said so we're in a contract for
a house and like, do what, and Ionly paid 45,000 for it.
To what?
So we sat on that house for alittle bit because he was
actually finishing his friend'shouse, the remodel.
Okay, so once his friend'shouse was concluding, i thought
(04:42):
I've got to get someone on boardto help us, because he wants me
to help him with this And Ihave no idea what I'm doing here
And we can't lose any moremoney than what we've already
put into this.
So I started going online andtrying to find help and I came
across, i think, one of yourpodcasts and you mentioned
something about living in Texasand not having a basement.
(05:05):
I'm like she must be somewherenear me.
I saw you're from Austin andthat you know you're here to
motivate women.
I'm like that's what I need.
Yes, i love it.
My husband used to go get herand me.
I'm I'm more timid, i'm aresearcher.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
That's a good balance .
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It is, it is, but I felt like you'd be a good
mediator for us.
Yeah, that house.
I call Anderson, and once wegot on the program with you, it
took us six months to flip.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And did you all do a lot of the work yourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yes, so my husband was the GC.
He had people do the roof butplumbing everything else And oh
and sheetrock, everything elsehe did on his own or we did.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Okay, did you enjoy that part?
I did.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I really did, and I loved seeing how much my husband
loved it too.
Uh-huh So, and I loved that itwas right by our house, so we
would walk there every day.
our neighbors would see us, ourkids would go with us.
We saw how it was just a streetbehind us and everyone all
started taking care of theirhouses.
The house next door it gotpainted, they put a new roof on.
(06:24):
they really became ourneighbors.
I would water the grass andforget to turn off the sprinkler
, and our neighbor would go turnit off for us, and it was.
I really liked that experience.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I did.
That's really cool.
That's really cool.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And this house had been abandoned since before
Hurricane Harvey.
It had it had.
All the windows had beencovered up since before
Hurricane Harvey.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh, my gosh, which was what year?
2016?
Yeah, I think so Good grief.
So, yeah, i bet the neighborswere thrilled to see it coming
back to life.
Yeah, that makes a bigdifference in what you see when
you leave your house and whenyou get back to your house.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Uh-huh, yeah, this was just owned by an investor
that he had inherited a lot ofproperties in our area and he
had moved to Austin and didn'tdo anything with it.
And my husband just saw itthere and went and talked to a
real estate agent and you knowit was done pretty quick.
But but yeah, all in all, wehad it for a year.
We bought it, we sat on ituntil we came to your program
(07:33):
and got started.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So Did you pay cash for that?
We did Okay.
Uh, hence the what are youdoing?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Exactly We did.
And then when we sat down andreally put the numbers together
and saw how much it was going tocost, once he started tearing
into it, we seeked PMLs.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Oh, cool, nice, Okay.
So what was what ended up beingyour renovation budget?
What did you guys put into thatone?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
We ended up spending 110,000, and that was about 20
grand over what I thought wewere going to spend.
Okay, but our ARV was also$35,000 more than what I thought
we were going to sell it forwhen we first started the
(08:32):
repairs in January.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
When you put it on the market, did you put?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
it on May.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And in May was that when y'all started shifting.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
No, we didn't start shifting here until October.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
See interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So that's so.
Remember this, because this iswhere things change for us.
On our second flip that we soldin November.
So so with this one, there wasanother flipping couple in town
that had sold a house and gotreally good money for it and a
not so great neighborhood.
And I reached out to the wifeand she kind of told me some
(09:10):
things that she did And myhusband and I decided you know
what?
we found somebody that's goingto be a potential buyer and he
was a doctor in town And we saidyou know what, let's make this
house a little nicer than whatwe thought we were going to do.
So together we decided to putin a few more bells and whistles
, a little bit more curve appeal, and but even then we put the
(09:35):
house on the market for 214,which was a gamble, because no
one in this area flips a housethe way we did, besides that
other couple.
They were the first ones tobreak the mold And they sold
theirs for like 159 a squarefoot.
What we were asking for ourswas 160 a square foot.
(09:58):
We put it on the market andwithin 24 hours we had seven
offers, which was unheard of inour little county.
Our real estate agent was justlike oh my gosh what do I do?
And we wanted to keep it on themarket for a week because we
wanted to showcase everything wedid.
(10:18):
She's like we can't do that.
Like we have so many, we don'tneed any more offers.
And all but one of them were atasking or over, and the one
that wasn't at asking I was kindof glad because we knew these
people knew it would be a painto deal with, so luckily they
weeded themselves out.
But it was a good but still aproblem to have having that many
(10:43):
people Yep.
And then have the issue ofknowing that most people are
going or all of them had to havefinancing.
You're going to have to dealwith this appraisal, yes, crazy
was not going to meet our askingprice or the contracted price.
So the doctor who wanted to buythe house he was not our
(11:10):
highest, but he did give usasking And what our agent
decided to do was to send aletter out to everyone.
Of course she told us about ittoo, but she said I think we
should send a letter out toeveryone telling them to give us
their best and biggest offer.
And I said okay.
(11:32):
I said I just don't want tohurt anyone's feelings, and it
did.
They ruffled.
The doctor was the first one topull out.
He was very offended by it Andwhenever I went to visit the
flip sisters in Austin to go seeyour latest flip, i was just
like, oh my gosh, I don't knowwhat to do.
(11:52):
I couldn't even enjoy because Iwas just.
I felt so bad.
I offended this doctor.
I kind of felt like I had putthis house together with him in
mind.
As soon as I got back to BeagleI went to knock on his door and
be like listen, just give himmy heart and say here's where
I'm at.
And I even wrote letters out toeveryone and sent it to my real
(12:16):
estate agent and just saidlisten, first I want to thank
you for the offer that you gaveus, because they were all great
offers.
There's just seven of them tochoose from.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I don't like multiple offers.
Like I know it sounds great,but they're stressful because
everybody except for one personis going to be mad.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah And you start looking and I'm like I'm not
going to make this personal.
Next thing.
I know I'm like I was not in asmall town because I knew most
of these people or theirrelatives if they were moving
here from out of town.
So here's what I did.
I looked at all the differentoffers and I looked at how much
money each person was puttingdown on the house.
(12:58):
One in particular was puttingdown 50 grand, but it was a VA
loan.
My real estate agent said markthat one out, it's a VA.
My husband said mark that oneout, it's a VA.
I'm like.
Why I'm like?
because it's going to be abigger issue with the appraisal.
If it doesn't meet appraisal,it's going to fall through Me.
(13:20):
Being a researcher, i am.
I look and no, it says that ifit doesn't meet appraisal, the
buyer is more than welcome tocome up with the money to make
up the difference.
I remember that I really stuckto my guns on that.
My husband was pissed.
My real estate agent thought Iwas crazy, but I didn't see
(13:40):
anyone else that couldpotentially come up with the
funds.
I'm like if they have 50 grandto put down, i feel like they
will be able to come closerwhere some of these others.
We had two that were FHA Oh gosh.
Yeah, they put down the bareminimum.
I'm willing to think thatthey're not going to be able to
come up with an extra eight to10 grand if needed.
So that's who we went with, andit did take a little bit longer
(14:04):
because this gentleman he hadleft the service many years ago,
so it was hard to come up witha documentation for his VA loan
to go through, oh gosh.
But his agent and my agentworked together to find him a
conventional loan and it finallywent through.
So it took like 35 days toclose, got it?
(14:25):
That's not bad.
No, and we sold the house for220 instead of 214.
So we thought we were onlygoing to make like 22 to 23K on
this house and that was with theaccounting for holding on to it
for 12 months But we ended upmaking 36, 640, which is that's
(14:47):
good for our little town of13,000.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No, that's incredible .
It's not just good, that'sincredible.
That's like 15 plus percent orsomething.
That's amazing.
And after holding it for 12months, like Yeah, yeah, so
that's awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, and in the middle of all of this.
So when my husband was workingon his friend's property, i
would drive over there because Iended up this man as a bachelor
and I had to act as his wifeand making decisions on
different things, which wasreally cool.
I loved it because I got tostage his house.
I helped him pick out so manydifferent things Really cool.
(15:28):
But on my way over there Iwould pass by this house that
looked abandoned and he had toldus about it too And he said,
hey, you guys need to go seewhat's going on with it.
And when I was in your program,i learned about something called
sub-tues.
So this house.
I ended up tracking down theowner And there was a carpenter
(15:51):
that we sub-contracted to dosome work.
And I said, hey, do you knowthis guy?
Because we all grew up here AndI thought maybe they know one
another.
And he said, yeah, i grew upwith him.
He found me, his number.
I contacted the guy, learnedthat he liked to text, so we
texted for a little bit and thenhe fell off the radar.
(16:11):
And then I had paid for aforeclosure app And that house
showed up on the app in Januaryof last year.
So I messaged him And I saidhey, man, i'm bothering you
(16:31):
again just because I want you toknow that your house is
officially going to go toauction in February And if you
want to sell it, i am seriouslyinterested.
You want to meet up tomorrow?
And he said yeah, let's meet.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Did he know that it was going into auction?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
So this house?
he stopped paying on it forCallee almost a year, but with
COVID they weren't foreclosinganymore.
So they finally opened it upAnd he didn't realize OK, he
didn't realize, but he was justso far behind, he didn't have
the funds And he had moved outAnd it just wasn't conducive for
(17:17):
him to try to save it.
Yeah, but without going intohis personal story, it was just
he and his wife were no longertogether, but it was community
property.
So not only did I have toconvince him but I also had to
convince her.
And they weren't exactly on,they were sort of on speaking
terms, but sometimes he was inand out of the picture.
(17:38):
But for me it was personal inthat 14 years ago my husband and
I almost lost a house And wethought it was our dream house
And it was during 2008.
And, bubble bursting, i hadlost my job, we decided to move
(17:59):
back to our small town And wellit was an investor that
contacted us.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
And we ended up doing a short sale on the house.
But we got to come back homewith decent credit, right, and
with some dignity, right, andthat's all I could think about
for this couple.
And I know for me.
I've had sales jobs before, butthen I ended up going back into
(18:30):
nursing because I love healthcare and I love helping people,
yeah.
So it was a big motivator forme on this house And we ended up
purchasing it with about anhour left for me to get a money
order to the lender to keep itfrom going to auction that
following Tuesday, oh gosh, yeah.
(18:53):
So, in the gut, a couple grandin his pocket too.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
So I think this is a really great conversation
because so many people are likewhy would a seller ever agree to
a subject to deal?
They don't get it Right, and wecan say, well, these are the
reasons why Nope Doesn't makeany sense to me, that I would
never agree to any of that.
Why would I agree to somebodytaking over my loan, like, why
(19:22):
would I do that?
So how would you answer thatquestion?
As it relates to this specifictransaction, Sure.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
So for this person, they ran into issues where he
was laid off at his job.
He had made some bad choicesthat cost him his family and his
health, and he was trying toget himself back on track And he
(19:54):
had just given up the idea ofbeing able to take care of this
property and acre of land thathad been let go for a year and a
house that had sat vacant Andhe just didn't see any way to
get out of it other than justlet it go.
And, um, you know, for the wife, she moved back home with her
(20:15):
family and she wasn't working.
She didn't have a way to saveit either.
So and I know for me personallywe tried to put our house on the
market for sell by owner,because we didn't have it for
very long and we didn't haveequity in it.
And I just thought, man, if wego and sell it, we're not going
to have the money to be able toget out of our rears, you know.
(20:38):
So I had agents call me.
I even had my old agent thathad sold it to me going what are
you doing, girl?
Like I see this for sell byowner?
sign in your yard.
Why didn't you call me And I'mlike because I can't get for it
what I bought it for.
And yeah, it was investor out ofDallas that called me, and I'm
(21:01):
just still so appreciative forthat.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
See, exactly, i think this is such an important
conversation.
It doesn't the person on theother end, the person who owns
the property.
It doesn't have to be that theyfeel like they got the raw end
of the deal.
They can feel like they gotsaved, like, oh my God, they
(21:26):
totally saved me because creditgets saved, dignity gets saved,
like all kinds of things getsaved, when we can do a creative
financing deal like that, oh mygosh wow, you know, and you
just have to be super upfrontand let them know the pros and
the cons of it.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And we really did try to figure out what we could do
without doing the sub two.
But at the time it was just wehad to act so quickly that there
wouldn't be time for like afull sale.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Right, yeah, and you can't get.
You can't go get a loan thatfast, like you had to.
Subject to, was the way to stopit being that close to auction,
Oh my gosh.
Ok, so you took over theirpayments.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We took over their payments and gave them a couple
grand, and even thesubcontractor that helped me get
in touch with him.
They went and knocked on hisdoor.
I gave him a couple hundreddollars.
Nice, i got in touch with theattorney that you told us about,
allison Tipton.
She's the one that helped uswith the transaction.
(22:34):
She was great, awesome.
I had a friend that worked at abank here that was a notary.
She was able to help thiscouple you know, do the notary
help them with the money order.
She helped me.
She became part of the team too, and it's awesome.
So now this house, we haveended up paying off that note
(22:55):
because we have decided to keepit and move into it.
Nice, we tore into it and sawthat there was some extensive
termite damage.
My husband's very good attearing into things.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I'm learning this.
I'm learning this.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
And.
But you know it's out on anacre And it just it's going to
fulfill a dream for us where wecan go to a bigger spot for our
two boys that we have two thatare already out of the house and
two younger ones, and one ofthem has health issues And I
(23:34):
haven't been able to work fulltime because of it.
He's home a lot.
It's going to give us more likerunning area.
We're going to be able todesign this house the way we
want it, and it's so neat to goand fix up a house like we did
at Anderson, but it's going tobe even neater to be able to
live in it and say we did that,yes, so, so, yeah, that's really
(23:58):
cool, but here's where we comeinto our flop.
So while we were waiting onAnderson to close, a friend of
mine started calling me.
She lived out of town but she'sa real estate agent and she was
trying to sell a house forsomeone that lived here in town
(24:19):
whose mother was a widow andneeded to move out and move
closer to her family, and thisperson did not want to put their
house on the MLS.
The daughter didn't, because Ithink she was just so
embarrassed of the state of thehouse.
Her mom was elderly.
There was just a lot of stuffin it.
(24:42):
It was really run down And Ithink that just emotionally, it
was just too much for her tohandle, sure, so her friend was
looking for an investor in townthat would buy it off market.
And I didn't want to look at itbecause I was just still so
focused on Anderson and the subtwo that finally, when it was
(25:03):
starting to close, she's likeDarcy, i'm about to put out
flyers on this house, will youplease just come look at it
before I do?
And when we did I saw oh mygosh, it's wrapped in brick, so
we don't have to tear it down.
It's exciting all over it.
It's going to need a new roof,but it's gone a third of an acre
(25:24):
in this neighborhood that Inever drove through in our tiny
town.
It's in town but it's not.
There's oak trees everywhere.
It's a quiet street And it's alittle house.
But I mean, i think that thesheetrock is salvageable, i
think that the kitchen issalvageable And I quickly saw
that this is a great flip for usto do, and maybe three to four
(25:48):
months and make a decent profiton it and use it in the house
that we wanted to move into,nice, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's always those.
It's going to be a quick, easyone.
It's going to be a quick, easyone.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
You know how I mentioned my husbands were
really good at tearing intothings.
Yeah, the first thing that hesaw was this yard and its
potential, but he saw that therewas just so much brush, so he
hired someone to go out thereand clear that, and then he
started tearing into some trees.
He decided I'm going to take abreak from doing electrical
(26:27):
while I just focus on this houseso we can get it done quickly.
And that was such a big mistakebecause, you know, we didn't
take into account that he's notbringing money in And we needed
to consider him as labor and pay, you know.
And then I said why don't wehave some people come in and
(26:49):
help you so that we can get itdone faster?
But those people that came inand helped, there was a lot of
dead weight And we should havesome of the projects we asked
for help on.
They did on time and material,instead of us asking for a cost
upfront.
And you know, coming from asmall town, they won't do me
wrong And maybe they didn't.
(27:10):
It didn't work in our budgetAnd I think within two months we
were already through.
Oh gosh, not even that.
A month and a half.
We were already through like80% of our budget And a lot of
it was like buying things upfront, like the floor, you know,
things that weren't laid outyet.
(27:30):
Yeah, my husband's like, don'tworry, we've already bought most
of it.
It's okay, but he's sort of somuch labor, right, right, and so
that house.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
What did you pay for it?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I'm going to tell you that was my first mistake also.
So we paid 70.
I had offered 65.
And the mutual friend who wastheir agent, she said they asked
if you would go up to 70.
Because this is the last of themoney that their mom has for
(28:08):
her care.
Oh gosh, and I didn't see thatnumber, like my when I used my
deal analyzer.
like 65 is already like the topof what I wanted to do.
Yeah So, but I kept thinkingwell, it's got brick, you know,
(28:28):
so we're not going to have to dothat much.
So I could pay a little bitmore.
But I said, okay, we'll do the70.
So we're afraid someone elsewas going to snag it And I said,
okay, we'll do the 70.
Now I could have been like wecan give you 66 or no, we just I
(28:50):
wish we could, but this is ourtop.
And I had also said to help getthe deal, i said, if you feel
comfortable representing both ofus, because this mutual friend
she did come in from Houston andshe cleaned that house out
herself.
Oh, wow, and I had a greatmission on this house.
Yeah, you know, but I also, youknow, i don't know, sometimes
your heart gets in the way, andyou do dumb things instead of
(29:10):
looking at the numbers.
So I did, yeah, so I went withthe 70.
And I thought that our repairswere going to be at about 50
53,000.
They ended up being 103.
Oh gosh.
(29:32):
So, going back to Anderson, wewere, we were very fortunate to
sell it for over asking priceand sell it at that amount.
But this house, the marketstarted shifting And we saw
houses that would have beenselling really quickly a few
months back.
(29:53):
We're sitting on the market Andthey were starting to reduce
their price And that made menervous.
But my husband said you knowwhat?
so many people I mean we'regetting phone calls left and
right, people wanting us toremodel their houses.
Or do you have any houses onthe market?
He's like I know we can sellthis one the same way we did
(30:13):
Anderson.
And he was like I think we couldeven get 170 square foot for
this And you get tied up on thatlingo because that's what the
real estate agent is telling you, but the real estate agent
isn't having to put money intoit to hit that 170.
Right, right, Where before?
I mean I was going to get, likeI was hoping for, like 140
(30:38):
something a square foot.
I didn't want to play that gameagain.
Yes, because how often doessomebody have that much money to
put into the deal where theycan pay the difference from what
it appraises for and whatyou're asking, right?
But I finally just did this andsaid, ok, we just got to get
this house put back together Andthis may be a big lesson
(31:02):
learned And it was because weended up selling the house for
170 a square foot, which isgreat.
Yeah, we ended up selling itfor 200,000, where I was hoping
to sell it for 175,000, 80,000before We did sell it for
200,000.
But we just put so much into it.
(31:25):
When everything was said anddone, we only made about 11,000
on it.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
But you made money.
Oh my gosh.
I thought you were going to sayyou lost all this money.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, but think about this, Debbie my husband didn't
work for four months, yeah, andthat that doesn't include his
labor Got it OK, ok.
So now I mean, we weren't if itweren't for that.
You know we were not in the red, but we were.
Yeah, oh man.
(31:56):
So we put it on the market for205.
And within 24 hours we had twooffers.
Our, our agent brought a cashbuyer to the table And he
offered us 200.
And then, a funny thing, rightacross the street lived a
(32:17):
husband and wife that wereactually divorced but still
living together.
The wife, or the ex-wife,wanted to buy the house.
I guess she'd been watching uswork on it for months And she
had nowhere.
What's an offer in so random?
Yeah, for full asking, but youknow she was going to have a
loan and we knew at 170.
(32:40):
Well, it was going to be 174square foot, i think.
I knew that it would notappraise for that And it was
like how do you not take thecash sale?
So we took it and it closed intwo weeks.
Oh my gosh, thank you.
Yeah, i wasn't having to worryabout it during Christmas, but
(33:03):
now here I am in February andI'm going.
Should I have come back to thecash buyer and said you know,
we'll take 203.
I just need to thank my luckystars that we got out of it
Leave well enough alone, rightLike it's.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's.
It's a trade off of stress.
And what are you willing totrade?
What are you willing to trade?
And?
and we're also going to alwaysthink, oh gosh, i could have
done that differently.
I should have done thatdifferently.
What would you say?
your biggest lessons learnedwere on that specific house.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
That you have to stick to your numbers.
And you have to stick to yournumbers.
You have to not be afraid tocommunicate with your team, and
when I say team, i mean thepeople that are working on the
project.
Do not hire someone time andmaterial on this, because how
(34:05):
the heck are you going to stickto a budget?
And they need to know that youhave a budget, that you're not
just an endless money bag.
And this is where it getstricky.
Being married to your generalcontractor, i was getting ready
to move out and move into thathouse.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well, i was thinking about the episode that just
released with Toby right And she, so she and her.
Her husband is a GC And she'slike you know what.
It sounds great, it sounds likethat would be the best thing
ever, but it also comes withsome challenges of its own right
(34:46):
.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Like, yeah, so absolutely, and there were just
there were some things that wedid agree on, but I feel like so
often that we would have toargue through it, especially
with that one, and I didn't likethat.
I love the kids got to do thesame things like they did to
Anderson, their parents workinghard.
(35:06):
And my kids of this day, myson's like mom, there's a house
on the market over there.
You want to go look at it.
I love it, you know, and whatwould you do to it and stuff.
But I feel like there was alsoa lot of emotional turmoil
between my husband and me onthat one.
Ok, and being able to reflecton it now because now you know
(35:26):
we are flipping this house tomove into at Loma Linda, the sub
two, and that's really cost usBecause instead of having more
money to put into that house, wenow have less Right And less
time.
Because my husband is burnouton his job as an electrician and
he's decided to go back to thepower company.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
OK.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
And now he's like in this mad rush to try to get as
much of it done as he can beforehe goes back to a full time
position, and I'm really sad forhim because he is so good at
what he does.
It.
We've just if he, if we evercan entertain it again, whether
it's flipping or remodeling forpeople or new construction, we
(36:08):
have to be able to trust thesenumbers.
Yes, take with them.
Yes, because this is a marketand it's going to fluctuate.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
And I don't want to play that game of waiting for
unicorns of people with 50 grandin their pocket or cash buy And
so, yeah, that's.
Those are big lessons learned,and I think that we're learning
it too, because the house thatwe currently live in we're like
(36:38):
do we want to sell this one anduse it to put more money into
the other house, or do we wantto rent it out?
So we're still going back andforth with it.
But I will say our flop ofLouise has taught us look at
those numbers And it reallyhelps to be a lot less emotional
(37:01):
about it, trusting thosenumbers.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Aim into that.
So, yeah, that's the biggesttakeaway, and you've been
telling us that from day one,and I remember it was really hot
.
You voiced as you said I amreally worried about the people
that are going in there andseeing these prices skyrocketing
and saying, well, i have moreleeway.
(37:27):
Yes, i don't care so much aboutmy budget.
Yes, you're like that's agamble.
You're like I've been doingthis a long time.
These numbers aren't going tostay where they are.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, It's always about following best practices,
like even, and it's really hardwhen you see, oh my gosh, it's
going up $10,000 a month.
This is awesome, i'm going toput more in and do all this.
And it's great when it works,but when that shifts before
(37:57):
you've sold, it doesn't work Andit's very stressful.
It's hard.
Discipline around followingbest practices.
Discipline and best practicesare the.
Those are the biggest twothings I think that we need to
think about all the time,because it's hard, because we do
(38:18):
love houses and it's hard to belike nope, stick to the numbers
, but this house, no, stick tothe numbers.
I get it.
I am exactly the same way, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, and I'm just really grateful that I can only
imagine all the flops we wouldhave had had I not joined the
program.
And I deal with I'm my ownbiggest critic, which I'm sure
we can all say that we are.
But I've just dealt with somuch fear of failure over the
(38:54):
years, having a son with specialneeds And it taking so long to
get a diagnosis, and I went backto school to help him.
And then when COVID hit, i was,i was a nurse and realized that
he has an autoimmune conditionthat flares up when he's sick,
(39:14):
so I had to quit my job as anurse.
I I was also an FNP schoolnurse practitioner school, which
my goal was to become a nursepractitioner and help children
like him.
I ended up taking a hiatus onthat too, because I was
homeschooling him And he did endup getting really sick from a
common cold virus And it set usback And I just get to the point
(39:38):
where I'm like I can't make onemore mistake.
Oh gosh, i was just counting myfailures up, but by flipping
houses it gave me something moreto do than think about his
illness.
It gave an outlet to becreative and to feel like I was
(40:00):
managing people and that I wasstill a productive person,
because there were definitelytimes where I felt like even
having the health care knowledgethat I did like my hand, it was
just out of my control with myson.
What's also been neat is my sonhe's not in school full day yet,
(40:22):
so when I pick him up I takehim to these houses or he's here
and he sees me on the computerdoing things and he's very
inquisitive And I like tobelieve that this is going to
put a seed in him, becausethere's definitely days where
we've had to think like evenremodeling this house We're
(40:42):
we're making it for in case helives with us into adulthood,
but we we ultimately don't knowwhat his future looks like.
But I wonder if maybe this willstrike a passion in him to be
his own boss.
And because he does, he doeshave that perfectionistic trait
(41:04):
of his dad, but he is veryanalytical and he's just so
inquisitive about it And I thinkhe's seen me struggle
emotionally and have to recoverfrom that and keep going And
that's a big part of his day today struggle.
So There's definitely dayswhere I feel like I'm messing up
(41:29):
as a mom, as a wife, but when Ithink about what he's seen in
these last few years and the kidit shaped him into.
I'm proud of that.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, That's huge.
I don't even know anything elsewe could end on than that.
That would be better Likethat's just beautiful for real.
That's huge.
Congratulations on all of thethings that you've accomplished
and gone through Right.
We've all got our stuff.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
I mean, it always makes us better.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
It does.
It always feels like it in themoment, but we have to trust
that It will pass.
It will pass.
Oh, that trusting part can behard.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
It is, and there were days when I felt like I
couldn't speak to my GC Or Icouldn't fix my son.
I felt like I was helpless.
And then I would go and I'd geton our Facebook group page
where I'd get in on a call andI'd hear what the flip sisters
(42:41):
were going through, or just fora minute I would just take my
mind off of my own struggles andjust celebrate someone else's
win.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yes, Doesn't that feel good?
It can help reset and reframe,yeah, yeah, and then just
trusting it'll pass.
And it does.
Yeah, it does.
Thank you for sharing yourstory.
Thank you, all right, i'll letyou go.
I know you got a kiddo there.
Thanks, darcy.
(43:12):
Thank you, i'll see you in thegroup, all right, thanks,
bye-bye.
See, the reason why I think thisepisode is so important.
Well, one of the reasons Herstory is just really powerful.
I think her story of her son, ithink her love for family, i
think we can all relate to.
(43:34):
We want to do everything tohelp our kid, especially when
they're struggling.
But here's the point.
Here's another point, here'sanother takeaway I want you to
have from this episode, and thatis when we are doing creative
financing, when we are out therebuying properties, it isn't
(43:57):
about the property, all right,it's about the people.
So the way she was able to helpthe property owner who was
facing foreclosure and how thatwas all that all came full
circle Because she and herhusband were in that position
(44:18):
previously And an investorhelped her out, so she was able
to pay that forward and helpsomebody else out.
We aren't taking advantage ofpeople.
We are truly serving peoplewhen they don't think they have
any other option.
They don't know Until you learn.
Oh, there are different ways tobuy and sell houses.
(44:40):
It's not just you go to thebank and get a loan Until you
learn there are different ways.
You don't know any differently,right?
Whether you're a property owneror an investor, you don't know
any differently until you know,anyway.
So I just think it's reallyimportant to understand that we
absolutely can serve people Andwe absolutely can do this
(45:05):
business in a way that is aboutpeople, not just profit.
All right, that's my soapbox fortoday.
If you want to learn how to buy, renovate, sell or rent houses
(45:26):
and you want an amazingcommunity behind you, and all of
the processes, all of the steps, all of the how to step by step
, plus best practices to follow,ways to avoid losing money,
avoid making those costlymistakes that's exactly what we
(45:49):
do day in and day out.
We teach women how to start andgrow a house-saving business
that they love, without beingsharky, without taking advantage
of people.
So if you want to see how wemay be able to work together, go
to herfirstflipcom and fill outthe application and book a call
(46:11):
with our team.
All right, until next time, goout there, flip houses like a
girl and leave people in placesbetter than you find them.
Thanks, and make it a great day.
Bye.
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